Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 4:18 p.m.
Absent from the last three editions, Mont Ventoux should make its return to the Tour de France program in 2025.
With just over a month to go until the announcement of the 2025 Tour de France route, which will take place on October 29, the route is being revealed a little more each day. We already knew that this 112th edition of the Grande Boucle will start in Lille and return to the Champs-Elysées, after a finish relocated to Nice this year due to the Paris Olympic Games. This is also the first Tour whose Grand Départ takes place in France since Brest in 2021. According to Ouest-France, this start in Hauts-de-France will be followed by a passage in Normandy, then Brittany. And La Voix du Nord even believes that Rouen will be one of the stopover cities.
Mont Ventoux “at 99.9%”
But what about the mountains? If a rumor mentioned a passage in Italy, at Colle delle Finestre, it has not been confirmed. On the other hand, the Tour de France riders should climb Mont Ventoux. On Friday, Dominique Santoni, president of the Vaucluse department, was very affirmative, as reported by the daily newspaper La Marseillaise. “There is a very strong chance that we will have the Tour de France next year,” she declared, even adding that it was “99.9%” a done deal.
First summit arrival since 2013?
It is not yet known whether the stage in question will finish at the top of the legendary summit. The last time the Tour passed there was in 2021, with two passes at the top of Mont Ventoux, the first of which was led by Julian Alaphilippe, while Wout van Aert won at the finish in Malaucène. The 12th stage of the 2016 edition was supposed to finish there, but it was ultimately shortened due to wind gusts of over 100 kilometres/hour. We therefore have to go back more than 10 years, to 2013, to find evidence of a finish at Mont Ventoux. It was Chris Froome, on his way to the first of his four Tour titles, who won.
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