the final time trial will start from Monaco
The organizers of the Tour de France unveiled this Saturday the start city of the last stage of the Tour de France 2024. It will be an individual time trial between Monaco and Nice.
The last time was in 1989. For just eight seconds, Laurent Fignon lost the yellow jersey to American Greg Lemond, between Versailles and the Champs-Elysées. A time that has remained legendary and a trauma in the history of tricolor sport. Thirty-five years later, the Tour de France will again end with an individual time trial. But this time not in Île-de-France.
Elevation and “at least 30km”
In 2024, the last stage will leave from Monaco to arrive in Nice. The director of the Tour, Christian Prudhomme, announced it this Saturday alongside Prince Albert II of Monaco, without giving more details on the route or the length of the stage. The only clue: there will be “a drop, and it will be at least 30 kilometers long” according to Prudhomme, seduced by the prestigious aspect of an arrival in Nice and a passage in Monaco, which had to be up to it de Paris, but also by the competitive aspect of this time trial.
The general classification could actually be decided on this final stage, which will take place on July 21, 2024, if the differences are not too large. “More interesting for the spectators than the traditional parade without challenge, as magnificent as it is, on the Champs-Elysées” underlined the boss of the Tour. Prince Albert II of Monaco said he was “delighted” to return to the Tour fifteen years after his last visit to the Principality (big start in Monaco during the 2009 edition), “a great pride”.
With the exception of the first two editions in 1903 and 1904, which arrived in Ville d’Avray (Hauts-de-Seine), the Tour de France has so far always ended in Paris. First at the Parc des Princes (from 1906 to 1967), then at the Cipale velodrome (1968 to 1975) and since 1975 on the mythical avenue des Champs-Elysées.