The longest stage of the Tour arrives very soon, the second day of the race. There are 208 km to join Vitoria and San Sebastián. The three provincial capitals of the Basque Country will have had their dose of Tour in this Great Départ in Euskadi.
The day is again full of mountain passes, four, in a very familiar route since it will pass through several sections of the Clásica de San Sebastián, which takes place at the end of the Tour and before the start of the Tour of Spain. The finish line will also be on the Boulevard de la Avenida Zurriola.
In 1992, when the Tour, in addition to the prologue, also finished the first stage in the Gipuzkoan city, Dominique Arnauld surprised a small peloton, who was about to catch the breakaway on the same San Sebastian Boulevard.
So the port of Jaizkibel was almost 50 km from the finish line. Now there are only 25. So the favorites will be very attentive again. 31 years ago, in the 8 km climb -the last three are the hardest, always above 7%-, Chioccioli, Leblanc and Bugno attacked. Indurain was slow but ended up reacting and neutralized the rebellion before crowning. So it is not necessary to rule out any movement thinking about gaining time in the general.
You just have to take a look at the list of recent Klasikoa winners to realize what a show you can see: Evenepoel (2), Powless, Alaphilippe, Kwiatkowski, Mollema, Adam Yates, Valverde…
