One of the three Grand Tours in cycling, the Tour de France (or simply Le Tour) is the most important bike race in the world. The other two Grand Tours are the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. The Tour de France is a three-week-long, very demanding endurance race that has 21 distinct stages. The 2024 edition will take place from Saturday 29 June to Sunday 21 July.
In it, the best all-around riders in cycling compete across a wide range of terrains for the honor of being named race champion. As is becoming more common, the 111th edition of the Tour will begin in a different country in 2024.
Over the last ten years, the Grand Départ has been held in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, and Germany; in 2024, it will be held in Florence, the capital of the Tuscany region of Italy. A processional into Paris and a sprint finish on the Champs-Élysées have always marked the end of the Tour. Unfortunately, the 2024 Olympics will be staged in Paris simultaneously, forcing race organizers ASO (Amaury Sports Organisation) to rethink the race route.
As a result, the Tour will no longer start on the Champs-Élysées on stage 21. With a lead of seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds, Jonas Vingegaard of team Jumbo-Visma successfully defended his yellow shirt in the 110th edition. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-Quick-Step is supposedly aiming for the 2024 Tour de France, but he hasn’t confirmed if he will defend his championship for a third year in a row.
Tour de France History
The 111th edition of the Tour de France will take place in 2024. The race began in 1903. With only two hiatuses over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Tour de France quickly ascended to the status of a preeminent cycling event and is currently among the most watched athletic events globally. Although the Tour has evolved greatly since its inception, its core purpose has remained unchanged: to challenge riders to their physical and emotional limits.
Winning the Tour, whether overall or on stage, is generally a career-defining event for riders due to the race’s prominence. On the other hand, there are a few riders whose legendary exploits have changed the course of the Tour and who have won the general classification more than once. The riders Miguel Indurain (1991–1995), Bernard Hinault (1978–1985), Eddy Merckx (1969–1974), and Jacques Anquetil (1957–1964) all have five Tour victories amongst them. Indurain is the only rider to win his championships in five consecutive years. Before his championships were removed in 2012 due to his doping confession, American Lance Armstrong held the record with seven.
Between 2013 and 2017, Chris Froome won four consecutive Tour de France overalls, making him the first rider in the modern era to accomplish this feat.
British rider Mark Cavendish, who is without a doubt the most successful sprinter in Tour de France history, tied Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage victories in 2019. Before retiring at the conclusion of the year, Cavendish tried to claim this record by winning a final stage. Unfortunately, he crashed on stage eight and damaged his collarbone; thus, he had to withdraw from the race.
Other categories include Peter Sagan’s record-breaking seven green jersey triumphs and Richard Virenque’s polka-dotted King of the Mountains jersey, both held by retired French rider Richard Virenque.
Recent Tour de France winners
2023 – Jonas Vinegaard, Jumbo-Visma
2022 – Jonas Vingegaard, Jumbo-Visma
2021 – Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates
2020 – Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates
2019 – Egan Bernal, Team Ineos
2018 – Geraint Thomas, Team Sky
2017 – Chris Froome, Team Sky
2016 – Chris Froome, Team Sky
2015 – Chris Froome, Team Sky
2014 – Vincenzo Nibali, Astana ProTeam
Tour de France 2024 Races
Tour de France 2024 – Saturday 29 June to Sunday 21 July
Route stage 1: Florence – Rimini
Route stage 2: Cesenatico – Bologna
Route stage 3: Piacenza – Turin
Route stage 4: Pinerolo – Valloire
Route stage 5: Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne – Saint-Vulbas
Route stage 6: Mâcon – Dijon
Route stage 7: Nuits-Saint-Georges – Gevrey-Chambertin
Route stage 8: Semur-en-Auxois – Colombey-les-Deux-Églises
Route stage 9: Troyes – Troyes
Route stage 10: Orléans – Saint-Amand-Monrond
Route stage 11: Evaux-les-Bains – Le Lioran
Route stage 12: Aurillac – Villeneuve-sur-Lot
Route stage 13: Agen – Pau
Route stage 14: Pau – Pla d’Adet
Route stage 15: Loudenvielle – Plateau de Beille
Route stage 16: Gruissan – Nîmes
Route stage 17: Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux – Superdévoluy
Route stage 18: Gap – Barcelonnette
Route stage 19: Embrun – Isola 2000
Route stage 20: Nice – Col de la Couillole
Route stage 21: Monaco – Nice
Our Predictions – Top three contenders
Tadej Pogačar
Slovenian cyclist Pogačar will compete in the Giro for the first time in 2024 before taking on the Tour de France. Pogačar will prioritize stage racing and training for the combined endurance effort of the Giro and Tour, disregarding reports of a simplified Giro course. He has a busy March schedule that includes the Volta a Catalunya, Strade Bianche, and Milan-San Remo. In April, he will be racing at altitude. Instead of racing nonstop throughout the Spring, Pogačar may find that riding the Giro is a more dependable method to train for the Tour. Pogačar could be able to get an advantage over his competitors due to the easier Giro course and mountain stages in the first week.
Jonas Vingegaard
With the exception of replacing Paris-Nice with Tirreno-Adriatico, Jonas Vingegaard’s 2024 Tour de France program is quite identical to his 2023 season. His Visma-Lease A Bike team is able to warm up in a pleasant environment at O Gran Camiño in Galicia, where he begins the season. Itzulia Basque Country is a place Vingegaard is no stranger to; he dominated there in 2021.
With Evenepoel and Roglič probably taking part, this time around, the competition is anticipated to be more fierce. Going back to the Dauphiné for a fourth year in a row is Vingegaard’s last tactic for the Tour. Wout van Aert’s decision to compete in the Giro rather than the Tour is the most significant alteration to his supporting cast for 2024. After winning the Vuelta, Sepp Kuss’s deployment is still up in the air.
Remco Evenepoel
Despite winning the overall championship in the 2022 Vuelta a España, the 23-year-old racer Remco Evenepoel is not given enough credit in the sport. Similar to Wayne Rooney, Evenepoel reached the highest level while still a youngster and competed against two giants, Pogačar and Vingegaard. The Vuelta, two world championships, and two Liège-Bastogne-Liège triumphs are among Evenepoel’s fifty victories before he turned 24.
The 2024 season is supposed to be Evenepoel’s most successful to date, but he is being criticized more than any Belgian star since Eddy Merckx. The gravity of the moment is likely to overwhelm him despite his extensive preparation for the limelight.
The Figueira Champions Classic and the Volta ao Algarve are Evenepoel’s first races of the season in Portugal, where he is well-known. Before racing the Ardennes Classics in March in pursuit of a third consecutive Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory, he debuts in the Paris-Nice. Before the Ardennes Classics in 2024 and the start of the Tour de France and the Olympics in early May, he intends to train at altitude.
Among the four main Tour contenders, Evenepoel’s limitations are the most mysterious. Even though he had a disastrous day without food at last year’s Vuelta, the 2023 Evenepoel was noticeably better than his 2022 vintage on several occasions, and he certainly had the opportunity to develop, particularly in races lasting three weeks.