June 13/23 18:05 pm - Tour de Beauce Returns - Preview

Posted by Editoress on 06/13/23
 

After a gap of four years, the Tour de Beauce will finally return tomorrow for its belated 35th edition. Canada's oldest and most prestigious UCI men's road stage race will see 99 riders from eight countries on 15 teams compete over five stages, covering 673 kilometres.

The pandemic-caused gap since the last edition in 2019, has meant that the vast majority of riders will be participating at Beauce for the first time in their careers; indeed, almost half (44) are Under-23 riders. It also means that the race is pretty open, with no one team of experienced pros likely to dominate.

While the race will cover many of the familiar roads of past editions, there have been some significant changes made to this year's courses; partially due to construction in some areas, but also to give the race a fresh feel, according to Francis Rancourt, the Directeur General for the event.

Final GC Podium 2019

The opening two stages are new configurations, but the Queen stage (Stage 3), which finishes at the top of Mont Megantic, remains, and will likely be a decisive moment in determining the overall champion. The removal of the individual time trial is also likely to have a significant impact on the GC, since it has proven to be the downfall of numerous climbers after performing well on Megantic.

The Stage 4 criterium on Saturday in Quebec City returns, as does the final stage on Sunday through the streets of St-Georges. While the start/finish has been moved for this final stage, the course remains unchanged, and this stage has proven to be a dangerous one in the past, with multiple teams unable to defend the jersey on the last day.

Former national team (and Symmetrics) DS Kevin Field provided some interesting statistics on the final St-Georges stage. He looked at top-10 finishers in Stage 5 over the past decade (2010-2019) to see how many top-10 finishers of that stage were currently, previously or about to turn pro [by 'pro' he means Pro Continental or WorldTour], and a remarkable 76% were. He also found that every winner of Stage 5 in the past ten years were ALL either currently, previously or about to turn pro.

Kevin Field: "In my opinion St-Georges [Stage 5] is the single most important race day across all of North America. Historically over time, if a rider shows well on this stage... he really does have the potential to be a an exceptional, pro cyclist. We are fortunate to have this race back and fortunate to have this particular stage to challenge our Canadian athletes."

With much of the peloton early in their careers, there are few clear favourites, however, a few do stand out. Tyler Stites (Project Echelon) is coming off a strong spring, with a stage win at Joe Martin (third overall), winner of Redlands and the Tucson Bicycle Classic, and top-10 at the International Tour of Hellas.

Quebec rider Matisse Julien (Ecoflo Chronos) is also a rider to watch, after just finishing third at the Rond de l'Oise, where he took the U23 jersey and won the first stage, holding the leader's jersey until the final stage. Lars Quaedvlieg (Universe Cycling) recently finished third overall at Aziz Shusha (UCI 2.2), as well as seventh overall at Tour of the Gila.

Two more names need to be mentioned - multi-time Beauce stage winner Gord Fraser will be the DS for TaG Cycling - his 22nd time attending Beauce; 10 as a rider and 12 as a DS. Bruno Langlois (Velo Cartel/Givelo) will be on the start line for an unbelievable 22nd time as a rider! We fully expect to see Bruno up the road in the break....

Racing begins tomorrow with a 143 kilometre stage that begins in St-Georges and finishes with a 1.2 kilometre, 6.5% climb to the finish line at Notre-Dame-des-Pins.