It almost seems like a curse of this ski resort. Auron was already set to host a stage finish in 2024, but the stage had to be completely re-altered due to adverse weather conditions and thus finished on La Madone d’Utelle. Back then, Aleksandr Vlasov won with a brave attack as the climb was hidden behind a thick fog.
The riders are seemingly braced for a potential alteration on the route. Ahead of the stage 3 team time trial, Juan Ayuso highlighted the importance of the stage, with the context that the weekend’s stages could be hindered by weather conditions.
“Also, now we’re seeing that maybe in Nice there’s really bad weather, so we will see what we can and what we can’t race,” Ayuso told CyclingProNet ahead of stage 2. “So I think tomorrow [stage 3] has, I don’t know what percentage, but I think more than 70% of the general classification can be decided tomorrow [stage 3].”