The 2024 edition of Tour de France will start in Florence on June 29 and will end on July 21 in Niceyou will ascend the Apennines and the Italian Alps, the French, the Central Massif and the Pyrenees and will include two time trials, one of them on the last day, and rocky roads for the first time in its history.
It is the main novelty of a route unveiled this Wednesday in Paris, that of a very particular edition, the first that will begin in Italy, the first that will not end in Paris, to leave the capital calm for the Olympic Games, which will begin five more days late.
(Unusual: tremendous blow by Gerard Piqué, he falls into a hole while signing an autograph, video)(Tragedy: unexpected death of a cycling promise when he was training)
“Abroad, France is known for Paris and the Côte d’Azur. Without the capital we had to go to Nice, which also has a great cycling tradition,” explained this Wednesday the director of the event, Christian Prudhommewhen presenting the tour.
It will be the highlight of a race that will have one of its attractions on unpaved roads. Inspired by the Italian classic Strade Bianche, This novelty will arrive in the ninth stage, the eve of the first day of rest, among the vineyards of Champagne, where the cyclists will have to overcome 14 unpaved sections, a total of 32.2 kilometers, on the winegrowers’ routes.
The explanation
“It is a way to break the monotony, to avoid chaining together flat stages ending in a ‘sprint’. We couldn’t go on cobbled sections, so we have resorted to these unpaved roads, which constitute the latest great novelty in cycling,” Prudhomme explained.
In addition to the sporting excitement, he pointed out that they will force the teams to select their runners based on that stage, which constitutes an additional incentive.
The leaders of the ranks will not be able to surround themselves only with squires for the mountains. Along with them, the 2024 Tour, which will have 3,492 kilometers and a difference in altitude of 52,230 meters, will cross Italy, San Marino, France and Monaco, two time trials, the crossing of four massifs with seven mountain stages and four high finishes.
There will be a total of 27 great peaks, three in the Apennines, one in the Italian Alps, 12 in the French Alps, three in the Massif Central and eight in the Pyrenees. A less mountainous Tour “It is a less mountainous Tour than last year’s (which included 30 ascents), but that does not mean that it is less hard,” said Prudhomme, who with this tour insisted on his search for balance between climbers and rollers, and that warned about the harshness of the last week.
After the “hardest start in history”, 206 kilometers between Florence and Rimini that cross the Apennines in a totally rugged profile, the high mountains will arrive “earlier than ever” in a Tour, starting with the fourth stage that includes the ascent to the Galibier, whose summit is located 19 kilometers from the finish line of Valloire.
It will be the first of two visits to the French Alps, before descending to Burgundy, where the seventh stage proposes a 25-kilometer time trial between Nuits-Saint-Geroges and Gevrey-Chambertinwith a small but essentially flat elevation, suitable for specialists.
The tribute to General De Gaulle in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, where his tomb rests, will precede the unpaved roads in Champagne, in a stage starting and finishing in Troyes.
The classic
After the day of rest, the wind may be the protagonist of the tenth stage, the eve of an explosive day in the Massif Central, completely located between the volcanoes of Auvergne, with up to four climbs in its final stretch, the last, arriving at Le Lioran, with an average gradient of almost 6 percent.
A classic within the Tour that, after two days of transition, will land in the Pyrenees, with two high finishes, one in Saint-Lary-Soulan, after having ascended the Tourmalet and the Hourquette d’Ancizan, and another in the endless Plateau de Beille and its 15.8 kilometers at a 7.9% gradient.
Explosive finish A second rest and a flat day will take us back to the Alps, with two mid-mountain aperitifs in Superdévouly and Barcelonnette, before facing Isola 2,000 three days from the end.
First, they must climb the Bonette, a little-known pass that is reached by a road built exclusively to exceed 2,800 meters of altitude and which will be the summit of the edition.
Its 22.9 kilometers at 6.9% are also a nod to the late Federico Martín Bahamontes, the first cyclist to cross this pass in the lead, which has only been climbed five times.
The final action will take place around Nice, with a high mountain stage on the routes of the Paris-Nice and final on the Col de la Couillole, 15.7 kilometers at 7.1 percent, before the final time trial that will give the final touch to the final general classification. With two climbs, La Turbie (8.1 kilometers at 5.6 percent) and Éze (1.6 kilometers at 8.1 percent) will not allow the specialists’ watts to be unleashed, although its flat finish, in front of the Paseo de los Ingleses, does not allow it to be classified as a time trial.
(James Rodríguez, to Gerard Piqué’s Kings League: this will be his role)
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