The Tour 2024 will not end up in Paris for the first time in history. The French Government asked the race months ago to sacrifice the Champs Elysées, for security reasons and organizational issues, since five days after the end of the French round the Olympic Games will begin, which, in addition and unlike previous events, will have a marked street character.
The news was advanced on Wednesday by ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ and confirmed this Thursday to THE NEWSPAPER by French sources of all solvency. The city designated to host the end of the Grande Boucle in 2024 will be Nicesurely on the famous Promenade des Anglais, the place where the Paris-Nice (also organized by the Tour) ends and where the first stage of the 2020 French round started and finished, moved to the end of August due to of the covid pandemic.
The failures of Saint-Dennis
The decision, according to the sources consulted, was already taken long before the security breaches that occurred during the Champions League final, on Saturday May 28, when a large group of Liverpool fans tried to access the Saint-Germain stadium. Dennis without a ticket, a situation that provoked a questionable police response.
However, those security flaws, which french authorities cannot be allowed during the Games, have reinforced the decision to move the end of the Tour to the capital of the Côte d’Azur. The test, considered the best cycling race and one of the main world sporting events, which are held annually, has always ended in Paris, since it was created in 1903aside from the years of suspension motivated by the two great wars of the last century.
The Eiffel Tower
The 2024 Tour will start on Saturday June 29 and will end the sunday july 21, five days before the curtain rises on the Olympic Games in the French capital. The center of the city, by those dates, will already be completely closed and dedicated to the assembly of the various urban structures that will serve to host a good part of the Olympic competition that will be held in key points and monuments in Paris, instead of the typical scenarios common as sports centers, football stadiums and sports halls.
The ‘banishment’ from the Tour is further reinforced by the fact that the saturday july 27just six days after the end of the test, the Olympic cycling race will be held, which will end under the Eiffel Tower and will therefore force the closure of streets in the center of Paris, some of the usual ones of the Tour, to host to the platoon of runners, cyclists who will stay in France once the Grande Boucle is over.
Departure from Florence
The ‘Gazzetta’ also announced that the 2024 Tour will start in florencein what will be the first time that the test begins in Italy, in homage to various myths of transalpine cycling such as Ottavio Bottecchia (assassinated by the fascists, on the centenary of his first victory in Paris), Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi Y Marco Pantani. This point has also been confirmed to this newspaper by French sources.
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On July 20, 1975, in the first of two victories by Bernard Thevenetthe race came for the first time to the Elysian Fields. Until then he always finished at the Parc des Princes velodrome where they celebrated his victories, among others, Federico Martin Bahamontes (1959) and Luis Ocana (1973).
In 2023 the Tour will depart from Bilbao to cover three stages through the Basque Country before entering France. This year – in 22 days – the test begins in Copenhagen. In both cases, to maintain tradition, the end of the festival will be held on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.