The Barcelona City Council announced this Tuesday that the Catalan capital will host the start of the Tour de France in 2026, a success for which the council has been carefully negotiating for years. At an event held at the Saló de Sants with Mayor Jaume Collboni and the director Big loopChristian Prudhomme, it was announced that three stages would be held in Catalonia between 4 and 6 July.
Although no details about the route were given during the presentation, Prudhomme said that the first two sections would be “completed” in Barcelona, without specifying if it was the Barcelona province or just the city, and that the third stage would start in downtown Barcelona “towards the north”.
It’s a dream come true. Once again Barcelona’s role as the world capital of sport has been confirmed.”
“It is a dream come true. Once again it confirms Barcelona’s role as the world capital of sport for the benefit of Catalonia, Spain and all of Europe. We reap the fruits of the immense hard work and dedication of many people. I want to thank Christian Prudhomme for his commitment and love for Barcelona and sports councillor David Escudé and his team. And also the involvement of Barcelona civil society. In that sense I want to thank Maite Barrera as president of Barcelona Global. “It is very appreciable that not just the mayor and the institution but the whole city believes in this,” he said, celebrating the reception. The Great Departure Mayor Jaume Collboni, who, between all the administrations (city hall, provincial council and Generalitat), estimated the cost of the tour through Catalonia at seven million.
The council has worked for “three years” to host the exit that revolves around the Catalan capital since 2011, when the City Council already made a first attempt for the Tour. More than a decade later The Great Departure This is already a reality made possible largely thanks to Catalonia’s great cycling tradition. At the end of the 19th century there were already five cycling clubs in Barcelona. Currently, there are 335 entities in the province of Barcelona and more than 750 in the Catalan territory and a total of 15,000 licenses.
Jonas Vingegaard celebrates his victory at last year’s Tour.
“Our intention was to respond to the request of the entire cycling world, the fans of our country and the values of our city. This is the culmination of commitment to cycling. We achieved a unique and historic collective goal that all Barcelonans will feel proud of. It is the only city in the world capable of hosting the Games, the World Cup, the Copa America and the Tour, the four most important or most influential sporting events in the world,” said Collboni, who went on to champion the antonomasia of cycling by defining cycling as “a festival of European brotherhood in which the values of coexistence, improvement and sharing joys and efforts are celebrated.” “This Tour will leave a great legacy,” concluded the mayor.
“We are very happy. Barcelona is one of the most famous cities in the world. We remember the games, but for the French it is much more than that, it is an iconic city that needs to be noticed for these events. Thank you for your persistence and desire over the years. We have met in Paris, on the Vuelta bus and even in the Tourmalet. The Tour has immense luck and pride in Barcelona,” Prudhomme explained.
The Tour enjoys immense fortune and pride in Barcelona.”
The top representative of the French round, who pointed to Montjuïc as “a key element” for the race’s passage through Barcelona, hoped that “the start will be completely Barcelona.” “It’s time for you to come, you haven’t done it since 1965,” Prudhomme recalled the words that then-mayor Jordi Hereu said to him when the Tour last visited the city in 2009.
Barcelona has hosted stages of the Tour de France three times, but never the start. San Sebastian in 1992 and Bilbao in 2023 were the only Spanish cities to have witnessed the start so far Big loop. 15 years ago two stages were held in the city of Barcelona. The cyclists passed through the city on July 9 and 10 during stages 6 (Girona-Barcelona with 175 kilometers) and 7 (Barcelona-Andorra with 224 kilometers), respectively.
The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and the Director General of the Tour de Francia, Christian Prudhomme, at the Saló de Cents event.
The Tour first traveled through Barcelona in the fifteenth stage of the 1957 edition, which was divided into two sections. The first part had the finish line on the streets of Barcelona after a start in Perpignan and the second included a time trial through Montjuïc. The next day the platoon left the Catalan city for Ax-les-Thermes. In 1965, the eleventh stage ended in Barcelona and the twelfth left the city towards Perpignan.
Declared by Barcelona City Council
There will be three stages in Catalonia from July 4 to 6
In addition to usually being the end of the Volta a Catalunya, which is Spain’s oldest and the fourth-oldest competition in the world, the Catalan capital will in 2023 host the start of the Vuelta a España, a race organized by the ASO company that manages the Tour. However, the Spanish round started on August 26 with a lack of light as a result of overcast skies and rain that fell on the city. Many street lights, which were programmed to turn on automatically, were not activated because the stage took place during daylight hours.
