Tour de France Magazine 2019 | Page 97

THE STAGES STAGE 2 BRUSSELS ROYAL PALACE > BRUSSELS ATOMIUM Sunday 7 July • 27.6km • Team time trial ASSEMBLY Place des Palais, Rue Ducale, 15min before team departure FIRST TEAM STARTS 14:30 LAST TEAM STARTS 16:15 TIMETABLE calculated at 55km/h for 22 teams START RAMP Rue Ducale First team Final team 13:00 13:07 13:12 13:16 14:30 14:34 14:37 14:39 16:15 16:19 16:22 16:24 13:24 14:43 16:28 13:26 13:29 13:31 13:36 13:38 14:44 14:46 14:47 14:50 14:51 16:29 16:31 16:32 16:35 16:36 13:40 14:52 16:37 13:46 13:51 13:55 14:55 14:58 15:00 16:40 16:43 16:45 8 3,7 New landmark: Jacques Anquetil (in the dark glasses) and the French team at the Grand Départ in Brussels in 1958, the year the Atomium was built. BRUSSELS (Belgium) Actual start 27.6 0 Bruxelles Palais Royal 23.9 3.7 Woluwe-Saint-Pierre 21.3 6.3 Auderghem 19.6 8 Watermael-Boitsfort Bois de La Cambre 15.4 12.2 (Bruxelles / Brussel) 14.4 13.2 Bois de La Cambre Chrono 13.2 14.4 Ixelles 12 15.6 Etterbeek 9.6 18 Woluwe-Saint-Lambert 8.7 18.9 Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek Schaarbeek 7.5 20.1 - Boulevard Général Wahis Chrono 4.7 22.9 Laeken (Bruxelles / Brussel) 1.9 25.7 Parc d'Osseghem 0 27.6 Brussel Atomium Arrival Caravan Completed The yellow jersey will almost certainly change shoulders if the previous day’s winner doesn’t have a cohort of specialists in this collective discipline around him. On what is only the second day, we’re serving up a test that’s as fearsome as it is spectacular, the team time trial. In this case, the 27.6km course through Brussels will demand the use of very big gears. On a course without any climbing, we may even see a new speed record! On the final straight, with the Atomium in the background, victory should come down to a gap of just a few seconds, as was the case in Cholet in 2018. TIMETABLE To ride TEAMS AT FULL GAS KILOMETRES 11,4 15,6 18 23 13,2 20,1 FINISH LINE Boulevard du Centenaire, at the end of a final straight of 210m. Width: 6m. 2 0 1 9 TO U R D E FR ANCE | 97