Finishing off a Grand Tour with a time trial is not an unusual concept – it's how the Giro d'Italia ended three years in a row very recently, after all. For the Tour de France though, it hasn't happened in 35 years – since the celebrated 1989 edition when Greg Lemond beat Laurent Fignon by a historically small eight-second margin.
There's a lot to unravel when it comes to this year's reprise of the final-stage 'contre la montre'. For one, not only does the Tour not end in its usual sprint stage, it also ends a very long way from the Champs-Elysées in Nice. It could not be further from business as usual.
