2024 Tour de France to close with rollercoaster TT over La Turbie and Col d’Eze

This article originally appeared on Velo News

A climbing individual time trial will close out the 2024 Tour de France, officials revealed Monday.

The 35km route will tackle the emblematic climbs of La Turbie and Col d’Eze as the route traces from Monaco to Nice along and above the sparkling Cote d’Azur.

“A dream finale on the French Riviera,” Tour officials posted a note on social media. “Les 20 et 21 juillet 2024, un week-end d’apotheose sur la Riviera!”

The details come as the 2024 edition of the Tour will finish beyond the Paris region for the first time in race history.

Officials also revealed that the penultimate stage will start in Nice and finish on the Cat. 1 Col de la Couillole, a climb featured in Paris-Nice won by the two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogacar.

The 2024 Tour will be full of milestones

The “grand depart” will be in Italy for the first time in race history, and the Cote d’Azur finale will also be a first to see the Tour finish beyond the environs of Paris since its inception.

The pair of stunning routes will set up the 2024 Tour for a climatic finale as the race tweaks its dates and finishing town to make room for the 2024 Olympic Games to be contested in Paris.

Here’s how officials described the 132km penultimate stage:

“There will be a Paris-Nice feel to it for, after rediscovering the Col de Braus, the peloton will tackle the climb to Col de Turini, where Egan Bernal wore the yellow jersey in 2019 as did Primoz Roglic in 2022,” officials said. “Riders familiar with the ‘Race to the Sun’ will then return to Col de La Colmiane, where Roglic also triumphed on his last visit in 2021. Going up, down and up again, climbers will finally battle it out on Col de la Couillole, which saw Richie Porte in 2017 and Tadej Pogacar in 2023 raise their arms.”

Monaco returns as the setting for a time trial. The last time was when it marked the departure of the 2009 Tour with an opening test against the clock.

“This time the main contenders will not be seeking the first yellow jersey of the edition but, much more importantly, the last,” officials said Monday. “It remains to be seen whether the GC positions at that stage will make it possible, probable or unrealistic for the most coveted outfit in cycling to change hands in the last stage of the Tour: Jan Janssen did it at the expense of Herman Van Springel in 1968; Greg LeMond to the dismay of Laurent Fignon in 1989; Cadel Evans quite logically against Andy Schleck in 2011; and most recently Tadej Pogacar in a battle between Slovenians against Primoz Roglic in 2020.

“The same two will perhaps face each other in 2024, possibly in the company of Danish, Belgian, Spanish or even French rivals,” officials said. “In this final 35.2-km effort, they will have to make the best of climbs familiar to the ‘Race to the Sun’ regulars. La Turbie and Col d'Eze feature on the route that will lead them swiftly to Nice and Place Massena.”

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