A Deutschland Tour for climbers
The Deutschland Tour has traditionally been a race for rouleurs, as witnessed by the victories of Nils Politt (400) in 2021 and Jasper Stuyven (600) in 2019. However, this time around the tour includes the Schauinsland mountain-top finish ( 11.7 km at 6.5%), which radically changes the profile of the contenders for the GC, which on this occasion should go to a climber.
Route
The race is made up of 5 stages, of which the first is a 2.67 km time trial prologue. The second stage seems the best suited for a sprint, while the general classification will be decided in stages 3 and 5, of intermediate profiles, and especially in the fourth, which ends at the top of Schauinsland (11.7 km at 6.5%).
Favorites
As we said, the addition of the mountain-top finish on stage 4 makes us look for the favorites for the general classification among climbers: Romain Bardet (800), Rafal Majka (600), Ruben Guerreiro (600), Jakob Fuglsang (600 ), Maximilian Schachmann (600), Lennard Kämna (600), Harm Vanhoucke (400), Mattias Skelmosje (600), Felix Grossschartner (600), Bauke Mollema (600) or Antonio Pedrero (200) are some of the best in the starting list. For his part, Egan Bernal (1000) is still picking up the competition rhythm after his accident and he is not expected to have the competitive level to have GC ambitions.