It was a secret that had been leaking for several weeks. The Tour de France, after three Grand Départs in a row from abroad (Copenhagen in 2022, Bilbao in 2023 and Florence next year) will set off from France in 2025. And it will return to the roads of the North, deserted since 2023 The Grande Boucle will start from Lille since the European Metropolis of Lille (MEL) has obtained the Grand Départ. A priori, the event should spend four days in the region and visit all the departments of Hauts-de-France before heading towards Brittany (where an uphill finish at Mûr-de-Bretagne appears essential) via Normandy.
The MEL would have spent around four million euros to afford this event. Damien Castelain, the president of the MEL, wants to organize one major sporting event per year. After the Rugby World Cup this year where several matches were played at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, part of the basketball and handball events for the 2024 Olympic Games will be played at the same location. For 2025, cycling will take over.
The MEL had already got the big start in 1994 with a prologue in the capital of Flanders, won by the Briton Chris Boardman. And already, four stages had been contested in Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
If nothing has yet been announced because the details will be delivered on November 30, it seems quite clear that the cobblestones will make their return, quite quickly in fact compared to the habits of the Tour: the riders had already been entitled to them in 2022 during the stage between Lille and Arenberg. The coastline should not be forgotten with a stage where windy passages are always highly sought after by ASO, the organizer of the Tour.
After the parenthesis of the final arrival in Nice in 2024 due to the Olympics, the event will end again on the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first arrival at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe.
