Tour de France stage 14 preview - Breakaway win or Pogacar hattrick?

Nearly 5,000 meters of elevation gain set the stage for a grand finale in this Pyrenean three-day stretch, featuring the iconic Tourmalet and the long-awaited return to Superbagnères. Who will crack in this brutal stage?

Start: 12:15 CET
Estimated arrival: 17:07 CET
Length stage: 182.6km
Elevation gain: 4912m

Follow every move of Stage 14 with our live report!

The stage starts in Pau, a city with a long and rich history in the Tour. The first 70 km are almost entirely flat, with an intermediate sprint just before the foot of the Tourmalet. Trek should be focused on getting Milan into the breakaway. He needs to collect as many points as possible in the intermediate sprints over the coming days. The road already starts to climb steadily towards the sprint in Luz-Saint-Sauveur.

The Tour crosses the Col du Tourmalet for the 88th time, an iconic climb in the race’s history. At the summit, the first rider to pass earns the Souvenir Jacques Goddet and a €5,000 prize. This col offers a chance to blow the race wide open. If you run into trouble here, you could easily lose 15-20 minutes.

Col du Tourmalet (18.8km at 7.4%) 
Hors catégorie - 93.1km to go

After the long descent from the Tourmalet, the road gradually rises toward Payolle, at the foot of the Aspin. It’s the shorter side of the climb, so more of an interlude in this stage.

Col d’Aspin (5.1km at 7.6%) 
2nd category - 63.3km to go

This stage features nothing but iconic names, the Peyresourde is the penultimate climb. By Pyrenean standards, it's fairly steady and consistent. Part of this climb has already been done during the mountain time trial, when they turned right towards Peyragudes 2.5 km before the summit.

Col de Peyresourde (7.7km at 7.8%) 
1st category - 32.5km to go

The descents are less technical than on Thursday, and the descent leading to the foot of the final climb is fairly straightforward.

After 36 years, Superbagnères once again welcomes the Tour. The road mostly climbs at a gradient of 7–8%, though it's occasionally broken up by flatter sections. The final kilometre is the toughest, averaging 10.0%.

Luchon-Superbagnères - 12.7km at 7.4%
Hors catégorie

In the final 3.8 km, they go above the tree line and enter a green, open landscape.

Still hardly any wind, but it’s getting noticeably cooler. In the valley, temperatures may reach up to 21°C, but at the top of the Tourmalet and Superbagnères it's only 10–14°C. There’s also more cloud cover and a chance of light drizzle.

So far, this is the stage with the most KOM points up for grabs, but stages 18 and 19 will offer even more. With 55 points available, anyone looking to beat Pogacar in this classification needs to make their move here.

The gaps in the general classification are already significant, and there's one rider clearly standing above the rest. This gradually increases the chances of a breakaway rider taking a mountain stage win, even though it’s a tough day. You can expect a larger breakaway again in the first 70km, and then it depends whether there’s a rider in it who will trigger a chase, not necessarily by UAE, but perhaps by another top-10 team that feels threatened. That could also help keep the time gaps relatively small throughout the stage. Anyone outside the top 10 will be given a free ticket and considered no threat. UAE adjusts its strategy during the stage, there will never be a firm decision beforehand to go all-in for the stage win in this stage, but it could evolve that way depending on how the race unfolds in the final.

Is there a Tourmalet plan from Visma? Possibly, but as long as Vingegaard isn’t close to Pogačar’s level, you can make all the plans you want: it won’t have much impact on the GC. We saw signs of improvement from Jonas in the mountain time trial, can he take another step forward tomorrow? I do expect a stronger showing from Visma in the break than on Thursday, when only Benoot was present. Visma should aim for stage wins alongside supporting Vingegaard, and with riders like Jorgenson, Yates, and Kuss, they certainly have the riders. In any case, having someone up the road is a double advantage: they could be useful for Vingegaard later in the stage if needed, or go for the stage win themselves.

From a GC perspective, I still see only one possible winner: Pogačar. Vingegaard seems untouchable in second place. The Bora duo will be looking to challenge Evenepoel’s 3rd spot. There’s a chance Remco will crack on the Tourmalet and see his podium dreams shattered. Just like in the 2023 Vuelta, when he suffered a collapse on the Aubisque, in the stage to… the Tourmalet. If that’s the case, the competition won’t show any mercy, and he won’t get back. I think we’ll definitely see some significant position shifts tomorrow. It won’t be long for Vauquelin either, the succession of mountain stages will cost him some places.

As for potential winners from the breakaway besides the Visma riders already mentioned, the list isn’t very long as this is a very demanding stage. Only strong climbers have a chance to take the win.

Can Mas bounce back after a disastrous first mountain stage? His time trial wasn’t bad at all. I suspect he’ll try again to get a top result in a mountain stage, maybe even this one? Is Skjelmose going to find his top shape? Thursday wasn’t bad, but he’ll need to do better if he wants to win a mountain stage. Israel will want to set Woods up again, but does the veteran still have what it takes to win a stage over four cols? On these descents, he should lose less time than on the stage to Hautacam, where it became clear once again how poor he is at descending. This also looks like a very good stage for Arensman, he handles the succession of big climbs well. Explosiveness won’t necessarily be the deciding factor here.

Then there’s the attacking firepower of Bahrain, with both Lenny Martinez and Buitrago. Especially the latter can still dream of a stage win, but it’s not yet clear if he’s back to his best form. He remains a very dangerous rider in a breakaway. Healy is also a candidate for the break. On a good day, he can go a long way, even in such a tough mountain stage. I’ll also mention the Australians O’Connor and Storer, but they’ll really need to improve on their previous attempts.

I suspect Adam Yates will stick close to Pogacar. Potentially, he could go for a stage win if he ever gets the green light from his team leader, but I think that’s too early for now.

It’s simple: the breakaway chance always depends on the moves in the peloton. In such a tough mountain stage, it’s ridiculous to say the break will definitely make it, it’s always an ad hoc judgement. Pogacar remains the clear favorite to win this stage: that’s the only thing that’s certain.

Many cycling fans weren't even born the last time Superbagnères hosted a stage finish in the Tour. In 1989, Robert Millar took the victory ahead of Pedro Delgado. Fignon took the yellow jersey from Lemond that day.