The Tour’s return to Barcelona’s “Magic Mountain”

There’s a neat symmetry to the start and finish of this year’s Tour de France. Sunday’s second stage into Barcelona and the fourth Sunday’s final stage into Paris both include three laps of a city centre circuit that features an emblematic hill.

In three weeks’ time, the riders will do battle on La Butte Montmartre, which has rapidly gained fabled status since featuring in the 2024 Olympic Games road events. This coming weekend, their stage will be Montjuïc, the hill that provided the setting for many events during the 1992 Games that were held in the Catalan capital.

The link between the Tour and Barcelona and Montjuïc is long-standing. In 1957, the hill hosted two finishes in a single day, Frenchman René Privat sprinting to victory there in a morning stage from the French city of Perpignan, while compatriot Jacques Anquetil won the afternoon time trial based entirely on Montjuïc as he advanced towards the first of his five overall victories.

Eight years later, Spanish racer José Pérez Francés took a hugely acclaimed solo victory in his adopted home city after a 223-kilometre breakaway on a cross-border stage from the French ski resort of Ax-les-Thermes. The third-longest solo escape in the race’s history was clinched after three passages over Montjuïc. On the penultimate lap, Pérez Francés, flagging in the late afternoon heat, was caught by the bunch being led by the Salvarani team of eventual Tour winner Felice Gimondi. The Spaniard, though, was a full lap ahead of the peloton and hung on at the back of it to win by eight minutes.

More than four decades passed before the Tour returned to Barcelona. In 2009, Thor Hushovdpowered to victory in teeming rain on Montjuïc ahead of Oscar Freire and José Joaquín Rojas.There were plans for the Tour to return to Barcelona a dozen years ago. However, despite extensive discussions, the arrangement never came to fruition. As Barcelona dallied, ASO offered Yorkshire the chance to step in, and the English county instantly accepted the offer.

Barcelona and Montjuïc have a rich cycling history beyond the Tour. The city has hosted the World Road Race Championships on two occasions, Gimondi the victor in 1973 when teammates Eddy Merckx and Freddy Maertens couldn’t decide which one of them was the Belgian leader, the Italian taking full advantage of the confusion in the Belgian ranks. In 1984, Belgium did celebrate victory on Montjuïc, Claude Criquielion taking the rainbow jersey.

Between 1964 and 2007, Montjuïc also hosted an end-of-season hill-climb. Although the professional field was always small – it was an exhibition race up to 1995 – the race’s winners include many of the sport’s great names. Merckx won it a record six times, Raymond Poulidor won three editions, while the final edition saw Dani Moreno claim victory ahead of Samuel Sánchez and Carlos Sastre. The day’s action also included events for racers in lower categories, featuring more than 1,000 competitors in a single day.

That event was very much the inspiration for the Volta a Catalunya’s final day finish on Montjuïc, the riders lapping the hill circuit up to eight times in front of large crowds drawn out by the prospect of seeing many of the peloton’s great names pass by on numerous occasions. It’s become one of the great days on the stage racing calendar, one where the overall outcome can by overturned at the very final moment, as was the case last year when Primož Roglič bolted away from his rivals two laps from home to snatch the title from Juan Ayuso.

This weekend’s two stages in Barcelona and on Montjuïc will lift the relationship between the Catalan city and bike racing to an unprecedented level. As was the case in Yorkshire a dozen years ago and in all of the foreign Grand Départs that have taken place since, the arrival of the Tour is sure to bring millions of fans onto the streets.

In typical fashion, race organizers ASO have responded by serving up two stages that befit the popular clamour. Both should bring the bunch’s biggest names to centre stage. On Saturday, the likes of Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel will carry their own and their team’s hopes up Montjuïc’s steep ramp in the team time trial. On Sunday, they’ll duel elbow to elbow in a road stage that concludes with three laps of the emblematic circuit on what’s known locally and very fittingly as “Magic Mountain”. It should be magical.