Geraint Faces Five Summit Battle On Tour De France Defence

Geraint Thomas will face five summit finishes when he launches the defence of his Tour de France crown in Belgium next July.

The Cardiff-born rider was at the official presentation of the 2019 route in Paris on Thursday for a Tour that also features 30 categorised climbs and just 54 kilometres of time trialling.

Three of the five mountain-top finishes in the 106th edition of the world’s greatest cycle race will be above 2000 metres.

The race will start in Brussels on July 6th to mark the 50th anniversary of the first of Eddy Merckx’s five wins before heading into France though the western side of the country will not feature this year.

The Pyrenees will be the first mountain range to be tackled this year with a mountain top finish on top of the Tourmalet before transferring to the Alps where a triple whammy of Alpine stages awaits.

Thomas’ victory hopes are likely to de decided on the final 33.4km climb up to the 2365m-high finish at Val Thorens on stage 20.

As per tradition, there is then the transfer for the final stage into Paris where the Team Sky ace celebrated such memorable scenes last July.

This year’s race has a total distance of 3460km with the finish on July 28.