In 2023, the Tour de France will be place in a more hilly region than in previous years.
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| [Tour de France 2023 map/Twitter] |
As announced in Paris on Thursday, the 2023 Tour de France will begin on July 1 in Bilbao, Spain's Basque Country and conclude on July 23 in Paris's Champs Elysées. Passing through five of France's mountain ranges, the 110th edition of the Grande Boucle is sure to be a challenging event. The 100 meter dashers will each have eight shots to make their case. An individual time trial of 22 kilometers will be held in the Alps on the day after the second rest day of the Tour de France in 2023.
It has been announced that Bilbao, in the Basque Country autonomous community, will host the Grand Départ of the 110th Tour de France. Saint-Sébastien, another Spanish Basque city that served as the starting point for the 1992 Grande Boucle and will serve as the finishing point for the second stage this time around. Tour de France will return to French soil after three stages outside the Pyrenees, traveling through six regions and twenty-five departments. Twenty-one stages make up the 3,404-kilometer-long Tour de France 2023, with eight flat, four hilly, eight mountain (including four altitude finishes at Cauteret-Cambasque, Puy de Dôme, Grand Colombier, and Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc), and one alpine time trial. After 9 and 15 days of racing, two rest days are planned.
The Grande Boucle will tour 40 cities and towns in 2023, therefore there will be 12 new additions: Bilbao (1), Amorebieta-Etxano (2), Nogaro (4), Vulcania (10), Moulins (fl. 11), Belleville (fl. 12), Châtillon (fl. 13), Les Gets (fl. 15), Passy (16), Combloux (16), Poligny (st. 19), and the Markstein Fellering (st. 20). In order, the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura, the Alps, and the Vosges will all be traversed during the Tour de France 2023. There will be 30 passes, climbs, or altitude finishes in the race, each of which will be placed either second, first, or outside of category. The runners will have to overcome three new obstacles: the coast of Vivero in the Basque Country, the Col de la Croix Rosier in the Massif Central, and the Col du Feu in the Alps. After a hiatus of 35 years, the Puy de Dôme will once again be a prominent feature of the route (1988). When the Tour de France returns in 2023, the Col de la Loze's 2,304-meter altitude will be the race's highest point.
Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme emphasized, " The Tour 2023 will certainly be exhausting, but I want to specify that we will offer eight stages for sprinters. "On the other hand, sprinters need to be true men of the Tour and ride all the way to the finish line every time. There will be a total elevation gain of 3,300 meters in just the first stage. This kind of first-day increase is extremely rare. What we hope to convey is the Basque Country's love of cycling, its breathtaking scenery, and its challenging climbs ". Dane Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour de France in 2022, besting Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia and Geraint Thomas of Great Britain.