{"id":574887,"date":"2025-11-16T21:27:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574887\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T21:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:27:18","slug":"at-least-shape-the-stage-in-a-way-that-leads-to-a-sprint-former-champs-elysees-winner-urges-tour-de-france-to-end-montmartre-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/574887\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAt least shape the stage in a way that leads to a sprint\u201d \u2013 Former Champs Elysees winner urges Tour de France to end Montmartre experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

For Bennati, that last line is key: the route can be aggressive and spectacular, but the finale should still be set up in such a way that a bunch kick remains possible.<\/p>\n

Dry roads, heavy legs<\/p>\n

The reworked Paris stage will again tackle Montmartre, but this time the climb comes once and sits roughly 15 kilometres from the finish, rather than being repeated three times with the last passage just 6 kilometres from the line as in 2025. On paper, that extra distance should help sprinters regroup \u2013 yet Bennati is clear that everything hinges on how the day plays out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that after three weeks the energy levels are what they are,\u201d Bennati continues. \u201cBut if it is dry, the sprinters can definitely think about trying to play their card in a sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reference to dry roads comes directly from last year\u2019s chaos. In 2025, the first Montmartre edition was run in the rain, the GC times were neutralised and the stage effectively turned into a showdown for attackers. A six-man group went clear and Wout van Aert<\/a> ultimately produced one of the rides of his life<\/a>, dropping Tadej Pogacar<\/a> on the final ascent and soloing to victory on the Champs Elysees.<\/p>\n

From a sprinter\u2019s point of view, Bennati did not like what followed behind. \u201cI don\u2019t think it will rain again next year,\u201d he clarifies, \u201cbut we cannot know. Wet roads, in a way, penalise the spectacle, because last year after the first acceleration there were only six riders left, and that\u2019s not great for a final stage on such a beautiful stage. I have to say that as a sprinter it was not nice to see riders all over the place and groups simply easing up to reach the finish. Honestly, if it were like that again, I would prefer the traditional circuit. Not because I was a sprinter and won on that finish, but because I think it made the final stage much more adrenaline-filled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TadejPogacar\"\/<\/p>\n

Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogacar went toe-to-toe on Montmartre in 2025<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climb itself isn\u2019t extremely hard \u2013 but you arrive there after three weeks\u201d<\/p>\n

From a pure numbers point of view, Montmartre is hardly the most fearsome climb to feature in a Grand Tour. It is the context \u2013 the timing, the fatigue and the riders likely to attack there \u2013 that worries Bennati.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climb itself isn\u2019t extremely hard,\u201d he nods. \u201cCompared to any Flemish berg it\u2019s much easier. The cobbles are quite uneven, but not too bad \u2014 it\u2019s fairly light. However, you arrive there after three weeks of racing, so if a rider like Pogacar decides he wants to win the final stage, it becomes tough for the sprinters. The GC riders recover better than sprinters, so they are potentially advantaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also points out that the supposedly ceremonial nature of the last day is mostly a myth that evaporates as soon as the race hits the circuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the subject of the short stage, from personal experience the final day of the Tour, the Giro or the Vuelta is never a walk in the park. You come off three very demanding weeks, and the opening kilometres are slow with celebrations and toasts. As a result, the feeling I always remember is a brutal effort once the pace suddenly lifts on the circuit. On a route like this, riders like Van Aert and Van der Poel are always advantaged, even if they are not pure climbers. Because the sprinter has tried to contest the sprints and maybe fought for the green jersey, so he has spent more energy than them. So paradoxically, such a short stage could turn that little climb into a real problem. The sprinters will need every remaining team-mate in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message to the fast men is blunt: if they want a shot at Paris, they cannot simply drift through Montmartre and hope it all comes back together by itself.<\/p>\n

Looking back to 2007 \u2013 and ahead to Pogacar<\/p>\n

Bennati\u2019s own win in Paris came at the end of the 2007 Tour, when he beat Thor Hushovd and Erik Zabel in a straightforward sprint on the classic Champs Elysees circuit. That experience colours how he looks at today\u2019s route. \u201cThe Bennati who won in Paris,\u201d the Tuscan reflects, \u201cfelt better than most sprinters in the final days because I probably recovered better.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits that, in the current configuration, he might have to think differently \u2013 and that much would depend on what the yellow jersey chooses to do. \u201cWe would need to understand whether, if I were racing today, I would ask my team to set the pace on Montmartre for my rhythm \u2014 because most likely Pogacar would take control of the race if he wants to attack and try to win. For someone like him, 15 kilometres is not much. That\u2019s another great reason to wait for this stage with huge curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a neat summary of the tension at the heart of the Montmartre experiment: a finale designed to encourage stars like Pogacar, Van der Poel, Van Aert or Evenepoel to attack inevitably pushes the pure sprinters to the brink.<\/p>\n

Bennati\u2019s stance is not to strip away the climb entirely, but to ensure that organisers, teams and riders still \u201cshape the stage in a way that leads to a sprint\u201d. For him, Paris should remain a day when Jonathan Milan and the other fast men still roll to the start with a real chance of winning \u2013 not simply passengers in a show designed for someone else.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Bennati, that last line is key: the route can be aggressive and spectacular, but the finale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,182333,88917,79,16152,20680,16,15,34351],"class_list":{"0":"post-574887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-daniele-bennati","10":"tag-jonathan-milan","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tadej-pogacar","13":"tag-tour-de-france","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wout-van-aert"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115561500063170813","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}