The Tour de France 2024 begins on Saturday 29 June and marks the 111th edition of cycling’s flagship race. In the first Grand Départ for Italy, the race starts in Florence and traces a path east across the country, before heading back west towards France and into the Alps.
The riders will also take on the Apennines, Massif Central and Pyrenees mountain ranges, and pass through Italy, San Marino, Monaco and France.
With Paris busy preparing for the Olympic Games in August there will be no room for the Tour de France’s traditional final stage finish on the Champs-Elysées. Instead the race will finish in Nice – the first time it has ever finished outside the capital.
The world’s best riders are set to vie for overall victory, with newly crowned Giro d’Italia winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) due to take on Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) – both of whom are currently returning from injury – and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe).
The three-week event is the second in the trio of Grand Tours, coming after the Giro d’Italia and before the Vuelta a España.
Route map showing the stages of the Tour de France 2024 (Image credit: ASO/Tour de France)
One for the climbers, the 2024 Tour de France route incorporates four summit finishes, spans four mountain ranges, and features the hilliest opening stage in Tour de France history.
One of the most interesting and intriguing routes of recent years, sitting between the predominantly hilly week one and week three sits a flatter week two, and stage nine – with an abundance of white roads; 14 sectors in total.
There’s plenty for the sprinters as well as the general classification and climbing specialists, although there are going to be some tough mountains to get over to reach the sprint stages, and to finish the three weeks.
For the first time in 35 years, a final day time trial means the yellow jersey won’t be decided on the penultimate day.
Tour de France 2024 route: Stage-by-stage
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Stage
Date
Start
Finish
Distance
Terrain
Stage one
29 June
Florence (Italy)
Rimini (Italy)
206km
Hilly
Stage two
30 June
Cesenatico (Italy)
Bologne (Italy)
200km
Hilly
Stage three
1 July
Piacenza (Italy)
Turin (Italy)
229km
Flat
Stage four
2 July
Pinerolo (Italy)
Valloire (France)
138km
Mountains
Stage five
3 July
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne
Saint-Vulbas
177km
Hilly
Stage six
4 July
Mâcon
Dijon
163km
Flat
Stage seven
5 July
Nuits-Saint-Georges
Gevrey-Chambertin
25km
ITT
Stage eight
6 July
Semur-en-Auxois
Colombey-les-Deux-Églises
176km
Flat
Stage nine
7 July
Troyes
Troyes
199km
Hilly/Gravel
Stage ten
9 July
Orléans
Saint-Amand-Montrond
187km
Flat
Stage 11
10 July
Évaux-les-Bains
Le Lioran
211km
Medium mountains
Stage 12
11 July
Aurillac
Villeneuve-sur-Lot
204km
Flat
Stage 13
12 July
Agen
Pau
171km
Flat
Stage 14
13 July
Pau
Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet
152km
Mountains
Stage 15
14 July
Loudenvielle
Plateau de Beille
198km
Mountains
Stage 16
16 July
Gruissan
Nîmes
187km
Flat
Stage 17
17 July
Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux
Superdévoluy
178km
Mountains
Stage 18
18 July
Gap
Barcelonnette
179km
Hilly
Stage 19
19 July
Embrun
Isola 2000
145km
Mountains
Stage 20
20 July
Nice
Col de la Couillole
133km
Mountains
Stage 21
21 July
Monaco
Nice
34km
ITT
Tour de France 2024: The teams
The best pro riders in the world will line up at the start of the Tour de France 2024 (Image credit: Getty Images)
There will be 22 teams of eight riders at the 2024 Tour de France. This includes all 18 UCI WorldTour teams, as well as the two best-ranked UCI ProTeams, and two further squads invited by the organiser, ASO.
Tour de France 2024: General classification riders
Pogačar and Vingegaard climbing the Saint-Gervais Mont-Blanc (Image credit: Getty Images)
When it comes to potential yellow jersey winners, there are four riders due to take the start line in Florence on June 29.
The quartet comprises Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who has just won the Giro d’Italia; Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike), and Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard is the only rider over whom hangs a significant questions mark for the race. Along with Roglič and Evenepoel, he came down in a nasty crash on stage four of the Itzulia Basque Country in April. All were injured but the Dane came off worst, and he only began riding outside in May. All three will still go, but it is not known how well they will perform.
Following the route announcement in October, Tadej Pogačar said that the “end of the journey makes me smile”, with the final two stages starting and finishing close to his home in Monaco. Pogačar is hoping to take back the top step in 2024 after two years of missing out on yellow to Vingegaard. The Slovenian won the Giro earlier this year.
Remco Evenepoel will make his Tour de France debut in 2024. Although he took a win in 2022 at the Vuelta, his performance in other Grand Tour races has been either inconsistent or blighted by illness. If he’s to compete against the likes of Vingegaard and Pogačar, he’ll have to up his game. After coming 5th overall and taking a stage win in his Tour debut in 2023, Carlos Rodríguez will lead Ineos Grenadiers.
Tour de France 2024: Sprinters
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It’s going to be a tough year for the sprinters. Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Deceuninck was one of the star men of last year’s Tour de France, taking four stage wins and the green sprinter’s jersey at the end of the three weeks. He has had a fine season so far, with a win at Milan-San Remo and second at Paris-Roubaix and is likely to be the rider to beat at the Tour.
Like Philipsen, Mads Pederson of Trek-Segafredo has enjoyed a successful early season, with a win at Gent-Wevelgem and (unlike Philipsen) a hatful of sprint victories. He’s likely to be the Belgian’s main rival in the bunch finishes.
All eyes will be on Mark Cavendish in the 111th Tour de France after he postponed retirement to target the Tour win record, currently shared with Eddy Merckx, and gain his 35th win. He said, however, that he was “in shock” and that this was the “toughest course” he had ever seen, when it was revealed in October.
Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) and Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich-PostNL) are also set to be there and should challenge for wins.
Tour de France 2024: On TV
As you’d expect the Tour de France will be avialable to watch in a lot of places this July.
The race is expected to be live-streamed on Discovery+ and Eurosport, as well as ITV4, in the UK and in Europe. Subscription costs are £6.99/month or $8.99/month, and £39.99 or $49.99 for a year.
A Flobikes annual subscription will cost you $209.99 if you want to watch in Canada, while in the USA NBC Sports via Peacock Premium ($4.99 per month) will show the race. Australians can can watch the Tour for free on SBS on Demand.
And, of course, if you want to watch your local stream from anywhere in the world you’ll need a VPN from a trusted company like ExpressVPN.
Tour de France: The jerseys
The yellow jersey is the most coveted at the Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)
Much like every year in recent memory, the Tour de France jerseys and classifications are yellow for the overall leader, green for the leader in the points standings, polka-dot for the mountain classification, and white for the best young rider.
Along with the jersey prizes, there is an award for the most combative rider of each stage, with the winner wearing a red number on the following day. This is awarded each day, with a ‘Super Combativity’ award decided by a jury at the end of the race for the most active rider throughout the entire event.
There is also a team classification where the time of the first three riders from each team is put together to create a single time. This is then done in a similar way as the individual general classification.
In addition, there are plenty of bonus seconds up for grabs at the race. There are ten, six and four bonus seconds available at the end of each stage for the first three riders, as well as bonus sprints that are dotted throughout the race on key climbs to try and make the racing more entertaining for spectators.
Of course, there’s also prize money up for grabs. For winning the 2023 edition of the race, Jonas Vingegaard collected €535,220 (£463,100), a sum which is customarily shared out among the team’s riders and staff.
Tour de France past winners in the last 12 years
Tour de France FAQ
How does the Tour de France work?
The Tour de France is one of a trio of races that are three weeks long, known as the Grand Tours, alongside the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. The Tour is the best known and arguably the most prestigious.
It is the second of the three races in the calendar with the Giro taking place in May, the Tour usually in July, and the Vuelta in August and September.
The Tour, like all Grand Tours, takes on varying terrain with flat days for sprinters, hilly days for puncheurs and mountains for the climbers and GC riders, along with time trials, so that a winner of the race has to be able to perform on all types of road.
The main prize in the race, known as the general classification, is based on time with the overall leader wearing the yellow jersey. The race leader and eventual winner is the rider who has the lowest accumulated time over the 21 days of racing. Riders can win the Tour de France without winning a stage, as Chris Froome did in 2017. Time bonuses of 10, six, and four seconds are given to stage winners though, creating incentive for those general classification riders to chase individual victories and lower their overall time.
In 2020 it took race winner Tadej Pogačar 87 hours 20 minutes and 5 seconds to complete the race with the second-place rider overall 59 seconds slower. That continues all the way down to the last place rider, which was Roger Kluge (Lotto-Soudal) who finished 6 hours 7 minutes and 2 seconds behind.
The white best young rider’s jersey is worked out in the same way but only riders under the age of 26 are eligible for the jersey.
The polka-dot mountains jersey and the green points jersey are based on a points system and not time. The only reason time would come into account would be if riders are tied on points, then it would go to who is the best placed in the general classification.
The team classification is based on the general classification times of the first three riders of a team on each stage. The time of those three riders is added up and put onto their team’s time, creating a GC list much like in the individual classifications. The leading team gets to wear yellow numbers and helmets on each stage.
The final classification available is the combativity prize. This is decided by a race jury or, in more recent years, Twitter. This takes place just before the end of each stage and often goes to a rider from the breakaway who has put in a daring performance or attempted to liven up the stage by attacking. The winner of the combativity award gets to wear a special red race number on the following day’s stage.
There is a final prize added to this with the Super Combativity prize being awarded on the podium in Paris. This is decided in a similar fashion to pick out the most aggressive, entertaining, and daring rider of the whole three weeks. Again, usually going to a rider who has featured regularly in the breakaway.
Stage winners do not wear anything special the day after apart from getting a small yellow jersey to stick on their number on their bike, this can be replaced if they win multiple stages.
Teams used to come to the race with nine riders but the UCI, cycling’s governing body, decided that nine riders from each team was too dangerous and dropped it to eight, however more teams now take part.
How long is the Tour de France?
The Tour de France takes place over 23 days with 21 of them being race days. The riders get two days of resting; they usually fall on the second and third Monday of the race.
This year’s race is 3,492km long, which is 2,170 miles, around the same distance from Washington DC to Las Vegas, or Helsinki to Lisbon.
Road stages can range from anything around 100km to something approaching 250km, sometimes more. This year the shortest road stage is stage 20, from Nice to Col de la Couillole, with the longest being 229km on stage three in Italy, from Plaisance to Turin.
Road stages often take around four to five hours with the longer days sometimes nudging over seven hours.
Time trials are always much shorter. Team time trials have long since gone out of fashion in the world of road racing so individual time trials are the main focus these days.
In 2024, the Tour has two individual time trials for the riders to tackle, the first on stage seven at 25km long from Nuits-Saint-Georges to Gevrey-Chambertin, and the second on the final stage from Monaco to Nice, at 34km long.
When does the Tour de France start?
The 2024 Tour de France starts on June 29 in Florence, Italy, with a road stage. There will be three full stages in Italy, before the fourth heads into France. The race finishes in Nice three weeks later.
The 2024 edition of the race runs from 29 June – 21 July, covering 21 stages.
