The seventh stage starts from Mont-de-Marsan, the host town of Luis Ocaña. There his parents settled when he was a child, there he became a cyclist and there he settled with his vineyards when he hung up his bike. A good tribute in the year that marks half a century of the Tour that the ill-fated Spanish cyclist won, the second to win the yellow jersey on the Champs-Élysées.
If the Tourmalet is already a classic, Bordeaux is no less so. This is the 81st visit of the Tour to what is known as the capital of wine. Only Paris surpasses it in times that it has been the end of the stage.
The highest point of the stage is the 147 meters of Losse. So Bordeaux has also become almost a guaranteed sprint. It pays less than 1.01 in the bookmaker seeing the profile of the route, flat, with a single 1.2 km tack.
There he won in 2010 Mark Cavendish the last time it was arrived. But almost all the great sprinters who have marked an era have raised their arms in Bordeaux. Steels (1999), Zabel (1997 and 1995), Abdujparov (1993) and Jean-Paul van Poppel (1988) are some of the names that have left their mark. What a list of winners.
