The Tour de France’s race director, Christian Prudhomme, has strongly suggested that the era of the race always finishing in a bunch sprint on the Champs-Élysées in Paris is over.

Due to the Paris 2024 Olympics last year, the Tour finished on the Côte d’Azur with a time trial from Monaco to Nice. It was the first time ever that the final stage had taken place away from Paris.

This year, the Tour returns to the French capital, but it does so with a twist: though stage 21 finishes on the Champs-Élysées in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, the race has been inspired by the racing drama and huge crowds of the Paris Olympics road circuit and will now complete three laps of the Montmartre climb before reaching the famous cobbled boulevard.

This article was published by Cycling Weekly during the 2025 Tour de France. You can read the full article here.