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The relative calm of the highway low season was interrupted Tuesday with the pageantry and projections for the largest weeks to return on the 2025 racing calendar – the 112th version of the Tour de France and the fourth version for the Tour de France Femmes.
The official route presentation for each the boys’s and girls’s Grand Excursions has grow to be one of many largest days of the non-racing season, as notable riders from the boys’s and girls’s skilled peloton gathered on the Palais des Congres in central Paris to absorb the video shows, host group feedback and organiser evaluation for brand new terrain and returning challenges.
Sturdy applause greeted the introduction of many French riders in attendance, with the loudest refrain sounding for retiring rider and a nine-time nationwide champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Well being).
Evita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ), who was fourth on GC finally yr’s Tour de France Femmes, sat close by. Belgian Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal) was in attendance, as she gained the polka-dot jersey and one stage on the Tour de France Femmes this previous August.
There have been additionally Romain Grégoire and Olympic silver medallist Valentin Madouas (each Groupama-FDJ), Lenny Martinez, who will transfer from Groupama to Bahrain-Victorious subsequent season. The house crowd was additionally handled to 2 French riders who gained phases on the Tour final yr, Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) and Kevin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Resorts).
4 achieved sprinters have been in attendance, led by all-time Tour stage winner Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), who is ready to retire on the finish of this yr. He eclipsed the report held by Eddy Merckx and captured his historic thirty fifth stage victory in Saint Vulbas in July.
“It’s been nice. Issues haven’t modified that a lot, I’ve been using my bike, spending time with my youngsters, I simply haven’t been shouting in races anymore. I’ve been travelling, been busy, been on vacation – it was the primary time I might actually take pleasure in a vacation,” Cavendish stated when he took the stage.
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“Like each rider who’s ridden the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, you end it and assume ‘I’m by no means doing that once more’ and a few days later you miss it and lengthy for the excitement.”
Rising expertise Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) was within the viewers. He gained the inexperienced jersey at this yr’s Tour because of a haul of three stage wins amongst his eight high 10s. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), a nine-time stage winner and former factors champion on the Tour, and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla), who gained his sixth stage on the Tour final yr, have been there as effectively.
The French workforce, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, was represented by Sam Bennett, a two-time stage winner and factors classification winner from 2020. From Uno-X Mobility have been Magnus Cort, one other two-time Tour stage winner, and four-time stage winner Alexander Kristoff.
Lacking from the occasion have been current previous champions of the Grand Excursions – Tadej Pogačar (UAE Workforce Emirates) on the boys’s aspect and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) on the ladies’s aspect. It’s the low season in any case.
Routes
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As soon as race administrators Christian Prudhomme and Marion Rousse took centre stage, it was time to amp up the proceedings. For the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift route, Rousse confirmed the race will happen over 9 phases – up from eight and over the UCI restrict – with the beginning in Brittany.
She then revealed the brand new info, that there could be no time trialling and the race would transfer from medium mountains within the Massif Central to the ultimate three phases within the Alps. The finale would go over the well-known Col de Joux Aircraft, then the Col de Corbier and end in Chatel.
The primary summit end could be on the penultimate stage and was probably the most essential day of racing, with main elevation acquire and the summit end on the Col de la Madeleine.
“What you see is that the Tour as a complete is tougher than earlier years – we’ve made a step up. So we’ve designed the route with the thought of eager to placed on one thing harder. From the Thursday to the Sunday it’s both medium- or high-mountain phases,” Rousse stated.
From the cross-country route reveal for the ladies, Prudhomme introduced, “It’s time”, after which went immediately into the boys’s route, which was already recognized to have the Grand Depart in north-east France in Lille.
There could be 10 uninterrupted phases within the opening week, as stage 10 would happen on the nationwide vacation, Bastille Day, taking the peloton into the Massif Central. There could be three climbing days within the second week, together with Hautacam on stage 12, a mountain time trial on stage 13 and a trio of monster climbs on stage 14 – Tourmalet, Apsin, and Peyresourde.
The third and closing week begins with the end atop Mont Ventoux, which was final a stage end in 2013, and in addition options Alpine climbs on stage 19 with that end on La Plagne. Then it’s again to Paris for the Champs Élysées finale, returning after the departure final yr for the Olympic Video games.
The primary half of this yr’s Tour has a good quantity of punchy terrain however the second half of the race is all concerning the mountains, with two time trials totalling 44km positioned within the center.
“We now have a flat opening week however it’s deceiving to the attention. For 15 years we’ve appeared to place difficulties among the many flat, however right here we accomplish that in a scientific method, with 4 finishes made for the puncheurs within the opening week. Then the second a part of the Tour de France we launch into the mountains,” Prudhomme informed the group.
“Final yr, for me, the very best stage was the one within the Massif Central. The division of the Puy de Dome is all the time spectacular. For us, the Pyrenees and the Alps are indispensable, however what we’ve wished to do and to point out is that the race can play out elsewhere.”
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