Favorites stage 10 Tour de France 2024 | If it will be even half as much fun as 2013....

After a well-deserved first rest day, a flat Tour de France stage is scheduled for Tuesday, between Orléans and Saint-Amand-Montrond. Here again, however, things can get very nervous, history has taught us. IDLProcycling guides you through it! 

From Orleans to Saint-Amand-Montrond, that means the peloton is heading south again in this Tour de France. It does so in a normally rather leisurely fashion, via a 187-kilometer stage that contains less than a thousand altimeters in total. One for the sprinters normally, but...

Race director Christian Prudhomme also stated that there is a catch. 'We are passing through the forest of Sologne, but the weather can have a significant influence on the course of the stage. Therefore, it is difficult to predict exactly how this stage will go.'

So what is the Tour de France foreman referring to? 'The riders end up on roads that are open to the wind, as we saw ten years ago in the Tour de France. In the last 30 kilometers we change direction three times, so there is a real chance of blowing wind.'

Prudhomme is referring to the iconic 2013 Tour de France stage, in which the peloton was torn apart between Tour and Saint-Amand-Montrond, the day's finish city. Quick-Step (with Cavendish, Terpstra and Chavanel), Belkin (Mollema and Ten Dam), Saxo-Tinkoff (Contador and his men) and Cannondale (Sagan) pulled the bunch apart at the time, making for a fantastic spectacle. Worth watching back - see video below -.

All right, back to 2024 for a moment. The wind is presumably coming from the southwest, so that means that at forty kilometers between Saint-Baudel and Chateauneuf-sur-Cher we'll have the wind - which isn't too strong - at an angle for a while. There we turn south again, except for a small turn between eighteen and fifteen kilometers from the finish, after. 

In the finale, we seem to be heading straight for the finish, but nothing could be further from the truth. We don't know why, but at nine hundred kilometers from the finish we suddenly leave the main road for a detour through some turns. Then, four hundred meters from the finish, we come back to the finish line, where there will be a tailwind.

Climbs
No.

Times
Start: 1:25 p.m.
Finish: around 5:35 p.m.

Fans? Nah, that chance doesn't seem very high. The wind will be diagonally opposed for most of the day, but towards Chateauneuf-sur-Cher it will be on the side for a while. This is at a strength of 2 on the Beaufort scale, though, so whether it's going to be enough? That's debatable. There is also a slight chance of rain in the final.

The sprinters will presumably have another chance for success after the rest day, making the sprint trains want to make their move. The man who has impressed most so far in terms of sprints is Biniam Girmay of Intermarché-Wanty. He still wears the green jersey, but in Saint-Amand-Montrond he doesn't immediately find a finish that suits him perfectly. However, his team - including reserve sprinter Gerben Thijssen - already showed that they can deliver him perfectly.

Alpecin-Deceuninck has been hoping for success for Jasper Philipsen all round, and then this is another potential golden opportunity. The Belgian has Mathieu van der Poel, Robbe Ghys and Jonas Rickaert, among others, at his disposal, with whom they can get quite a long way in the final kilometers of this chaotic finish.

Who is the fastest man in this Tour? Dylan Groenewegen perhaps, as he proved in Dijon on a royal finish for fast men. The Dutch champion of Jayco AlUla will also have marked this stage with a dot, but there are others like that: Mark Cavendish of Astana Qazaqstan Team, for example, who like Groenewegen already won his stage in this Tour de France. And thus already managed to win in 2013.

A host of other sprinters are also still aiming for success. Arnaud De Lie of Lotto-Dstny, for example, who has already rode top five several times in this round. ButFernando Gaviria (Movistar), Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) and Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) have also come awfully close to daily success with good sprints, so if all goes well for them...

In the same boat, we note Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R), Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech), Arnaud Démare (Arkéa - B&B Hotels) and Bryan Coquard of Cofidis, although we should note with the latter that this might be a bit too fast a sprint for him. There is also question mark Wout van Aert of Visma | Lease a Bike, who so far has been sprinting along. 

And what about Fabio Jakobsen of dsm-firmenich PostNL? If there's one ride the Dutchman can seize on to grab that long-awaited success, it's this one. Hup, Fabio!

Top favorite: Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck)
Outsiders: Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny)
Long shots: Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R), Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar), Arnaud Démare (Arkéa - B&B Hotels), Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike)