Tour de France 2016 Favourites stage 9: Take your pick from the Big Two

Stage 9 in the 2016 Tour de France serves a hearty mountain meal with five cols, while the finish in Andorra is on top of a hors category climb. We can assume the big guys to go head-to-head. Froome, Quintana. Or are we up for a surprise? (Slideshow route/profile)

Obviously, Quintana should go on the attack if he wants to make up for his losses after Froome’s brilliant downhill attack in stage 8.

The penultimate climb is a good spot for the teams of the GC favourites to speed up. Col de Beixalis is 6.4 kilometres at 8.5% with the middle section as steep as 15%. Whoever will be on board at the top, he is among the riders to be watched this Tour de France.

It is to be expected the closing climb up to Arcalis will make clear who is top favourite to win the 2016 Tour de France. At the 10.1 kilometres climb at 7.2% we can expect Quintana and Froome to go head top head. After Froome’s attack in the Peyresourde-downhill we know who is the best descender, but who is the best climber?

In 2015 Chris Froome struck in the first stage with a proper summit finish. He put 1 minute into Quintana and the Colombian waited until the Alps to react. Let’s hope he is wiser this time.

Favourites 9th stage Tour de France 2016:

*** Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana
** Joaquim Rodriguez, Richie Porte, Fabio Aru, Daniel Martin, Romain Bardet
* Tejay van Garderen, Bauke Mollema, Adam Yates, Warren Barguil