Pogacar seeks century as Tour de France returns to its roots

PARIS - The Tour de France embarks on Saturday with superstar Tadej Pogacar's hunger for wins sharing top billing with the magnificent 3,338-kilometre route in the first edition since 2020 not to venture abroad.

After starts in Florence, Bilbao and Copenhagen, cycling's most prestigious race returns to its roots with an old school itinerary favouring climbers.

"We decided to bring the Tour home, it was high time after all the foreign starts," said race director Christian Prudhomme.

Every inch of this year's 21-day course is on French soil, for the first time since the pandemic-delayed edition, with most of the country placed on a heatwave alert in the week leading up to the race.

Temperatures in the south of France topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Sunday, with large swathes of the country bracing for similar conditions in the coming days.

The heatwave is expected to subside by the end of the week, but riders will still be tested to their limits over the peaks and plains of France lauded in cycling folklore as "the world's most beautiful stadium".

"Great settings for great heroes," said Prudhomme, a former TV executive who has transformed the race into a global extravaganza broadcast in 190 countries.

For 21 days this July, the daily doings of this most arduous of sporting struggles provides the drumbeat of summer, with armchair tourists and cycling fanatics alike tuning in around the world.

Team UAE's Pogacar starts as red-hot favourite with fans and bookmakers alike, and he can silence any remaining doubters by beating arch-rival Jonas Vingegaard of Visma.

American former champion Greg LeMond told AFP in a recent interview it would be a close call.

"Pogacar is like the one in a million, but you can't count Vingegaard out. That's what's making cycling so exciting right now," said LeMond, who won the Tour de France in 1986, 1989 and 1990.

Glimpses of Pogacar and Vingegaard going head-to-head on the Alpine slopes or along the panoramic roads of the French Riviera provide tension, drama and sporting rivalry as enthralling as any involving the old-time legends.

Ready to attack at the slightest provocation, the 26-year-old Pogacar has 21 chances to add to his jaw-dropping 99 professional wins.

MISSION CLARITY

Vingegaard tends to focus on a single-mission strategy, awaiting one big moment to spring a deeply considered killer move at a meticulously chosen spot.

Vingegaard's Visma team boss Grischa Niermann confirmed this week he believed in the plan he has made for the Tour de France.

"We think we can get the best possible result."

The pair have won the past five editions of the Tour de France between them and should be increasingly in the spotlight as the race advances.

A total of 184 riders from 23 teams will gather in Lille for the Grand Depart, with local authorities preparing for a massive influx of fans from nearby cycling-mad Belgium.

And aggressive, hotly contested battles for the right to the overall leader's yellow jersey are expected in the opening stages, as are huge roadside crowds of several hundred thousand each day.

Belgian star Remco Evenepoel will be well supported as the first week takes in the north coast at Dunkirk and Caen, scenes of ferocious fighting in World War II, before shifting to another cycling heartland in Brittany with its verdant, rolling roads.

The volcanoes of the Puy de Dome present the first mountains as late as stage 10, with two more colossal climb days in the Pyrenees before the blockbuster final week in the Alps.

But before any dash towards the eventual finish line on the Champs-Elysees there is one final twist.

A last-minute addition to the 2025 route is a nod to the 2024 Olympic Games road race, which drew vast crowds to the old Parisian neighbourhood of Montmartre.

On the final day a cauldron of noise up the narrow cobbled climb to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica provides one final obstacle, after which the winner will be crowned.