Paris-Tours the curtain call for northern classics specialists

The 115th edition of Paris–Tours, which will start in Chartres on Sunday 10 October, will be decided over a 212.3 km course featuring nine vineyard tracks with a combined length of 9.5 km within the final 50 km of the route. It is a carbon copy of last year's course and - as in past editions – it will be perfect for the classics specialists.

Paris-Tours and its famous gravel and dirt vineyard roads Source: ASO

Watch Paris-Tours from 12.30am Monday (Sunday night) on SBS On Demand and SBS VICELAND.

The 22 teams on the start list include the outfits of the winners of the last three editions, which were held in part on these unpaved sections. A total of 14 teams that participated in the last Tour de France will be present.

The one-off postponement of Paris-Roubaix to the autumn season, with Paris–Tours just a week after, has muddied the waters in terms of who is going to enter the race, but the course of the 2021 edition seems to be one for the tough men.

Since the distance and the location of the vineyard tracks remain exactly the same, everyone knows where to pounce on the opportunity to thin out the peloton and later launch a decisive attack, in the same vein as the three men who have won the race since the transition to the new format.

In 2019, Jelle Wallays threw caution to the wind with a victorious solo attack from 50 kilometres out, on the Côte de Goguenne, while the Côte de la Rochère has twice been the scene of the final selection. In 2018, Cosnefroy, Terpstra and Kragh Andersen took off here before the Dane proved strongest in the finale, while in 2020, Cosnefroy was also part of the decisive move together with Casper Pedersen, who went on to prevail in their duel on Avenue de Grammont. The Frenchman could be looking to settle the score this time round.

Watch Paris-Tours from 12.30am Monday (Sunday night) on SBS On Demand and SBS VICELAND.