The 2017 Tour De France has covered almost 2,700 kilometres to this point. When it concludes in Paris on Sunday, it will have spanned nearly a month and a little over 3,500 km, approximately the distance one would cover in traveling Australia from north to south.
It works out to two round trips between Sydney and Melbourne.
Team Sky and Tour De France leader Chris Froome has needed 64 hours, 40 minutes and 21 seconds to this point in the race. He deserves to be well out in front, but less than half a minute separates Froome from Rigoberto Uran, the rider currently in fourth place.
We lose more than half a minute following our kids up two flights of stairs.
There are three more mountain stages remaining before a long, flat stage on Friday. Saturday is a short, individual time trial and Froome is generally considered the best at the “race of truth,” so-called because there are no teammates for a rider to draft behind. It is one man against the clock.
Froome will be well protected by his Team Sky lieutenants and domestiques in the three remaining climbing stages. Fabio Aru, Romain Bardet and Uran will be closely monitored. Any of the three who tries to stage a break will be marked closely by Froome’s strong Team Sky.
Froome has won the Tour De France in 2013, 2015 and 2016. If he holds on to win a fourth title, he will join an elite group, assuming that he is not found to have cobalt or some other performance enhancing substance in his system.
All of the riders who have won four Tour De Frances have gone on to win a fifth time, a group that includes Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil.
Lance Armstrong won seven times, but had those titles stripped over his admission of using PEDs and encouraging others to use them.
