The Tour de France organisers have confirmed the longstanding rumours that the 2026 Grand Départ might be in Barcelona, with the race to be current within the metropolis for a interval of three days.
The Catalan capital will host the race from July 4-6, 2026. It’s been reported that stage 1 might be run off fully throughout the bounds of town, and that stage 2 can even begin and end in Barcelona. After one other begin within the metropolis on stage 3, the Tour then heads in direction of extra acquainted terrain in France.
Negotiations for what would be the fourth overseas Tour de France begin in 5 years haven’t been fast-moving, though as early as Might, it was already being reported as all however a completed deal by native media.
The definitive affirmation from ASO got here on Tuesday, adopted by a ceremony in Barcelona’s city corridor. Town will comply with Copenhagen in 2022, Bilbao in 2023, Firenze in 2024 and Lille in 2025 because the Grand Départ for males’s biking’s largest bike race.
Barcelona has already hosted the opening stage of the Vuelta a España in 1962 and 2023. Final yr, the opening stage of the Vuelta was an early night staff time trial that was partly overshadowed by controversy regarding inadequate illumination when the race route was unexpectedly affected by heavy rainshowers and cloud cowl, whereas the automated road lighting, not timed to be activated earlier than full darkness, failed to change itself on.
That was adopted up by a stage 2 end in Barcelona’s Montjuic Park, broadly seen because the epicentre of town’s well-established relationship with street racing, and which Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme hinted strongly on Tuesday would possible function within the 2026 Tour’s go to as nicely.
Lengthy the host to one of many last one-day races of the season, the now defunct Subida a Montjuic – received six instances by Eddy Merckx – your entire ending circuit of the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya has all the time been held in Montjuic and it usually options on levels held by the Vuelta as nicely. Montjuic was additionally the place the 1973 World Championships and biking occasions within the 1992 Olympic Video games – each street and monitor – befell.
Barcelona itself has been visited by the Tour de France 3 times prior to now, most not too long ago 2009, with an uphill bunch dash stage win for Thor Hushovd. The following day’s stage, ending in Andorra at Ordino-Arcalis, additionally started in Barcelona.
The primary time the Tour reached Barcelona was in 1957, with three levels both beginning and ending there, together with a person time trial received by French legend Jacques Anquetil, who went on to assert the primary of 5 general victories. In 1963, town witnessed an epic solo victory for native star José Pérez Francés.
The Tour’s begin in 2026 will coincide – barring last-minute delays – with the long-awaited completion of certainly one of Barcelona’s best-known non secular monuments, the Sagrada Familia cathedral, on which work started again in 1882.
“We love the massive cities, be they French or overseas,” race director Christian Prudhomme informed L’Équipe. “However provided that we additionally proceed to go to the smallest locations, the villages in France, too. That’s non-negotiable. Barcelona had the political will to do it, but in addition a sporting curiosity due to Montjuic.”
