Tour De France Spectator Guide

Enthused by the brilliant unpredictability of this year’s Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme is pushing for a repeat by serving up a route that encourages boldness and makes it difficult for one team to impose control

In his prelude to the unveiling of the 2020 Tour de France route, race director Christian Prudhomme evoked the “emotion” of the 2019 edition, highlighting “the return of daring” and hailing the new generation of riders “who are winning by thrilling”. Minutes later, he presented those riders, notably the likes of Egan Bernal and Julian Alaphilippe, with a route that suits their strengths, which essentially encourages them to produce a show of cycling pyrotechnics very much like the one we all reveled in so much this summer.

In his dozen years as the Tour’s top man, Prudhomme and his canny route director, Thierry Gouvenou, have stressed their desire to innovate in an attempt to break established racing strategies. The 107th Tour is very much in keeping with that philosophy. It features novelties, such as the stunningly beautiful but fearsome 2,304-metre summit finish on the Col de la Loze, and a new take on established Tour battlegrounds, including the summit finish on the Puy Mary in the Massif Central and the wholly unexpected time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles. Their desire to innovate could be dismissed as gimmickry but is soundly underpinned by the one element that everyone wants to see in a great sporting event: unpredictability.