The organization of the Tour de France announced that Lille, the city in the north of France, will host the grand start in 2025 after four years, after the starts in 2022 in Copenhagen, in 2023 in Bilbao and with the start confirmed in Florence in 2024.
Lille will be a major start of the Tour for the third time after the city hosted the starts of the French round in its 1960 and 1994 editions, with victory in the prologue for Chris Boardman. In addition, it will mark the return of the city to the Tour map eleven years after the arrival in 2014 with victory for the German Marcel Kittel.
The Tour de France has also confirmed that on November 30 at the Charles de Gaulle Hall of the Northern Prefecture of Lille, it will hold the presentation event of this great start and the route of the first stages of the 2025 edition.
A few days in which the pavés could be presented as the protagonist given the proximity of Lille to some of the cobblestone areas through which the Paris-Roubaix runs, and which would mean the return of the pavés to the Tour de France after its inclusion in 2022 in the stage on the way to the Arenberg Forest.
After a success in every sense and with an economic impact of 103.9 million euros from the Grand Departure of the Tour de France in the Basque Country, France will once again recover its historic race.
With this announcement, it is ruled out that Barcelona will be the venue for the start of the 2025 Tour. The Catalan city could have welcomed the start, as was discussed earlier this year after the meeting between Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France, with Jaume Collboni and David Escudé.
Thus, the Olympic city will have to wait for later editions to repeat the success of events such as the 1992 Olympic Games.
Source: Diario AS