Tour de France champion Chris Froome believes the 2014 version could prove to be more of a lottery due to nine cobbled sections of a tricky fifth stage.
The full route of the 101st edition of the Tour was announced yesterday and the speculation regarding a return to a cobbled stage for the first time since 2010 was confirmed.
Starting in Leeds on July 5, the route features two stages in Yorkshire and a Cambridge to London third stage before transferring across the Channel with the fifth stage from Ypres containing the nine cobbled sections covering over 9.3miles and guiding the riders to Arenberg and marking the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.
Norweigian rider Thor Hushovd won the cobbled stage three years ago, which was described by many of the riders at the time as carnage and Froome, who followed in the wheeltracks of Team Sky team-mate and fellow Briton Sir Bradley Wiggins in winning the Tour earlier this year, will be wary of the toll taken by the bumpy ride.
“There is the cobble stage which is something we are not used to,” he said at the launch event at the Palais des Congres.
“It makes it a bit more of a lottery but I’m sure, as a team, we will look into anything we can do to reduce the risks and limit any losses if there are any.”
If Froome is to become the first man since Miguel Indurain to defend the Tour crown after Lance Armstrong’s results were wiped from the record books after he admitted doping, the 28-year-old knows the stage could prove to be a bike-breaker, but is also ready to push home any advantage.
“It is something that will literally shake things up,” he added.
“The cobbles just represent more of a risk in terms of a mechanical failure or something going wrong and crashes, but in the race it will make it interesting and is something else we are going to have to prepare for – hopefully it could be somewhere we look at taking advantages.”
The race finishes in the French capital on July 27, but unlike in this year’s 100th Tour, when the Champs-Elysees finish was held under floodlights, the race will conclude in the afternoon.
Mark Cavendish is dreaming of sprinting to the yellow jersey at the culmination of the opening stage of the 2014 Tour de France in front of his family and friends.
The complete route for the 101st edition confirmed a flat finish in Harrogate following the Grand Depart in Leeds on July 5 and Cavendish said: “I’m super excited about the first stage coming to Harrogate, my mother’s hometown. I still have a lot of family there and it gives me an opportunity to wear the yellow jersey. To dream of that is a big thing.”