When the Paris Olympics led Tour de France organizers to take the final stage of the race to Nice last year, the move left the sport’s top sprinters without a shot at a prized stage win on the Champs-Élysées, but at least the fast finishers could look forward to a return to Paris for the Tour finale in 2025.
According to Le Parisien this week, however, the sprint specialists may have to endure more disappointment this year, and the Olympics are at least partially to blame yet again. The French newspaper reports that Tour de France organizer ASO is considering sending stage 21 of the 2025 Tour up and over the Montmartre climb in a circuit reminiscent of the Olympic course. While the stage would still finish on the Champs rather than in the Trocadéro, it’s anyone’s guess whether the sprinters would still be in the bunch by the time the race hits the straightaway, especially if the field does three laps of the circuit as initially proposed.
For now, the plan is still in its infancy. Le Parisien reports that the ASO has submitted documentation to the Paris Police Prefecture requesting permission for a stage that would take three trips up the Montmartre climb to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. The proposed route would skip the traditional laps that pass other Paris landmarks like the Arc de Triomphe but would still end on the Champs-Élysées, 50 years after the Tour first finished on the iconic avenue.
According to Le Parisien, the Police Prefecture has raised issues with the potential plan, which would apparently require substantial resources to set up barriers on the course and could block off traffic in the area for up to three days. In other words, it is still very much uncertain whether the Tour finale will actually take on the Montmartre climb.
But if it does come to pass, it will mean significant ramifications for the racing, which could be great if you like seeing puncheurs battling it out, but less great if you prefer the more sprinter-friendly run-in to the Tour de France finish line that has been the norm for decades.
Given the punchy nature of the Butte Montmartre, about a kilometer of climbing at 6.5 percent, the sprinters would have their work cut out for them trying to survive through to the finish if the race does ultimately go that way. The climb was the centerpiece of an Olympic road race circuit that saw big attacks from the likes of Mathieu van der Poel before Remco Evenepoel dropped the field en route to a solo win last July. If it’s anywhere near the finish of the race, the circuit could set up a finale more like Milan-San Remo, where the sprinters desperately try to cling to the bunch as escape artists try to leave them behind.
In recent years – an era where attacking riders consistently win the sport’s biggest events – the sprinters have had less and less success in pursuit of that goal at San Remo. Jasper Philipsen hung on last year to win the Italian Monument, albeit benefiting from the ace teamwork of Van der Poel.
In any case, Philipsen, Tim Merlier, and the other heavier riders at the top of the sprinter pecking order are unlikely to be pleased with the additional obstacle standing between them and glory on the Champs. The same could be said for the traditionalists who have grown accustomed to the sprint-friendly finale, which – except for the 1989 time trial – has featured in every Tour since 1975 until last year’s trip to Nice. That version of the Tour’s final stage is often seen as a sort of World Championships for sprinters, at least outside of years where the actual UCI Road World Championships course favors their skillset.
Then again, the idea of a Tour finale with little bearing on the general classification has always had its detractors. In terms of entertainment value, the processional start leading into a sprint finish so often set up by the traditional route is not exactly the nail-biting conclusion that, say, the final stage of 1989 Tour was. Thanks to Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon, that year’s time trial finale managed to be among the most thrilling stages in Tour history. The only other notable, final-day GC change in recent history was 2005, when Alexandre Vinokourov’s surprise solo breakaway stage win saw him jump over Levi Leipheimer for fifth overall.
While margins in the Tour’s overall standings are rarely small enough that a climb of Montmartre’s size would have that much of an impact on the GC, it would at least increase the chances for intrigue while also opening up the stage victory to a whole different class of riders. That class of riders also happens to include most of the sport’s biggest stars of the moment: The aforementioned Evenepoel and Van der Poel, as well as Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert, would all likely be among the favorites to solo to victory on such a stage.
Given that two of the those four could also be battling for yellow in July, three trips up the Butte Montmartre could make for an especially spicy conclusion to the Tour. On that note, one could also argue that the current field of sprinters – those riders most likely to be left feeling wronged by being sent up Montmartre over and over again – does not quite have the same star power as fields of the past.
Gone are the days of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, and Andre Greipel battling it out amongst themselves for sprint supremacy. Today’s sprint fields are much more wide-open, which can make things less predictable and therefore more entertaining (see: Jordi Meeus), but it also means that, with rare exceptions like Biniam Girmay, the current crop of top speedsters don’t draw quite as much fan engagement as their predecessors.
All told, then, the inclusion of a punchy circuit in the Tour finale could very well attract more interest in what is otherwise usually a less riveting affair, at least until the last few minutes. It’s hard to argue that a more entertaining product, particularly as the race rides past legions of fans in the biggest city in France, could be beneficial for the Tour and the sport – but not everyone would be happy with the change.
If the ASO does ultimately redesign its final stage to give the Pogačars and Evenepoels of the world another chance to shine, spare a thought for the fastest finishers in the bunch and their fans.
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