Tour de France route presenatation was taking place in Paris Congress Hall at October 25, 2018. Next year the Tour will have its 106th edition and will be held from June 6 to June 28. The race will be dedicated to two events:
- 100 years of Yellow jersey
- 50 years of Eddy Merckx victory.
Because of the second point the start of the race (Grand depart) will be in Brussels (Belgium). There will be two stages on the Belgium territory. The first with start and finish in Brussels will be almost fkat but includes famous climb from Tour of Flanders - Muur van Geraardsbergen. Also during first stage the race will visit Woluwe-Saint-Pierre - the place, where Eddy Merckx wore yellow jersey at the first time. The second stage - 27 km. team trial race from Royal Palace of Brussels to Atomium.
The third and fourth stages are good for sprinters. At the fifth stage, riders will drive close to the Vosges - in the last 60 kilometers of the distance there are 3 hills, each more than 500 meters high. The sixth stage will be the first mountainous: 3 mountains with height over 1000 meters, including the finish at the La Planche des Belles Filles with the gravel section with 20% gradient in the end of it.
The seventh stage is flat and the most long on the route - 230 km. First week will be finished with 2 hilly and one flat stage. It is interesting that racers will have first rest day on Tuesday but not on Monda asa usual. It means that first week will be long (10 stages) and the second one - very short - just 5 stages6 among them: 1 flat, 1 individual time trial and 3 mountain stages. ITT will take plae on June 19 - the birtday of yellow jersey. The next day there will be a stage with finish on legendary Col du Tourmalet that is first over 2000 meters finish in the route.
Traditionally the most interesting and decisive events will take place last week in the Alps, where riders will have to find strongest among them during 3 difficult mountain stages in a row. The eighteenth stage (207 km !!!) is with the finish in Valoire and passing through Col de Vars (2109 m.), Col d’Izoard (2360 m.) and legendary Col du Galibier (2640 m.). The nineteenth stage will be held almost completely at an altitude of more than 1000 meters and will include the highest point of the route - Col de l’Iseran (2770 m.) with the finish on top of Tignes (2113 m.). The twentieth stage will traditionally become the last stage where race participants will be able to fight for the victory. Riders are expected the 25-kilometer climb to a height of 2,200 meters with the finish at Val Thorens. The last twentieth first stage probably will be a stage of friendship with the sprint finish on the Champs Elysees.
Totally during the whole route racers will go through 3460 km on 7 flat stages, 5 hilly, 7 mountain and 2 time trial. At the each finish excluding time trial winners will get bonifications: 10, 6 and 4 secons for top-3. Also organisers decided to save bonus finishes where top-3 cyclists will receive 3, 2 and 1 bonus seconds. But there is a difference with the previous Tour. This year bonus finishes were placed not far away from flat stages finishes, next uear they will be situated at the top if some hills.
General director of the Tour de France Christian Prudhommesaid that organisers were going to apply to UCI with 2 points. The first - organisers are going to ask UCI to restrict powermeters during the race. As they think it will make race more live and less predictive. The second point the want UCI to increase the number of bonus seconds because for today there is a 3-second limit for bonuses.
Cyclists - leaders, who were present at the presentation, noted the difficulty of the route as there are many mountains on it. Chris Froome and Tom Dumolin said that they would be happy if the length of the time trial racers was more. Froome also said that large number of high-latitude kilometers would be an advantage for cyclists who lived at altitude, for example, for Colombian Nairo Quintana.
Briefly saying the next year’s route will be one of the most difficult in recent years, but also very specific - to win the Tour you have to be the best mountain racer, the organizers tried to decrease possible accidents by eliminating possible dangerous sections from the route.
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