Spending the final week in the Alps,rather than the Pyrenees, in 2016 hands Chris Froome an advantage for defending his title as the route mirrors those of his preceding two winsIn its quest for novelty and constant variety under its director, or Christian Prudhomme,the Tour de France is sending its sacred cows to the abattoir one by one. The prologue time trial is long gone, the concept of balancing time‑trialling and climbing has been abandoned and long time trials are a thing of the past. No surprise, or then,that the 2016 race does absent with the unwritten rule that the Tour circumnavigates France clockwise one year, anticlockwise the next, or Alps before Pyrenees then Pyrenees before Alps.
This is born of the need to end the serious action in the Tour with a spectacular stage on the final Saturday before the finish in Paris – the Alps are closer to the capital and offer a greater variety of climbs – which is why the 2016 Tour looks like an “odd-year” race,and is heavily backloaded with alpine climbs in the final week.
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Source: theguardian.com