If yesterday it became official that the Tour de France, the most important cycling event of the year, would not end the traditional sprint through the Champs Elysées in Paris as it has rigorously done in its previous 110 editions, today it has been revealed what would be the Substitute final for “La Grande Boucle 2024”: An individual time trial in Nice, a city that we already knew would be the final destination instead of the French capital.
Due to the organization of the Olympic Games in Paris the same year, and for the first time since 1905, the French capital will exceptionally not be able to host the arrival of the Tour for logistical and security reasons. According to Le Parisien, the last stage of the 2024 Grande Boucle will take place in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais, a place of cycling tradition that has hosted the Tour 31 times and where Julian Alaphilippe already knows what it is to win a stage.
Despite the beauty of the last stage, with the walk along the Champs-Élysées, many fans do not like this way of closing the Tour due to the lack of competitiveness it offers. Rather, traditionally, the beauty of the sport staged in a setting as transcendent and epic as the Champs Elysées made up for the fact that the race was decided.
However, seeing the global disagreement of many purists, the organization is being forced to compensate for an atypical finish with a dose of competitiveness in the last breath of the race.
For this Tour like no other, organizers are planning a "fireworks-filled final weekend" with first, on Saturday, a "mountain-oriented" stage departing from Nice, explained Tour CEO Christian Prudhomme told AFP. Then, the next day, as the last battle, an individual trial against time.
It could be wonderful - in the absence of confirmation and as we advanced yesterday - that said mountain stage would be held at Mont Ventoux due to its proximity to Nice, a classic ascent that will not be there in 2023 and that is really demanding. There the favorite climbers will have to give everything to cut losses in the time trial and the sprinters try to play a good role. It may also happen that we reach those two stages with a tight general and that on that mountain some favorite loses time and another scratches seconds the next, making an individual time trial -which we hope will be long enough- runners like Ganna, Evenepoel, Pogacar or Vingegaard can dispute the general in that time trial with a superb performance compared to the others. It will be the first time the Tour has finished in a while since the legendary 1989 result when Laurent Fignon lost the yellow jersey by eight seconds, the smallest gap in history, against Greg Lemond.
