Postponed to September this year due to the Olympic Games in Paris, the Tour d'Eure-et-Loir will return to its place in June, in 2025, with a 56th edition scheduled from the 13th to the 15th. But the event will lose its international status to become an Elite-Nationale again.
It's official, there will indeed be a 56th edition of the Tour d'Eure-et-Loir! Organized by the LEVES association (Leisure escape, Cycling and sports), the biggest cycling race in the department – excluding the start of Paris-Tours – will remain on the program next year. But this TEL 2025 will not be quite like the previous ones. Changes are indeed announced.
The first concerns the date. The event will thus return to its usual place in June after having been postponed to the end of September this year due to the Olympic Games in Paris (1). The Tour d'Eure-et-Loir will thus include three stages in three days, from Friday June 13 to Sunday June 15, with a final arrival in Chartres, the only certainty of a route currently being finalized.
premium Antoine L'Hote (Decathlon) wins the 55th edition of the Tour d'Eure-et-Loir, despite a hiccup in the final
But don't look for this TEL in the professional calendar of the UCI (International Cycling Union). It will not appear there. This is the main development revealed by the organizers, the race will lose the international character that it had since 2019, when the late Claude Montac relaunched it after two years of absence. The class 2.2 event will thus once again become an Elite – National, only registered on the French calendar.
The LEVES association fully accepts this strategic choice. “Being UCI cost us a lot of money, caused us a lot of constraints, and didn't bring much to the race,” said Jean-Claude Saulnier, president of the TEL organizing committee.
With continental teams
The substantial savings made (on a budget of some 200,000 euros) thanks to this “downgrading” should not have a big impact on the Tour d'Eure-et-Loir, according to the leaders of LEVES. The event will perhaps lose notoriety, but the level will not necessarily drop, imagine Jean-Claude Saulnier. “We will remain open to French continental teams (2) and we hope to welcome them alongside the DN1 and DN2, teams which often have nothing to envy of the foreign teams that come. »
Paris – Tours: Chartres will remain departure city until 2027!
In recent seasons, it has often been the French “teams” who have hosted the race. In 2019, the Dutchman Luuc Bugter, member of a Batavian team, won the general. Since then, it has always been a Frenchman from a French team who has won (3). Over the last three editions, only one representative of a foreign team, the Belgian Jasper Dejaegher (second in 2022), has reached the final podium. This year, you even had to go to 12th place in the ranking to find a rider from a team from another country…
Even with a field made up of 100% French teams, the TEL 2025 should therefore not lack interest. It will be up to the runners to animate it to make it thrilling.
1. The event resulted in a lack of security forces for other events.
2. Seven were counted in France this year.
3. Paul Penhoët (Groupama FDJ) in 2021, Samuel Leroux (Van Rysel-Roubaix) in 2022, Noa Isidore (CIC U Nantes Atlantique) in 2023 and Antoine L'Hote (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) this year.
Franck Thébault
