The Tour de France organisers have confirmed the longstanding rumours that the 2026 Grand Départ will likely 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 will likely be run off fully inside the bounds of the town, and that stage 2 may even begin and end in Barcelona. After one other begin within the metropolis on stage 3, the Tour then heads in the direction of extra acquainted terrain in France.
Negotiations for what would be the fourth international 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 achieved deal by native media.
The definitive affirmation from ASO got here on Tuesday, adopted by a ceremony in Barcelona’s city corridor. The town will observe Copenhagen in 2022, Bilbao in 2023, Firenze in 2024 and Lille in 2025 because the Grand Départ for males’s biking’s greatest 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 workforce 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 avenue lighting, not timed to be activated earlier than full darkness, failed to modify itself on.
That was adopted up by a stage 2 end in Barcelona’s Montjuic Park, extensively seen because the epicentre of the town’s well-established relationship with street racing, and which Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme hinted strongly on Tuesday would probably characteristic within the 2026 Tour’s go to as effectively.
Lengthy the host to one of many closing one-day races of the season, the now defunct Subida a Montjuic – received six occasions by Eddy Merckx – the complete ending circuit of the final stage of the Volta a Catalunya has at all times been held in Montjuic and it usually options on levels held by the Vuelta as effectively. Montjuic was additionally the place the 1973 World Championships and biking occasions within the 1992 Olympic Video games – each street and monitor – happened.
Barcelona itself has been visited by the Tour de France thrice up to now, most just lately 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 say the primary of 5 general victories. In 1963, the 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 one in every 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 international,” race director Christian Prudhomme advised 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 additionally a sporting curiosity due to Montjuic.”
