A pre-Tour battle on Corsica

The Critérium International, formerly known as the three-day Classics stage race, has a whole different feel this year as race organisers ASO have decided to take the race to the island of Corsica for a possible pre-Tour de France 2013 dress-rehearsal.

The addition of significant mountains to the course will open the overall victory to climbers able to defend a lead from the opening stage. Tall German Voigt, a five-time winner of the event, will not attend this year as his climbing abilities clearly won't be sufficient to defend his title - instead, he won a stage at the Volta a Catalunya on Thursday.