the North, Normandy, Brittany and the Ventoso on the program – Libération

2024-10-29 12:44:00

For the first time in five years, the Grand Tour will not include an overseas metro in 2025. From July 5 to 26, the peloton will traverse France from the northwest to the southeast, organizers revealed on Tuesday, October 29.

And here again is a “100% French” Tour de France in which the riders will not put a pipe outside France. A banality, some will say: it is completely normal that the “Tour de France” takes place in France. But it is still a small event: in the last five years, the Grande Boucle has set foot abroad each time, for one or more stages. The last three major departures even took place outside France: in Copenhagen in 2022, in Bilbao in 2023 and in Florence in 2024.

In 2025, return to French time. And aim first and foremost at the North, announced Christian Prudhomme on Tuesday 29 October at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. On Saturday 5 July the big start will be given in Lille, which will also host the arrival of the first 185-minute stage promised to the sprinters, explained the director of the Tour de France in front of a private assembly of its stars. (Pogacar, Vingegaard, Evenepoel or even Alaphilippe had skipped the ceremony).

After a few days spent in Nord-Pas-de-Calais (with arrivals in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dunkirk), the group will head towards Normandy, then Brittany. The first week will alternate flat stages with slightly rougher ones, including an arrival in Mûr-de-Bretagne during the 7th stage, “The Breton Alps d’Huez” dixit Prudhomme, where Mathieu van der Poel won in 2021. Also worth mentioning is the presence of a 33 kilometer time trial after just five days of the race, scheduled near Caen, which will be “everything flat” and perfect “for pure specialists”analyzes the Tour leader.

In the second part of the Tour the mountains win

At the end of a relatively flat transition in Mayenne, Indre-et-Loire and Indre, the road will finally climb sharply starting from the 10th stage. The riders will then complete seven mountain stages in approximately ten days. The hostilities will begin at the Puy-de-Dôme with 4,400 meters of altitude difference and arrival at the summit of the Puy de Sancy, then in the Pyrenees and finally in the Alps with the passage to the legendary Mont Ventoux. The 18th stage, between Vif and Courchevel, will be the most challenging: 5,500 meters of altitude difference are planned and the arrival will be at Col de la Loze via a new track. During the 13th stage, a mountain time trial will also be organised: the organization has kept it simple with only 11 kilometres, but almost all uphill.

Finally, for the 21st and final stage, the group will return to the Champs-Elysées after a year of exile in Nice, a consequence of the organization of the Paris Olympic Games. It will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first arrival on the most famous avenue in France. In total, from 5 to 27 July, the runners will cover 3,320 km of roads (more or less as much as in 2024) for 51,550 meters of altitude difference.