The 2025 Tour de France will start in the northern city of Lille, with the Grand Depart and the opening four stages expected to be held in the Hauts-de-France Region, between the English Channel, the border with Belgium and the capital Paris.
Tour de France organisers ASO confirmed recent reports of the Grand Départ, with details of the opening stage to be revealed at a special press conference in Lille on November 30 in Lille.
“In 2025, the Hauts-de-France Region, the Nord Department and the Lille European Metropolis will host the start of the 112th edition of the Tour de France,” ASO said.
The Tour de France last started in the Nord de France area in 2001 when Christophe Moreau won the prologue time trial and pulled on the first yellow jersey.
Lille-Nord de France will be the first Grand Départ in France since Brest and Brittany hosted the Grand Depart in 2021. The 2022 Grand Boucle started in Copenhagen, the 2023 race in Bilbao in the Basque Country, while the 2024 Tour will start in Florence, Italy.
According to local media reports, the 2025 Tour de France will start in Lille and then follow the northern coast and head into Normandy and Brittany, two of the heartlands of French cycling.
The proximity to the route of Paris-Roubaix could see the inclusion of cobbles early in the 2025 race route. In 2022, Wout Van Aert won a stage in Calais after the transfer from Denmark, with stage 5 covering the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix and finishing in Arenberg.
Caen will celebrate its millennium in 2025, with Bayeux, Lisieux, Bernhard Hinault’s home town of Yffiniac and the Mûr-de-Bretagne hilltop finish, all possible stage finishes in the first part of the 2025 race.
The 2024 Tour de France finishes in Nice with a hilly individual time trial due to the Paris 2024 Olympics making it impossible for the traditional Champs-Elysées finish. The Tour de France is expected to return to the capital in 2025.
