(Paris) The Tour de France will start from Barcelona in 2026, which will constitute the third departure from Spain in the more than century-old history of the event, the organizing company Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) announced on Tuesday.

“Barcelona is a prestigious city and it is a city of sport”, underlined Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, to AFP, specifying that there would be “two complete stages and the start” of the third stage in Catalonia.

This will be the third time since its creation in 1903 that the Tour de France will start from Spanish territory after San Sebastian in 1992 and Bilbao in 2023.  

It is also the fourth “big departure” from abroad in five years (the 27th in 113 editions) after Copenhagen in 2022, Bilbao in 2023 and Florence in 2024, before that of Lille in 2025.

“These big starts allow the Tour de France to shine even more,” defended Mr. Prudhomme. I claim this on the express condition that there are small French villages in the stage towns of the Tour, such as Évaux-les-Bains this year, Castelnau-Magnoac in 2022 or Châtillon-sur-Chalaron in 2023.”

Barcelona, ​​host city of the 1992 Olympic Games, was a “candidate for a long time” and the current socialist mayor of the city, Jaume Collboni, in office for a year, “dreamed” of hosting the Grande Boucle, according to the director of the Tour, delighted with this great departure.

“You have the prestige of the city. You have the beauty of the landscapes, the proximity of the sea. And then you have this sporting geography which means that you can imagine a meeting from the weekend of the big start for the favorites in the general classification. »

Details of the first stages will not be revealed until September. At this stage, Christian Prudhomme only indicates that there will be “two full stages and a start on the third day in Catalonia”, before “heading towards France”.

The only clue on the route: the climb of Montjuic hill, in Barcelona, ​​“is obviously an undeniable asset,” he added.

As for the possible imperative of placing, as in 2023, the Pyrenees from the first week of the Tour on the course, Mr. Prudhomme just recalled that “the dogma is that there is no dogma. Everything is possible. »

This year, the Tour de France will start on June 29 for the first time from Italy with an unprecedented finish three weeks later in Nice and not in Paris, due to the Olympic Games.