MONTMARTRE MIX-UP

A hilly finale will replace the usual procession of the Tour de France's 21st stage in Paris... ..Tom Davidson asks riders if it's what they really want

- Tom Davidson

They knew the crowds would be big, but nobody expected quite so many people. On Rue Lepic, a narrow, cobbled climb that bends up into Paris’s Montmarte district, fans stood 10 deep on the pavement, tilting on their tiptoes to watch the men’s Olympic road race fly by. More than half a million people gathered by the roadside in the French capital. The artist’s quarter, where tourists typically come for caricatures, carafes of red wine, and an unspoiled view across the city, was flooded with cycling fans. They shouted so loud, and so close to the peloton, that the riders could feel the air of their cries on their faces. It was a carnival in full swing. The organisers of the Tour de France, ASO, watched on with envy from their headquarters in the southwest of the city.

“That race in Montmartre struck us all,” the Tour’s route designer, Thierry Gouvenou, told The Athletic. “In our dreams, or in the dreams of our director, [Christian] Prudhomme, there was a desire to change the last stage a little bit.” The festival scenes from the Paris Olympics inspired a “turning point”, Gouvenou explained. A plan was soon hatched. The Tour would get in on the fun.