After yesterday's rest, the Tour is preparing to experience the latest four alpine stages, including a time trial, before the final show in Paris. Nairo Quintana, contrary to what little he has done up to now, says he hasn't lost hope of being able to cancel the 2'59'' disadvantage he accuses from Froome. "The important thing - is the strategy of the Colombian Condor - is to try to isolate the British".
Also Aru he promised attacks after having timidly tried on the Grand Colombier. But in the convoy that sets off again towards Finnhaut-Emosson, a stage entirely in Swiss territory with a steep uphill finish, the conviction dominates that the games are over before the real game has even begun.
A Tour mesmerized again by Chris Froome who, having conquered the yellow jersey by attacking on the Peyresourde descent, was able to defend and strengthen it without doing anything extraordinary, never attacked by his rivals, protected by a team that, if it continuously fails in the Giro, has been a battleship for years in the Tour.
And Froome is, according to ai bookmakers, the super favorite to win today's stage, which includes the final climb to the 1.960 meters of Finhaut-Emosson, 10,4 km long with an average gradient of 8,4%. Froome in the odds is given at 3, while before Quintana given at 9 there is even Richie Porte at 6.
On this ascent in the Criterium du Dauphine of 2014 Alberto Contador managed to detach Froome. But that Contador hasn't been seen for a while now. Froome for his part flaunts confidence while premising that the Tour is not over.
Instead, the Tour is finished for one of its great protagonists, Mark Cavendish, who announced his retirement on the rest day: too tired to face the Alps, Cannonball preferred to give up the possibility of achieving his fifth victory on the Champs Elysées in order not to jeopardize his participation in the Rio Olympics. He leaves with a poker of victories that has now brought him just 4 lengths behind the record of Eddy Merckx, who has won 34 stages.
On a very British Tour, they are likely to historic cycling nations such as Italy, France and Spain run out of victories. In particular for the French, who have not won the Tour since 1985, it would be the third time in the history of the Grande Boucle. In the past it happened only twice: in the 1926 Tour, the longest of all time with its 5.745 km, won by the Belgian Lucien Buysse, and in the 1999 Tour, which saw the triumph of Marco Pantani.
