The finish line of the 111th edition will be set up in Place Masséna, Nice, a few pedal strokes from the Promenade des Anglais. It will be the first time that the Tour de France draws to a close far from its home in Paris. However, even before this unprecedented move, the finish of the Grande Boucle had already wandered the Parisian streetscapes and woven the race into the history of several venues. In a four-part series, letour.fr is looking back on the context and highlights of the finishes in Ville-d'Avray, the Parc des Princes, La Cipale Velodrome and, since 1975, the Champs-Élysées.
Photos from Presse Sports
A feast fit for a Cannibal (III/IV)
Back when it was held at the velodrome in the Parc des Princes, the finish of the Tour used to take place on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. However, the decision to get rid of its track in 1967 left the organisers with no choice but to move to eastern Paris and set up camp in the Bois de Vincennes. Vincennes Municipal Velodrome had been virtually mothballed after hosting the Olympic events at the 1900 and 1924 Games, but its track was up to the standards required to host the finish of the Grande Boucle at the time. The new venue was a bit more cramped than its sorely missed predecessor, but the sporting department worked hard to prepare a time trial to wrap up the first arrival at "La Cipale". Little did they know that Jan Janssen, who had struggled to fire up fans after Raymond Poulidor crashed and eventually bowed out of the race, was ready to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the final stage of the 1968 edition. The 55.2 km course between Melun and Paris set the scene for a thrilling race against the clock, with the Dutchman a mere 16 seconds behind the yellow jersey, Herman Vanspringel, and a total of nine riders within two and a half minutes. The timer at the finish did not lie: Janssen had overcome his Belgian rival to become the first ever Dutch winner of the Tour with 38 seconds to spare. As usual, no-one put it better than Antoine Blondin, who titled his report in the next day's paper Le fort de Vincennes. He tied up his piece with a nice pun, which can perhaps be rendered as follows: "Janssen embodies a new breed of Tour champion. Everyone sees him as the prince Cipale".
1969 was an entirely different story, as Eddy Merckx made his first appearance in the central arena of international cycling. He came in like a wrecking ball, making short work of his opponents with his raw power and oodles of talent and steamrolling his rivals on the Ballon d'Alsace, the Divonne-les-Bains time trial, the Alpine mountain passes leading to Digne and especially in the Pyrenean stage culminating in Mourenx. The race against the clock at La Cipale had his name written all over it, with the skyline of Paris looming in the horizon. No points for guessing that he capped his first July recital with a sixth stage win, inaugurating his Tour de France reign at La Cipale.
The stars align for Luis Ocaña in 1973
Merckx held the Grand Tours and cycling classics in a vice grip in the early 1970s, despite the best efforts of opponents of the calibre of Raymond Poulidor, Luis Ocaña and Joop Zoetemelk. The "Cannibal" hit the ground running near the Bois de Vincennes, aided by the fact that the Tour de France used to finish with a time trial. The Belgian champion was in his element, defeating Ocaña in the final race against the clock in 1970 and dispatching Joaquim Agostinho by an even wider margin in 1971. A route shake-up in 1972 allowed fellow Belgian Willy Teirlinck to claim stage 20 in a bunch sprint, but Eddy Merckx still rolled into La Cipale to take his fourth trophy in as many Tour starts.
In 1973, Eddy Merckx took a break after an early season packed with victories in Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the Vuelta a España and the Giro d'Italia, among other races. His absence from the Tour de France left a power vacuum quickly filled by Luis Ocaña. The stars had aligned for Bic's Spanish leader. On the last day of the Tour, the Spaniard grabbed a 16 km time trial in Versailles, with Bernard Thévenet taking the win at La Cipale a few hours later. No problem for Ocaña, the long-awaited heir to Federico Bahamontes (1959) in the pantheon of the Tour de France.
Normal service resumed in 1974. Eddy Merckx was almost as fearsome as in previous campaigns. The figures speak volumes: he scooped up eight stage wins en route to victory, pulling level with Charles Pélissier at the top of the record table. Raymond Poulidor, second again, finished 8′04″ off the pace. The Belgian clinched his fourth triumph in his hunting grounds at La Cipale and padded his statistics. He was now level with Jacques Anquetil, with five Tour victories apiece, but no-one suspected that his fifth would also be his last. No-one suspected either that La Cipale would soon be consigned to the history books, once the public had got its first taste of the next destination of the finish —the Champs-Élysées. As for the velodrome, it was renamed in honour of Jacques Anquetil in 1987…
