Tour de France 2021 Favourites stage 2: Punchers at Mûr-de-Bretagne

Stage 2 favours those who thrive on smashing their way up the hills. The hilltop finish in Mûr-de-Bretagne – it is also a village – featured twice in the Tour de France. On both occasions a rider crossed the line solo after attacking in the first part of brutal climb.

Three years ago it was Dan Martin who finished 1 second ahead of Pierre Latour, while Alejandro Valverde outsprinted Julian Alaphilippe for third place. Alexis Vuillermoz won in 2015. Dan Martin finished second that year, while Alejandro Valverde sprinted to third place, this time ahead of Peter Sagan.

The Mûr-de-Bretagne climb is 2 kilometres long. The ascent kicks in hard with the first 500 metres at 10.1% before it ‘mellows out’ to 9.5% in the following 500 metres. The next 500 metres go up at 5.5%, after which the last section is a false flat at 2.4%.

Obviously, the start list is not yet confirmed and it remains to be seen who is on form this summer, so we’ll update this article later.

Favourites stage 2 Tour de France 2021

*** Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Julian Alaphilippe
** Daniel Martin, Marc Hirschi, Benoît Cosnefroy, Michael Woods
* Davide Formolo, Matteo Trentin, Jakob Fuglsang, Alberto Bettiol

Other interesting reads:
– route stage 2
– provisional start list Tour de France 2021