2025 Tour de France adds Montmartre suspense to final stage
AFP | Paris
The 2025 Tour de France will make three circuits of the historic Paris district of Montmartre on its last stage in what organisers said yesterday would add a competitive finale to the world's greatest bike race.
The new format of the final stage on July 27 is unlikely to decide who wins the 21-day race, but it adds a new edge to the traditional parade-like ending.
The riders will race a total of 16.8km in Montmartre before the peloton heads to the Champs-Elysees where it will complete three circuits, instead of the previous eight, and end with a mass sprint in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe.
Around half a million spectators gathered last year for the 2024 Paris Olympics road races, sparking a clamour for the Tour to include Montmartre in its route.
The circuit climbs Rue Lepic in Montmartre, where much of the action in the hit 2001 movie 'Amelie' takes place, before the steep ascent to the domed Sacre Coeur Basilica.
'It was kind of now or never,' Paris' assistant mayor Pierre Rabadan told AFP. 'The goal wasn't to change the finish location, especially for the 50th anniversary of the first finish on the Champs-Elysees, but to make the final stage more competitive and more popular.'
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