2024 Tour de France Stage 20 Live Coverage
Welcome to our live coverage of Stage 20 of the 2024 Tour de France! Our live profile and commentary are below, followed by a preview of the technical aspects of the route.
Course Preview
Stage 20 of the Tour de France is merely 132 kilometres long, but the riders must still conquer four mountain tops. The finish is situated at the Col de la Couillole, 15.7 kilometres long and averaging 7.1%.
The penultimate stage of Le Tour has written Paris-Nice written all over it. Not only does the race start in Nice, but the last three of the four mountains served as finishes in recent Race to the Sun editions.
In 2018, Simon Yates won the Paris-Nice stage to the Col de la Colmaine. Primoz Roglic and Daniel Felipe Martínez won the Col de Turini, respectively, in 2022 and 2019. Tadej Pogacar showcased his skills on the Col de la Couillole. By the way, all climbs—with the exception of the Couilolle—were tackled from a different side than will be the case on the Tour.
So the Tour goes ‘Paris-Nice’, and it does so in style. The race kicks into gear at the Place Masséna in Nice. The riders roll out in a northerly direction and enter the first climbs after 15 kilometres. The Col de Braus is a 10 kilometre effort at 6.6%.
Straight after the descent, the road goes back up again. The Col de Turini is the longest climb of the day, at 20.7 kilometres, and it leads to the highest point, 1,608 metres above sea level. The average gradient on the Turini is 5.7%.
The riders fly through the midway marker on descent and are back in the valley. In Roquebillière, the next climb begins at shallow gradients. This part of the Col de la Colmaine is not classified as a climb, but it does go up. Only the last 7.5 kilometres—at 7.1%—are KOM classified, but if you count from bottom to top, the Colmaine is roughly 20 kilometres long and averaging almost 5%.
Following the downhill to Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée, the finish climb kicks in. The Col de la Couillole is a 15.7 kilometres long ascent with an average gradient of 7.1%. The section, some 6 kilometres before the finish, was important in the 2023 edition of Paris-Nice. Following an initial move by Chris Harper, the big three of that race took the reins. Tadej Pogacar, David Gaudu and Jonas Vingegaard distanced the field before Pogacar sprinted to victory in the last few hundred metres.
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