La Course by Le Tour de France

Brest, Saturday 26 June, 108km

- Owen Rogers

Local rider Audrey Cordon-Ragot has tipped team- mate Lizzie Deignan to win on the testing La Course route in Brest this weekend.

In April organisers were forced to move the race from its Mûr de Bretagne finish when the town declared itself unable to host it and the accompanying Tour stage due to local elections. The new finish on the Côte de la Fosse aux Loups is only three kilometers at 5.7 per cent but is harder than it sounds according to the local rider, Trek-Segafredo’s French champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot.

“I was dreaming about the finish at Mûr de Bretagne because I train there,” she told us. “The Mûr is more brutal because it is shorter, but this one is hard to handle. It starts on a really narrow road then opens up but it’s really steep, about 10 per cent, then it flattens to around five per cent.

“But you can’t feel fast on it, it’s gravelly and sticky and it’s long and straight but you can never see the end.”

After an opening leg of 54km, the route, based on the opening stage of this year’s Tour de France, joins a 14km circuit which is ridden in full three times, including four ascents of Fosse aux Loups. And while many will look here for the action, Cordon-Ragot isn’t so sure.