What will be next year’s menu? The question was on all the minds of the cycling stars, gathered as usual at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, Wednesday October 25, for the end of season event: the presentation, with great fanfare, of the route of the 111th edition of the Tour de France. Winner, the day before, of the Vélo d’or – a reward awarded to the best cyclist of the year by the magazine Vélo Mag – Jonas Vingegaard was notably present in the room, to find out where he would defend his titles, acquired in 2022 and 2023.
Before Christian Prudhomme, the director of the event, lifted the veil on the complete menu for this 2024 vintage, the Dane had already heard of the starter and dessert. The race will start earlier than usual, on June 29 – the fault of a calendar blocked by the Paris Olympic Games (July 26 to August 11) – and end on July 21.
Another direct consequence of the presence of the quadrennial event in the summer calendar: the Grande Boucle will conclude for the first time in its history far from the Paris region and the Champs-Elysées. Heading this year to the south-east and more precisely to Nice, where the big names in the general classification will have one last opportunity to make the difference during a 35 km time trial starting from Monaco, passing through La Turbie (8, 1 km at 5.6%) and the Col d’Eze (1.6 km at 8.1%). A difficult course, which could convince the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, a great specialist in solo efforts and winner of the Vuelta in 2022, to make his debut in the event.
Before a final fight along the Côte d’Azur, the Tour will begin three weeks earlier from abroad, as in the two previous editions and for the 26th time in its history. Denmark and Spain are followed this time by Italy, the opportunity to put an end to an incongruity: the peloton had never started its journey from La Botte, a land renowned for cycling and which hosts prestigious races every year. , including the Giro, one of the three great Tours on the calendar.
In the country, the riders will compete in three stages. And the first should already allow us to get a fairly precise idea of ??the forces present. 205 km long, it will connect Florence to Rimini – where Marco Pantani, yellow jersey 1998, died –, passing through seven listed difficulties, for a dizzying total of 3,600 meters of positive altitude difference. The appetizer barely digested, the peloton will set off the next day on a 200 km course between Cesenatico and Bologna. A second day which will pass by the heights of Imola, where the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe gleaned his first world champion title in 2020.
The Col du Galibier from the fourth stage
The next day, the third stage between Plaisance and Turin seems promised to the sprinters, after 225 km of effort. A first opportunity for the Briton Mark Cavendish – also present at the Palais des Congrès on Wednesday and warmly applauded during his entry – to win this famous 35th bouquet in the event, which would make him the only record holder for stages won. He currently shares first place in the category with Belgian legend Eddy Merckx.
The Tour de France vintage 2024 does not offer the same relief as its predecessor, marked by the passage through the five mountain ranges of France. But it promises some great battles between Jonas Vingegaard, his rival, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, and all those willing – and above all able – to join the fight for the yellow jersey. From the fourth day, the runners will head towards the Alps for a stage passing through the Col du Galibier (2,642 m above sea level). “The Tour has never climbed so high, so quickly,” insisted Christian Prudhomme.
The peloton will then head towards the north of France until reaching Troyes, whose ninth stage will loop around the city. Before reaching Aube, the runners will have spent three days in Côte-d’Or, the opportunity to compete in a first individual time trial between Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin (25 km ).
It will then be time to descend towards the Pyrenees, but the path will not be a series of transitional stages. A special mention for the 11th (211 km), between Evaux-les-Bains, in Creuse, and the small ski resort of Lioran in the Cantal mountains. “It’s the crazy stage: the first 150 kilometers are winding, it goes up, it goes down, it’s tiring. And then boom: a series of walls,” enthused the race boss to Agence France-Presse, ahead of the presentation.
The director of the event and the spectators should indeed witness an exciting spectacle at the end of the day, since four climbs will be on the program for the last 50 kilometers: the Cols de Néronne (3.8 km at 9.1%), du Pas de Peyrol (5.4 km at 8.1%), du Perthus (4.4 km at 7.9%) and Font de Cère (3.3 km at 5.8%). Nine months before the race, Christian Prudhomme is already imagining the scenario: “If that day, Evenepoel and Pogacar join forces… On these winding roads, we can’t see anything and it will be very difficult to control. »
Two passages through the Alps
Having become an obligatory passage or almost, the city of Pau will kick off the Pyrenees on the occasion of a 14th stage (152 km) ending in Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet and passing through the legendary Col du Tourmalet. A summit, before arriving at the Plateau de Beille the next day (198 km), where the Frenchman Thomas Voeckler courageously defended his yellow jersey in 2011.
The Pyrenees finished, the runners will not yet have finished with the mountains since they will pass through the Hautes-Alpes again before the epilogue. Vingegaard, Pogacar and others will have to keep their strength up for the 19th stage (145 km), between Embrun and Isola 2,000, displaying a total of 4,600 m of positive altitude difference to swallow during the day and a finish at 2,900 m. altitude.
Deprived this year of the prestigious finish on the Champs-Elysées, the sprinters will still have other opportunities to shine over the three weeks of racing. They could, for example, shine during the 6th stage between Semur-en-Auxois and Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises (176 km) or during the 13th day of racing from Agen to Pau (171 km).
These playing fields will be the opportunity to award a green jersey in the points classification, which could lose to contenders day after day. The start of the Olympic Games, only five days after the end of the Grande Boucle, could push some riders to shorten their presence on the Tour roads to fine-tune their preparation. In 2021, the Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel, for example, decided to give up after only eight stages to concentrate on the mountain bike event of the Tokyo Games.