The 113th edition of the Boucle has been presented: over 54,000 meters of elevation gain, a single 26 km individual time trial. The race starts in Spain with a team time trial
The 2026 Tour de France was unveiled this morning at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, together with the Tour de France Femmes. First of all, the dates: July 4 to 26, covering 3,333 kilometers. Grand departure from Barcelona: the 27th ever from abroad (in 113 editions, the first in 1903), the third from Spain. Barcelona will host an inaugural 19-kilometer team time trial – the presentation will be on Thursday, July 2, in the shadow of the Sagrada Familia – which will include two climbs up Montjuic and in which the final individual times will count towards the classification. The finish line will also be in Barcelona in the second stage, then the Pyrenees will arrive fairly early but will not be decisive: the race will tackle all the main mountain ranges in France, including the Massif Central, the Vosges, the Jura, and the Alps.
That said, there will be a new uphill finish for the Tour at the Plateau de Solaison, and there will be only one individual time trial (stage 16, 26 km from Evian les Bains to Thonon Les Bains), the key point will be Alpe d’Huez, which will be the uphill finish of both the third-to-last and penultimate stages: in particular, Saturday, July 25, will be the finale of a stage with 5,600 meters of elevation gain that will also include the Galibier. It will be a Tour that will be decided on the climbs: over 54,000 meters of total elevation gain. As for the last stage, the 2025 route has been confirmed with the Montmartre climb (as in the 2024 Paris Games), although the last pass will be 15 km from the finish line on the Champs-Élysées and not 6 km. There will be 23 teams of 8 riders each at the start, for a total of 184. In detail, there will be 7 flat stages, 4 hilly stages, 8 mountain stages with 5 uphill finishes, 1 team time trial, and 1 individual time trial. Interesting fact: Barcelona will become the first city in the world to have hosted the World Cup, the Olympics, the America’s Cup, and the grand start of the Tour. As for the most eagerly awaited protagonists, Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, they were not in the room, but considering that in the last 5 editions they have always finished either first or second, theirs promises to be the most eagerly awaited duel in 2026 as well.
