Final 2 Stages of the 2024 Men’s Tour de France Revealed
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For the first time in the long and storied history of cycling’s ultimate race, the men’s Tour de France will not finish in Paris, and for the first time since 1975, with a crit-style loop around the Champs-Élysées.
Rather, due to a conflict with next summer’s Paris Olympics, the 2024 edition of Le Tour will finish in Nice, along the French Riviera. We’ve known where next year’s Tour would end since an early-December announcement. But now we know exactly how it will end. That is, with a hilly, 35K time-trial stage from Monaco into Nice, race organizers announced on Monday.
In addition to announcing the final stage, Tour organizers unveiled the penultimate 20th stage, which will feature a summit finish on the Col de la Couillole, a 15.7K climb which averages 7.1 percent. It will be the fourth categorized climb of the stage and one that Tadej Pogačar, who will more than likely be a 2024 favorite, rode to a Paris-Nice victory just last weekend.
The Tour finishing away from Paris will be strange, no doubt, but those final two stages could very well provide for one of the most exciting Tour finishes in years, as, depending on how the 19 stages before it shake out, the penultimate stage could equalize the field in advance of the final time trial.
Unless the yellow jersey has built an insurmountable lead by then, a 35K time trial could mean we’re watching the 2024 Tour come down to its final day, which is a far cry from the typical race into Paris, which is traditionally ceremonial in regards to the General Classification standings.
In addition to finishing away from Paris, the 2024 Tour will also begin on new ground, as, for the first time ever, the Grand Départ will kick off in Italy with a brutal 205-km stage from Florence to Rimini. Stages two and three will also cover Italian ground before the peloton heads to France for the following few weeks.
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