That Nice is the final of the 2024 Tour ends something very sacred
Presented with the Tour 2024, beware that we are facing something historic, so much so that it has never happened in this sport, since its inception: the Grande Boucle will not end in Paris, it will end in Nice.
Since 1903, with the pause of the World Wars and the delay of the pandemic, the Tour had always ended in Paris…
But next year it lands in Nice, in the city of the Côte d’Azur, which is symbolically positioned in that very French race to know which is its second capital, whether Lille, whether Marseille, whether Lyon… well, in July 2024, with the end of the Tour in place, the most Italian city in the hexagon will host the end of the best sporting event that France offers to the world.
It will be a few days before the Olympic Games start in Paris, which is why the race ends in the south.
Over time, we have seen the great classics that have changed the place of departure and arrival, we see that the races that start in Paris, for example, have not left Paris capital for a long time, even the Paris-Tours went to the beautiful Chartres to take the exit.
Lombardy swaps its arrivals, Flanders changes its routes, the World Cup is traveling, Giro y Vuelta do not always end in Milan and Madrid, but the Tour always ends in Paris, a certainty that will have a precedent for change.
As I say, Nice takes over without being the second city in France but it is in the top 5, surpassed by the capital plus Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse.
The Boulevard des Anglais supplanted the Champs Elysées
Almost nothing.
The beauty of the promenade parallel to the Mediterranean, with pebble beaches down there, will have the focus of everyone, in an end to the party that promises to be beautiful, since the area surrounding Nice, including the controversial Monaco, where they live a few cyclists, it is made for cycling.
Hosting the end of Paris-Nice, on unpleasant Sundays in March, has nothing in common with hosting the epilogue of the Tour de France in July.
It even has its meaning, well Nice and the Côte d’Azur are very important enclaves in the history of tourism as we know it.and visiting it in summer is even ideal.
It will be the end to an edition that I like in its beginning, development and end.
27A Florence-Nice could have been one of those classics from the mid-20th century, in a few months they are the beginning and end of the best competition.
The time trial finish is recovered 35 years after the last precedent between Lemond and Fignon in the most iconic edition of the modern era of the Tour.
In short, we have lost a myth, a dogma, something so immovable that only the Olympic Games can achieve.
The 2024 Tour will not end in Paris for the first time, after 121 years of race history.
Image: ASO/Bruno Bade
2023-10-30 23:02:14
#Pidcock #day #Strade..
