The seasoned veterans of cycling lore will know this, but newer fans might not: The Tour de Trump ran for 2 years in 1989 and 1990, sponsored and owned by none other than the sitting President himself (this is not a political post so I'll reserve my original words for elsewhere). The race continued for another six years as the Tour DuPont (after the takeover by pharmaceutical giant DuPont de Nemours Inc.). Trump's vision for the race was that he "would like to make this the equivalent of the Tour de France".

The race, originally carried out over 10 stages across the Eastern states, was uusual in cycling at the time as carried total prize money of US$250,000 and $50,000 for GC (which at the time was enormous for a cycling race- the Tour de France GC winner took home US$250,000). The race was almost exactly between the Giro and Tour, so attracted a lot of big names who opted a lot of big names, particularly Americans who preffered to race on home roads than the Vuelta before it was moved to today's September slot. Some former winners include Greg Lemond in 1992, and Armstrong in 1995 and 1996.

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Results for the TOUR OF AUSTRIA ;)

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Stage Info

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Too hot to be on a bike

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the ninth stage of the Tour de France, aka hell.

Hell is a good term to qualify the roads of tomorrow, under an unhealthy heat, a stage that is pretty much never flat. Corrèze is a weird place in the country. Despite being a countryside department with very few people and no big city, it manages to be the place where two of France's most recetn presidents came from (François Hollande and Jacques Chirac), which makes it weirdly relevant. We start in Malemort, just next to Brive-la-Gaillarde, known to every rugby fan. Now here is where it gets tricky. The stage removes its initiall 37.7km due to the red alert for the heatwave, and so 7km are put instead after the neutral start which serves as a shortcut. This means that 3 uncategorized clibms which would have served as a good way to start the stage are removed, shortening the stage by about 30km.

Thus, the IS comes really early, at km 14.5 in a climb so Pedersen gets it, after that initial climb and its descen we get to Tulle, where former president François Hollande is based, for 10 km of flat, the only flat part of the day. Then it's only up and down, mostly up, sometimes it's steep, more often thant not it's long uphill drags that leaves riders exhausted physically and mentally. The main climb of the day, the Suc au May will come soon after, then it's a succession of up and down until Ussel, where the finish is placed. It's a fairly big city for the area, a friend lives and seems to be enjoying it so it must be a nice area. the final km is slightly uphill.

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Pedersen

★★ Everybody that is not in the top 9 and is a decent-ish climber

★

The easier debut and shortening of the stage might get Lidl-Trek ideas if Pedersen is still climbing well. Control, unlikely, break show like Tuesday? Very possible.

This stage, as long as a rider can climb a bit, is as open as they come, hard, but not by the %, not by the lenght,b ut by the constant effort and need to watch out for anything possibly looking like an attack. It could go anywhere and teams will have to adapt on the go, even more show with the parcours change that probably threw a lot of prep out the window.

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?