Ahead of the last stage of the 2025 Tour de France, one thing is certain: No one knows what to expect for the redesigned Paris finale.
The new-look final stage is now "more of a Classic," Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) said on Saturday. "It’s not really like a Classic race, it’s still quite short," Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) said.
Fifty years after the first time the Tour concluded on the Champs-Élysées, organizers have decided to shake things up for the 2025 Tour. Instead of a flat procession onto a flat circuit culminating in a flat sprint, this year's 21st Tour stage will make three trips up and over the Butte Montmartre, the iconic Parisian hill crowned by the famous Basilica of Sacré Coeur. In cycling terms, it is a Cat. 4 cobbled climb with an average gradient of 5.9% for 1.1 km.
A single visit to the ascent, used as part of the Paris Olympic road race course, might not trouble the sprinters, but three visits, the last of which comes about 6 km from the finish on the Champs-Élysées, will make things difficult for the fast finishers.
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