Tour de France 2016 Route stage 18: Sallanches

Tour de France 2016 Route stage 18: Sallanches – Mégève

Thursday, July 21, 2016 – No one will win the Tour de France in stage 18, but GC-dreams surely can be scattered. The short and tough individual climbing time trial is sandwiched between two mountain stages. After 4 kilometres of false flat and an irregular 11 kilometres climb, the last 2 kilometres are downhill.

Chris Froome cherishes sweet memory of the mountain chrono in the 2013 Tour de France. Back then, the riders tackled two climbs to head for a descending finale. Anno 2016 the route is similar with back to back Côte de Domancy and Côte des Chozeaux. The first one is steepest with 2.5 kilometres at 9.4%. In between the climbs is no descent, but the riders can (try to) catch their breath on a 1 kilometre false flat after cresting the Domancy.

On six occasions, Sallanches was the setting of the World Championships. The last time, on August 30, 1980, Bernard Hinault escaped on the Côte de Domancy to power to the rainbow jersey with a 1 minute lead over Gianbattista Baronchelli, while the next chasers were over 4 minutes down.

Mégève never hosted the Tour de France, but saw four arrivals of the Critérium du Dauphiné. Winners were Iban Mayo Diez (2004), Miguel Angel Pena Caceres (1998), Richard Virenque (1998) and Chris Boardman (1996).

In two days time the last mountain stage in this year’s Tour de France will leave from Mégève. So from never hosting La Grande Boucle the village goes to a two-time host. Stage 20 of the 2016 Tour de France will lead to Morzine while en route four cols are to be crested.

Race results 18th stage, 2016 Tour de France