for Christian Prudhomme, the 2025 Tour de France will “make kids dream”

If Christian Prudhomme readily admits “to being afraid of those who have no memory”, his ability to remember the smallest detail of the history of Cycling can be confusing. THE boss of the Tour de France for almost 20 years remembers countless stages, pages of the story of “the little queen”.

Cycling is in his skin. So when it comes to defending the Tour de France 2025 route for an hour, he does it with passion and a (claimed) desire to transmit the history of the Grande Boucle and more generally of cycling.

He embraces this way of conveying the legend of cycling, in a 2025 course in the form of a tribute to the tricolor glories of cycling. Maintaining the myth of the Tour: its priority. Christian Prudhomme granted, for an hour, an interview to actu.fr.

“The goal is to dream”

Actu : This route of the Tour de France 2025 is a bit of a sham, especially the first week. Wouldn’t it be one of the toughest Tours?

Christian Prudhomme: In essence, the Tour de France is always difficult. They are the best runners in the world in the biggest race in the world: that is what makes it legendary. The first week in trompe l’oeil, it is real. We are in the part of France where there are no mountains, but we have tracked down all the existing coasts to have the densest first week possible. The second stage in Boulogne, the fourth in Rouen, Normandy Switzerland and the Bocage reliefs, with 3,500 meters of altitude difference to arrive at Vire and finally, what has become a classic: the double passage of Mûr-de-Bretagne.

What’s the idea behind this tough first week?

C.P : There will inevitably be more opportunities for the punchers and (he insists, editor’s note) the favorites in the general classification, since what we want to do each year is to put the favorites shoulder to shoulder from the first days. So, this will be the case from the second stage on the road to Boulogne.

This is perhaps a somewhat “prudhommeque” route.

C.P : (He laughs.) I don’t know what that means, except that I remain a lover of the Tour de France and cycling. The goal is to dream in a certain way. In the first week, we are not looking for a gap, quite the contrary, but we want to see the main protagonists in the general classification, and also the favorites for the stage.

“The Tour is not anti-sprinters”

Is it difficult?

C.P : In recent years, we have realized that it is the most extreme percentages which mean that, at one point, it can attack. We don’t have a 10 km long pass above 1500 m in half of France. On the other hand, raiders can be found almost everywhere. We really went to track them down!

With six finishes dedicated to sprinters, is this the end of sprints on the Tour?

C.P : Certainly not. Afterwards, there is an obvious fact, the exponential increase in road developments, particularly in cities, but not only. Central reservations and sidewalk returns make sprint arrivals very complicated. For three years on the Tour, there have been two targeted cities and we don’t go there, because it’s too dangerous. After the Tour is not anti-sprinters. The proof is that the first stage in Lille is reserved for sprinters, with the opportunity to wear the yellow jersey. On the other hand, we have always fought against having four sprint stages following one another.

It is important for us that in the third week of the Tour, there are still at least two finishes made for the sprinters, to ensure that they stay until the end. And don’t give up just yet.

A “tribute to French cycling”

Is there not also a desire to always look for spectacle to meet the demands of a new audience today, where everything goes faster with social networks?

C.P : Obviously yes. We want it to be beautiful, to be breathtaking, to be spectacular. But it is not by hardening at all costs. This is by making sure not to have series of similar steps juxtaposed to each other. And, to the west of the diagonal which goes from the Basque Country to Alsace, there are no mountains, you have to look for something else. Hill climbs, cobblestones, white paths, time trials… You have to be able to break the rhythm. But it’s great to look for other things.

The stele of Jean Robic in Bonsecours, there is the homage to Bernard Hinault, the nod to Louison Bobet… This year, there are many nods to history in this route.

C.P : The homage to French cycling, in fact, was born on the Italian route last year. It was the first time we left Italy. Paradoxical considering this very great cycling country. We were on the roads of Bartali, originally from Florence, we passed by Coppi, etc. (only legends, editor’s note). We wanted to do the same thing in France in 2025. Especially since it is the 40th anniversary of the last victory of a Frenchman on the Tour, in this case Bernard Hinault. The multiple winners of the French Tour will, at one time or another, be pampered and highlighted on the course.

“If the Tour can give a little pride”

Between Netflix, influencers and these historical references, is there the desire to preserve transmission between generations?

C.P : Even before being the biggest cycling competition in the world, the Tour de France, it is an event that unites, that brings people together. You are never alone on the side of the Tour roads. We are with family, with our parents, grandparents, cousins, neighbors, friends and we meet people who come from different countries. There is no distinction of social class. So transmission is for me as important in the legend of the Tour de France as the champions. There is a myth bigger than sporting competition.

It plays into the journey, therefore.

C.P : It is of course the search for a sporting route, but it cannot be just that. It’s about going to places of history, to small villages where people feel abandoned. Thanks to the Tour de France and its dominant helicopter shot, they see the village, they hear its name on TV, on the radio. And they are proud. You know, in a country, when there is pride, everything is possible, in a good way. When there is no longer any pride, everything fragments, everything falls apart. So if the Tour can bring back a little pride, a little simple happiness…

“Nothing is stronger than the confrontation of champions”

You were talking about myth just before. Are you trying to build a new one with the Col de la Loze, which regularly returns to the route?

C.P : There is the desire that young people, children, kids dream of the Tour de France. As I dreamed of it. There are two things. We must ensure that the Galibier or the Pyrenees, these myths of history, remain. And besides that, we have to look for new places, passes that will be those of today’s kids. For it to get into people’s heads, you need repetition, the mayor of Chamrousse told me a few years ago. Because the Tour de France is a lasting event, and there must still be a Tour de France in 100 years.

For me, the Col de la Loze is the pass of the 21st century: there are breaks in slope that do not exist elsewhere in France, at that altitude. At more than 2300 meters, we are at 5%, we go to 17 or 18%, it’s phenomenal.

You are still helped a lot by the duel of recent years between Vingegaard and Pogacar.

C.P : Nothing is stronger than the confrontation of champions. You can do whatever you want: it’s nothing compared to the champions. Whatever we do, it’s either helped or hindered by the champions. Of course when we have champions who are capable of attacking from afar, and anywhere, we do it. Since Julian Alaphilippe in 2019, we have made sure, especially in the first week, to provide a platform that allows them to express themselves. We know today that what makes the difference are the high percentages. At that moment, we see the strongest.

So, when you trace the route of the Tour de France, you are also with the aim of helping, of supporting these confrontations?

C.P : We are never going to do a course for this or that runner. On the other hand, yes, for several years, we have been doing a course for punchers. There is no doubt about it. But in the punchers, you have classic riders and general classification riders together. It’s a wonderful opportunity. So obviously we make a route available to them.

“Leaving from abroad makes the Tour shine more”

With each presentation of the course, there are often critiques of the course, whatever it may be. How do you experience them, personally?

C.P : This is a false impression in my opinion. You will always find people who will say, “we should do this, we should do that”. These are not the people I meet. The Tour de France is not just one Tour de France. There is one the following year, there is another one after that, etc. As soon as it goes abroad, some people ask, “but what is this thing”? But most people who say that don’t know the history of the Tour de France. I ask them when was the first departure abroad? “Oh, 8-10 years ago.” It’s 1954, 70 years ago. When was the first arrival abroad? 1919, over 100 years ago. The first trip abroad? 1906.

Going from abroad further promotes the Tour and also France, on the sine qua non condition that we go to our villages, to Castelnau-Magnoac, to Antoine Dupont in the Pyrenees, to Rocamadour, to Châtillon-sur- Chalaronne, in Évaux-les-Bains in the Creuse. It’s this set that makes the Tour.

Interview carried out on December 13, 2024 with Edgard Chaumond.

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