The 2024 Tour de France has long been expected to be a battle between the world’s generational talents and the route could keep the Yellow Jersey in play right until the finish line.
Jonas Vingegaard, of Denmark, made it two titles in a row by winning the 2023 edition by 7min 29sec from Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, who won in 2020 and 2021. Add into the mix the long-anticipated debut of Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic’s move to Bora-Hansgrohe with only this race missing from his grand-tour palmarès, and there is serious potential for a classic.
The presence of the Olympic Games in Paris means that the 111th Tour will end away from the Champs-Elysées for the first time since 1974, and outside the French capital for the first time. The finale will instead be a 34-kilometre individual time-trial from Monaco to Nice, the first contre-la-montre on the 21st stage since Greg LeMond snatched victory from Laurent Fignon by eight seconds in 1989.
That shoot-out follows a final week with plenty of ascending intrigue. The 14th stage will take the peloton up to Pla d’Adet via Col du Tourmalet, and on the next day there will be four categorised cols before finishing on Plateau de Beille on Bastille Day (July 14).
After the final rest day and a flat 16th stage, there are three mountain and one hilly stages before the finale. The 19th stage represents the ceiling of the race, reaching 2,802 metres at Cime de la Bonette and then a finish at Isola 2000, and the penultimate day ends at Col de la Couillole after a 15.7km climb at a gradient of 7.1 per cent.
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The first half of the final-stage time-trial features ascents, adding to the prospect of the Yellow Jersey changing shoulders if the leaders are close together. The first time-trial of the edition is on day seven, 25km between Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin, including a 1.6km climb late on.
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Time-trials are a strength of Evenepoel. There was only one in this year’s race and it was the day on which Vingegaard broke clear of Pogacar. The general classification gap was only ten seconds until the 22.4km from Passy to Combloux that made up stage 16, after which it had been extended to 1min 48sec. The next day in the Alps, Pogacar lost almost six more minutes and the contest was over.
The venue for the start and finish had been revealed long before the official route announcement in Paris on Wednesday. Florence will host the Grand Départ on June 29, and the opening stage will take riders through San Marino to Rimini. The peloton will pass from Italy to France on the fourth stage.
Mark Cavendish, who has delayed retirement in search of a 35th Tour stage win that would break the record he at present shares with Eddy Merckx, has eight flat stages on which Astana Qazaqstan’s sprint train will be focused. The first of those is the third day finishing in Turin. It would be a fitting place for Cavendish to take the record for himself given his affiliation with Italy, where he used to live and won the final stage of the Giro d’Italia in Rome five months ago.
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“I am actually in a bit of shock ― it is so hard,” Cavendish, 38, said of the route. “There’s a few [sprint opportunities], but you’ve got to get to them, that’s the problem. The start in Italy is super nice, it is right by my home for many years. It is only a few kilometres away, so I know the first kilometres really well, but it makes no difference because it starts hard, finishes hard and is all hard. It will be beautiful in Italy, the Giro is always an incredible race and I know the Tuscan people just love cycling. It is really quite special.”
Among the other flat stages is the tenth, ending in Saint-Amand-Montrond, where Cavendish won in 2013, and the 16th ending in Nîmes, where he won in 2008. That will be the last flat stage of the 2024 race, given the absence of Paris from the finale.
Chief among the interest in the four hilly stages is the ninth day, just before the riders enjoy their first rest, which will feature 14 sectors of white gravel tracks among vineyards, starting and ending in Troyes.
The eight-stage Tour de France Femmes will start in Rotterdam on August 12 and finish at Alpe d’Huez six days later, marking the race’s first commencement outside France on land familiar to Demi Vollering, the Dutchwoman who was this year’s champion.
The first half of the race will be in the Netherlands and Belgium, with the fourth stage ending in Liège and the fifth starting in Bastogne before it reaches France. The last three days will be spent travelling down the east of France, from Remiremont to Morteau, Champagnole to Le Grand-Bornand, and on the final day a climb up Col du Glandon before the finish up Alpe d’Huez.
