Tour de France 2024

The 2024 Tour de France will host a first Grand Départ in Italy along with gravel roads, several mountain tests and a first ever finish outside of Paris

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Tour de France

Dates 29 Jun - 21 Jul
Race Length 3,492 kms
Race Category Elite Men

Updated: January 29, 2024

Tour de France 2024 overview

The 2024 Tour de France will begin on Saturday 29 June, with a first-ever Grand Départ in Italy. The 111th edition of Le Tour will run until Sunday 21 July, finishing in Nice. It will be the first time in the race's history that it will finish outside of France's capital due to the Olympic Games.

The race will feature four summit finishes across the three weeks, at Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet and Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees before Isola 2000 and Col de la Couillole in the Alps. There are three further mountain days, four hilly stages, and eight stages for the sprinters to target.

Two time trials feature in the route too, with a 25km course on stage 7 and a 34km final stage time trial into Nice. It marks the first time that the Tour de France will conclude with a race against the clock since the iconic Fignon-LeMond battle in 1989.

Gravel also makes an appearance at the Tour for the first time in 2024, with 32km of Champagne region white gravel roads included in stage 9's parcours.

The full route for 2024's edition was unveiled by race organisers ASO on October 25 at Paris' Palais des Congrès.

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Tour de France 2024 key information

When is the Tour de France 2024? The 2024 edition of the Tour de France will start on Saturday 29 June and run until Sunday, 21 July.

Where does the Tour de France 2024 take place? The 2024 Tour de France starts in Italy for the opening three stages, before moving to France for the remainder. For the first time in the race’s history, it will finish outside Paris, due to the 2024 Olympic Games in the French capital, with Nice stepping in to host the finale. In between the Tour will make use of its two staple high-mountain ranges, the Alps and Pyrenees.

Who won the Tour de France in 2023? The 2023 edition was won by Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), with the Dane putting two-time winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) to the sword for the second year in a row. The contest was evenly-matched until the stage 16 time trial in the Alps, where Vingegaard blew the competition to smithereens.

How old is the Tour de France? The Tour Tour de France was first held in 1903. The 2024 edition is the 111th.

Who won the first Tour de France? Maurice Garin was the first ever winner of the Tour de France in 1903, winning the opening stage and holding the lead all the way through.

Who has the most wins at the Tour de France? Four riders stand at the top of the all-time honours list, with five victories each for Jacques Anqetuil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain They claimed their fifth titles, respectively, in 1964, 1974, 1985, 1995.

Tour de France 2024 route: Four summit finishes, two time trials and gravel roads

The 2024 Tour de France will feature four summit finishes, two time and some gravel roads after a testing start in Italy.

The route for the 111th edition of the race was officially unveiled to the world in Paris’ Palais des Congrès on October 25th by race organisers ASO.

An Italian Grand Départ for the first time ever was already known, so too were the race's final two stages, taking place around Nice as the traditional finish in Paris has been disrupted by the French capital gearing up for the Olympic Games. It marks the first finish outside Paris in the Tour de France's history.

Starting in Florence on June 29 and finishing, 21 stages and two rest days later, in Nice on July 21, the race will cover 3,405.6km, through Italy, San Marino, Monaco and France, with a total of 52,230m of elevation gain.

The race's mountain-heavy focus across the board is clear to see, with a hilly opening few days in Italy followed by a return to France with a bang. Stage 4 sees the race head north from Pinerolo in Italy and the only way is via the Alps. An early meeting with the Col du Galibier before a finish down in Valloire on stage 4 means the highest point in the 2024 Tour will come on the first day of racing on French soil.

Once that's tackled, the Tour de France heads north for a time trial and some gravel roads along France's eastern flank.

As the race enters its second half, back-to-back summit finishes await in the Pyrenees before the riders return to the Alps with finishes atop Isola 2000 and La Colmiane likely to play a deciding factor in the overall standings.

Even after the Alps are dealt with, a final stage individual time trial from Monaco to Nice still includes some climbing, with both La Turbie and Col d'Èze to be tackled before the three weeks can officially be drawn to a close and the winner crowned.

The 2024 Tour de France route will feature gravel for the first time

Despite the race actually featuring 4,170m less elevation gain that the 2023 edition, its bookend positioning is likely to keep the sprinters up at night. The 2024 Tour de France route will traverse four different mountain ranges over the three weeks, including the Apennines in Italy, both the Italian and French Alps, the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. Of the seven mountain stages, four of them will be summit finishes: Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet, Plateau de Beille, Isola 2000 and the Col de la Couillole.

Meanwhile, away from the climbing, there's an increase to the time trialling distance at the 2024 Tour de France. Compared to 110th edition's meagre serving of just 22km, there will be 59km against the clock in 2024 on stages 7 and 21. The first ITT is a 25km rolling test, whilst the final stage measures 34km from Monaco to Nice which includes the La Turbie and Col d’Eze climbs before a long descent back to the coast for a short run up and down the Promenade des Anglais to finish the Tour.

The sprinters will be buoyed by at least seven possible chances of glory, however they will first have to battle through the opening few days in the Apennines and Alps.

Arguably one of the most eye-catching days of the race will fall on stage 9, with 32km of white gravel roads included on the route that starts and finishes in Troyes. The hilly stage features 14 gravel sectors across its 199km distance, with the first arriving after 47km and the last just 10km from the line.

For a full look at the route, including a breakdown of each of the three weeks, head to our route announcement page.

Tour de France 2024 contenders: Vingegaard, Roglič, Evenepoel and surely Pogačar

Although the route has not yet been officially unveiled, it’s already clear that we will have a stellar cast of Grand Tour stars for the 2024 Tour de France. Jonas Vingegaard, winner of the past two editions is all but certain to return to go for the triple, and build his season around that target.

It’s also no secret that Primož Roglič, having won the Giro d’Italia last year and the Vuelta a España three times before that, has made the Tour the central ambition of what remains of his career. He has forced an exit from Jumbo-Visma precisely to make that happen, and will certainly lead the line for his new team Bora-Hansgrohe next July.

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) has also strongly indicated that 2024 is the time for his Tour de France debut, even if the Giro d’Italia’s hefty helping of time trialling might give him some cause for doubt. The 23-year-old Belgian won the Vuelta in 2022 but was forced out of this year’s Giro with COVID-19 before an off-day derailed his Vuelta, but he is eager to make the next step to the highest rung of Grand Tour riders.

There is a little more doubt surrounding the other member of the superstar tier of contenders, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who has been linked with a debut at the Giro. The Slovenian won the Tour twice in 2020 and 2021 but has been runner-up to Vingegaard for the past two years and, for a rider so keen on variety, 2024 may well be the time to shake things up. Even if he did the Giro, it’s unlikely UAE would let him miss the Tour entirely. Whether he could win both is another matter – no one has done it since Marco Pantani in 1998.

Ineos Grenadiers won seven yellow jerseys in the nine years from 2012 to 2019, but have fallen from their perch and don’t appear to have a rider on the same level of those listed above, with Carlos Rodríguez and possibly Geraint Thomas to carry the torch.

Which teams are racing the Tour de France 2024?

The 2024 Tour de France will comprise 22 teams, 18 of which are the WorldTour teams, and two of which are set to be the automatically-invited top two second-division ProTeams. That leaves two wildcard slots for the organisers to grant to teams of their choosing.

AG2R Citroën
Alpecin-Deceuninck
Arkéa Samsic
Astana Qazaqstan
Bahrain Victorious
Bora-Hansgrohe
Cofidis
dsm-firmenich
EF Education-EasyPost
Groupama-FDJ
Ineos Grenadiers
Intermarché-Circus-Wanty
Jayco AlUla
Jumbo-Visma
Lidl-Trek
Movistar
Soudal-Quick Step
UAE Team Emirates
Lotto Dstny (if they take up their invite)
Israel-Premier Tech (if they take up their invite)
Wildcard invite (TBC)
Wildcard invite (TBC)

Tour de France jerseys

As well as 21 stage wins, there are also four distinctive jerseys up for grabs at the Tour de France, with each of the four awarded to a rider at the end of each stage, before the ultimate winner is crowned at the end of the race.

The jersey winners at the 2023 Tour de France

Yellow jersey (maillot jaune) – worn by the leader of the general classification, the rider with the lowest overall time.

Polka dot jersey (maillot à pois) – worn by the leader of the mountains classification, with points awarded on all categorised climbs.

Green jersey (maillot vert) – worn by the leader of the points classification, which is based on finishing positions on all road stages. This is often a sprinter.

White jersey (maillot blanc) – worn by the best young rider, being 25 or under, on the general classification.

Additional classifications: There is a teams classification, where the riders of the leading team wear yellow dossards (bib numbers), and a combativity prize, where the boldest rider from the previous stage wears a red dossard, with an overall combativity award presented at the end.

What happened at the Tour de France 2023?

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) won the 2023 Tour de France, claiming his second straight yellow jersey after another entertaining battle with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)

Vingegaard landed the first real blow, gaining over a minute on the first Pyrenrean stage in the opening week, but Pogačar hit back the very next day, dropping Vingegaard en route to stage victory at Cauterets. The pair were locked in battle throughout the second week, with Pogačar the chief aggressor on the Puy de Dome, Grand Colombier, and the Col de Joux Plane that preceded the finish in Morzine.

However, he could not shake Vingegaard, and he was knocked for six on the opening day of the final week as the Dane produced one of the most stunning time trial displays in recent memory, taking more than 90 seconds on the hilly TT in the Alps. This time, Pogačar could not fight back, and he fell apart the next day on the tough stage over the Col de la Loze to Courchevel, falling to more than seven minutes down.

There was one final kick-back, as Pogačar won the penultimate stage on the Markstein, but Vingegaard was sailing by that point, and rode into Paris to seal his second Tour de France title.

The green jersey was won by Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who won four sprint stages, while the polka-dot mountains jersey was won by Lidl-Trek’s Italian Giulio Ciccone. Pogačar was the best young rider in his last year of eligibility, while Jumbo-Visma topped the teams classification.

Tour de France history

This maiden Tour started in Montgeron and finished in Paris, visiting Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes along the way. Many of the stages in this first edition exceeded 400km in length, forcing riders to race throughout the night. The home favourite, Maurice Garin, won this inaugural edition and in doing so etched his name into the cycling history books. The Frenchman, affectionately known as ‘The Little Chimney Sweep’, won the first edition by a massive margin of two hours, 59 minutes and 21 seconds - the largest ever winning margin in the history of the race.

In the editions that followed the race snowballed in popularity and soon inspired similar races elsewhere in Europe, most notably in Italy with the Giro d’Italia. During these early years Desgrange toyed with the race’s format and in 1910 he sent the race on its first foray into the Pyrenees, setting a precedent that would remain for nearly every edition since.

He changed the race once again in the 30s when he introduced the concept of national teams, forcing riders to race for their countries rather than their trade teams. After a brief hiatus during World War II the race returned in 1947 under the control of a new chief organiser, Jacques Goddet. Goddet orchestrated the race up until 1986, slowly moulding it into the three-week race we all know and love today.

Over these post-war years, each decade has been dominated by a different rider - their names almost as famous as the Tour itself. Jacques Anquetil dominated during the 60s, Eddy Merckx the 70s, Bernard Hinault the 80s and Miguel Indurain the 90s. These four riders also share the record for the largest number of wins, having won five overall titles apiece.

France dominates the winners list in this race, with 36 wins from 109 editions. Despite topping this list, the home nation has failed to win since 1985 when Hinault took his fifth and final overall title. Several Frenchman have come close over the years - most recently Romain Bardet who placed second in 2016 - but none have managed to bring home the coveted yellow jersey and end the 38-year drought.

It’s France’s sporting rivals, Great Britain, who dominated the race during the last decade. Since 2012, British riders have taken six overall titles with three different riders - Bradley Wiggins (2012), Chris Froome (2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017) and Geraint Thomas (2018). All three of these riders rode for Team Sky during their Tour-winning years, a team that dominated the Grand Tours for the best part of a decade. In 2019 they won their seventh Tour title in just eight years, with the young Colombian, Egan Bernal.

The British team, however, have fallen from their perch, with UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma usurping them in the UCI rankings and sharing the past four Tours between them. The Vingegaard-Pogačar rivalry has served up a thrilling modern chapter of the Tour de France, and witg Evenepoel and Roglič joining the fray from different angles, the 2024 edition promises to be a blockbuster.

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