Tour de France 2023 stage guide – Schedule and key dates as Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard chase yellow

The wait is almost over: on Saturday 1st July, the peloton will roll out of the Basque city of Bilbao to get the 110th edition of the Tour de France under way. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) are the two main favourites to do battle for the yellow jersey.

With the Danish defending champion in scintillating form during the Dauphine, it remains to be seen if the two-time winner from Slovenia can put up a serious challenge after breaking his wrist this spring. Ad The outsiders for the biggest race of the season include Enric Mas (Movistar), Simon Yates (Team Jayco-AlUla), Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), while Colombia’s Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) – the 2019 champion – makes his first appearance in the Tour since 2020 following a string of injuries.

Tour de FranceHow to watch the 2023 Tour de France5 HOURS AGO Home fans will get behind climbers Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), the latter’s team-mate Thibaut Pinot making his final appearance in the Tour before retiring at the end of the season. Three days in the Basque country will produce a lumpy and explosive start to a race that welcomes the Pyrenees early ahead of further mountain showdowns in the Massif Central, the Jura, the Alps and then the Vosges.

Four summit finishes include a return to the legendary Puy de Dôme in the Massif Central for the first time in 35 years as well as a Bastille Day showdown on the Grand Colombier, the climb where Bernal famously cracked on his last outing in the Tour in 2020. With just 22.4km against the clock, only the 2015 Tour has had fewer time trial kilometres (13.8km) since TTs were first introduced in 1934.