2024 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes unveiled
Both have foreign starts but the women get Alpe d'Huez on the final day
The routes of the 2024 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes were unveiled Wednesday at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. This is as close as the Tour will get to Paris, as the capitol is missed for the first time ever. The men’s race has more time trials than the 2023 version and gravel sections on Stage 9, while the women’s edition–half of it not even in France–includes a double stage on August 15 and ends with a battle on the mighty Alpe d’Huez. Both races are scheduled around the Paris Olympic Games, so the men’s race starts in Florence, Italy on Saturday, June 29 and ends three weeks later in Southern France in Nice on Sunday, July 21 with a time trial. The women’s eight stages roll from August 12 and August 18.
111th Tour de France
On June 29, the Italian leg begins with a climby affair of 206 km from Florence to Rimini. The climbs are shorter the next day but the sprinters might not get their chance until Stage 3 into Turin. France arrives the next day with a bang, as the Col du Galibier crests 19 km from the finish line in Valloire. After two more stages that favour the fast men, Stage 7 is a 25-km time trial with a climb in the middle. Before the first rest day, Stage 9 offers up 14 sectors of gravel totalling 32.2 km along 199 km around Troyes.
Week 2 of the 111th edition heads south to take on the Pyrenees, with action in the Massif Central along the way. The first major summit finish is Stage 14, finishing on Pla d’Adet after climbing the Col du Tourmalet and the Hourquette d’Ancizan in just 152 km. Stage 15, just before the last rest day, keeps up the pressure with another summit finish after 198 km and five climbs, the concluding one Plateau de Beille, 15 km of 7.9 percent.
Week 3 will be all about the Alps. Stage 17 has three main climbs, including the 8.4 percent Col du Noyer cresting 12 km from the finish at Super-Dévoluy. Stage 18 is no pushover, but it doesn’t have a dynamite summit finish like Stage 19’s conclusion on Isola 2000, 16.1 km of 7.1 percent. The final mountain day sets four ascents evenly across 133 km, Col de la Couillole the summit finish. The concluding time trial on July 21 starts in Monaco, climbing the gradual La Turbie (8.1 km at 5.6 percent) and then the steeper Col d’Eze (1.6 km at 8.1 percent) before a long but technical descent to Nice.
Tour de France Femmes
The women’s edition also has a foreign start, with a flat 124 km course from Rotterdam, the Netherlands to the Hague kicking things off on August 12. Stage 2 is the first half of the double day, another pan-flat 67 km from Dordrecht to Rotterdam before a 6.3-km Rotterdam chrono. Stage 4 is still not in France, but ends in Belgium. France finally arrives two-thirds of the way through 150 km from Bastogne to Amnéville on Stage 5. Stage 6 packs four climbs into the second half of 160 km. The penultimate day holds a two-step summit finish at the end of 167 km. The last day warms up the riders’ legs on the Col de Glandon before the second edition’s centrepiece scale of Alpe d’Huez.
