After four years of absence, Alpe d’Huez will return to the Tour de France 2022 on July 14, the day after another hellish stage at the Col du Granon, according to the route presented Thursday in Paris, at nearly nine months from the start on July 1 in Copenhagen.

A sequence of cobblestones on the way back to the north of France, the Alps before the Pyrenees, a long time trial of 40 kilometers in the Lot on the eve of the arrival on the Champs-Elysées scheduled for July 24: several Highlights are identified in this 109th Tour which includes its share of novelties (three days in Denmark, the Pyrenean pass of Spandelles) and great classics.

Nostalgia, when you hold us… Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour, validated a vintage diptych recalling the 1986 edition when Bernard Hinault lost the yellow jersey at the Granon, during the only visit of the Tour to this site of high altitude at 2413 meters. The next day, the last Frenchman to appear on the list (1985) won at Alpe d’Huez, the Oisans resort, ahead of American Greg LeMond in one of the most memorable finishes of the Tour.

The Alps for Pogacar

For a few moments, Hinault, present in the amphitheater of the Palais des Congrès, looked almost 36 years younger when he saw on the screen the exact replica of the Alpe d’Huez stage (by the Galibier and the Iron Cross).

A few armchairs away, his distant successor, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, discovered the menu that awaits him on July 13 and 14: five out-of-category passes, including the Galibier climbed by its two sides, and two final climbs that will upset the classification established in the first ten days of racing.

For Pogacar, who is still unaware of these legendary climbs – Alpe d’Huez has not received the Tour since 2018 – the profile of the Alps can only be satisfactory, if it displays the same insolent superiority as in last July.

World champion Julian Alaphilippe also has every reason to rub his hands. As can the Belgian Wout van Aert and the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, the “incendiary” of the first part of the Tour 2021, marked by many falls.

Coincidence of the calendar, this presentation of the 2022 course coincided with the trial of the spectator who had caused a massive fall during the first stage of the last edition by brandishing a sign as the runners passed.

The flat stages of the first week are often typed punchers in the north-eastern quarter of France then in Switzerland during an incursion arriving in Lausanne, the city of the International Olympic Committee.

James Bond and the Marian Shrine

The following? It calls to the history of the Tour, thus the stage leading from Saint-Etienne to Mende where Laurent Jalabert had ignited the Tour 1995, and to history itself, with the break in front of the medieval city of Carcassonne before entering in the Pyrenees by the green Ariège and the unknown port of Lers.

The race returns to Peyragudes, five years after Romain Bardet’s victory at the top of the altiport which served as the setting for a James Bond (Tomorrow never dies), and to Hautacam, for the 6th time since 1994.

Coming out of the mountain, there is still a time trial, the second of this 109th Tour, to fix the definitive hierarchy near the Marian sanctuary of Rocamadour, one of the great sites of France in the Lot.

The second time, over a distance of 40 kilometers – the longest of a time trial since 2014 – comes on the eve of the finish in Paris. The next day, the riders will parade on the Champs-Elysées, a few hours after the competitors of the Tour de France Women, the first edition of which was presented by its director, the former champion of France Marion Rousse.

Christian Prudhomme, who stood by her side on the great Parisian stage, undoubtedly warned her of a lesson drawn from her experience: “No matter how carefully we put together the course, we never not write the Tour de France scenario by drawing a map. »