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Stage by stage
stage 19 - Bonneval 
Chartres
53.5 km
Saturday 21 July
Chartres
53.5 km
Saturday 21 July
Individual time-trial - A sporting perspective
Christian Prudhomme’s Analysis
This will be the moment of truth. Let the climbers be warned: with a last 52-km long time-trial to tackle, they will have to gain a significant amount of time in the mountains. And the best flat racers know that, during a final attack, everything can be seen in a new light.
Bonneval
• Stage town on 2 previous occasions
• 4,650 inhabitants
• Head of the canton of Eure-et-Loir (28)
Bonneval is in the heart of the Beauce region and is situated on the route of the classic cycling race Paris-Tours. Additionally, the town hosts the start of the shorter version of the race reserved for “Espoirs” category riders. Indeed, Tom Boonen, who won Paris-Tours Espoirs in 2000, was also the winner of the stage which set off from Bonneval, several years later during the 2004 Tour, and finished in Angers. A leading time-trial Great Britain’s Bradley Wiggins, has a happy memory of Bonneval where he comfortably dominated the first stage of 2003 Tour de l’Avenir. But on the region’s roads, amateur cyclists are more used to bumping into Laurent Bezault, the former rider, who lives in the town.
• www.ville-bonneval.eu
• www.comcomdubonnevalais.fr
• www.cg28.fr
Chartres
• Stage town on 1 previous occasion
• 42,000 inhabitants
• Prefecture of Eure-et-Loir (28)
The prefecture city of Eure-et-Loir has only welcomed the Tour de France once, but even so it has witnessed two outstanding events in its former and more recent history. Indeed, before putting forward the idea of creating a cycling race travelling along the country’s borders to Henri Desgrange, Géo Lefèvre was born in Chartres in 1877. Much later, in 2004, the stage finished with the victory of Stuart O’Grady, the fastest of a breakaway of five riders, which had a lead of more than 12 minutes on the peloton. Among them, the young French Champion, Thomas Voeckler went into the lead in the general classification. It was the beginning of the Alsatian’s first experience wearing the Yellow Jersey on the roads of France.