We still don’t know the 2024 route of the most prestigious race on the cycling calendar: the Tour de France. But in the next few hours the bombing that various media have been commenting on in recent days will become official: the 2024 Tour de France, for the first time in 110 years of history, will not end in Paris and will do so in the coastal city of Nice.
The reason why “la Grande Boucle” cannot be concluded in the French capital is the chronological coincidence with another huge event such as the Olympic Games. The reason given by the French authorities, rightly so, is that it is “unwise to make the two events coincide and guarantee the success of their celebration and the safety of all”.
The coincidence with the 2024 Paris Games represents a headache that, on the other hand, may be an opportunity for the organizers to embellish the grand tour in other stages. An edition, by the way, that will already enjoy a high degree of charm from the start. And it is that the “Grand Départ” will take place from the beautiful Florence (Italy) and will have stages that will cross cities such as Bologna, Penerolo or Turin, returning to France through the Alps.
The global route will be atypical by definition, but from what we have seen, the rotation of the mountain ranges seems to put the ascent to the Alps before the Pyrenees and that it will represent a decisive point in the general classification. It is more than possible that a goal at the top of Alpe d’Huez will return, which is left out of this 2023 edition and which we would all love to see happen. However, we still have to wait for the finalization of these details.
Located a thousand kilometers south east of Paris, Nice has a rich cycling history. The most prestigious one-week race, Paris-Nice, is held on its roads. Already in the last Tour of 2020 it hosted the “Grand Départ”, a few days marked by rain and a stage disputed and with falls that the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe took.
The coastal cities do not usually host the Tour and in a way do not need it, since they enjoy countless visitors throughout the summer. It could be that an arrival at the Promenade des Anglais was uncomfortable due to crowds, taking into account that it does not have the same size, cachet and history as the Champs Elysées. We are going to see -without anything clear- if the Tour learns from its Italian brother and chooses to put an end that could be epic in the mythical ascent of Mont Ventoux, near Nice and that would surely compensate all those purists to whom the break from a centuries-old tradition, as we have already seen on networks, they did not like it at all.
