Tour de France 2020 route turns up the pain but unpredictability remains for Julian Alaphilippe

The memory of the summer’s unpredictable thrills have all but washed away in the autumn rain, but race organisers seemed to draw on what unfolded in July as they unveiled a rolling, punchy route for 2020. It carries the same unstructured shape that set the scene for Julian Alaphilippe’s wild run in the yellow jersey, and clearly there is appetite for more of the same.

On the face of it this route is entirely different to 2019. If that was the “highest in history” then this is perhaps the hardest for some years – less catchy, admittedly – with eight stages officially listed as mountainous and a solitary 36km time-trial which in itself will be demanding, ending most of the way up the gruelling La Planche des Belles Filles.

There will be fewer of the high altitudes that played into the hands of the eventual 2019 champion, Team Ineos’s Egan Bernal, but instead several small flurries of mountainous sections dotted through the three weeks beginning with stage two, meaning there is very little in the way of let-up bar back-to-back flat days on stages 10 and 11.

It is hard to know exactly who this suits. The rolling hills from the start make it a course for Alaphilippe to attack early and grab hold of the yellow jersey, but he might struggle to keep it through stages eight and nine when the Port de Bales and Col de Peyresourde home into view.

Will the darling of France make a dedicated effort to win the race, having come so close in the summer? Organisers ASO will certainly hope so. “On paper, yes, there are plenty of stages that suit me – that suit me very well, even,” said Alaphilippe. ”But it’s still far away. I have to study the parcours in more detail, and go out and recon the stages, in order to get a clearer idea. For the moment, I can’t say.”

The extensive climbing will please natural climbers like Bernal and his teammate Chris Froome, who is aiming to join an elite club of five-time Tour winners. But their rhythms will be disrupted by the sporadic nature of the peaks and such a route could loosen their usual grip on the peloton.

Team Ineos manager Sir Dave Brailsford seemed relaxed as he insisted they would find a way to cope with the challenge. “Then the last time trial is interesting but they’ve taken the climbing kilometres and spread them throughout the race rather than have them focused on your Alpine and Pyrenean focus stages, which is interesting,” he told Cycling News. “It’s more a mid-mountain, all-rounder route. I don’t think that makes it more difficult to control.”

Then there are riders like Jumbo-Visma’s Primoz Roglic, who will arrive off the back of his Vuelta a Espana triumph, and his new teammate Tom Dumoulin, the 2017 Giro champion. They both have climbing legs and Roglic in particular would fancy an attacking race, but both will wish there were more time-trial kilometres to hurt Bernal.

More of a wildcard is another home favourite, Thibaut Pinot, perennial underachiever who walked away from this year’s Tour injured and in tears after a freak collision between knee and his handlebars. He had been in prime position to contest for his first much-anticipated maillot jaune and looked in supreme form, so can he mount another assault? The stage 20 time-trial up La Planche, where the winner will be decided, is his home mountain.

Vincenzo Nibali has already said he will not race in order to focus on the Olympic road race in Tokyo on 25 July – the Tour has been brought forward a week to start on 27 June in Nice, ending in Paris on Sunday 19 July – while Geraint Thomas could be another former champion to miss out. The Welshman is likely to focus on the Giro d’Italia instead, given the depth of competition within his own team.

As is the way with Ineos these days, Froome and Bernal are likely to start as co-leaders and the road will decide who comes to the fore. Froome posted a friendly selfie of the pair together at the ceremony, but while they are unlikely to engage in open warfare there will be a silent but fierce fight to take charge of the team’s bid.

Froome is nearly back to action after the crash in June which left him in intensive care. “I’m on the road to recovery still,” he said. “I’ve made it back onto the bike in this last month, which has been fantastic. I’m heading in the right direction.”

Of his leadership bid, he said: “We’ve got an amazing line up, an amazing roster of riders to select from. There is nothing decided yet. For me, personally, I have obviously to get myself back to that level before even discussing leadership, or anything like that. At least, for now, everything is going the right direction. I’m optimistic.”