The Race

The Tour de l’Avenir reconnects with its history. The 57th edition, which had to be cancelled in 2020 because of the pandemic, will take place from August 13 to 22, 2021 on a route that follows the main lines of the one planned last year.

More than ever, the Tour de l’Avenir justifies its reputation as the Tour de France for young people, as shown by the recent prize list, with the victories of the Colombian Egan BERNAL (2017) or the Slovenian Tadej POGACAR (2018) who did not wait more than two years, one as the other, to triumph in the Tour de France!

As initially planned last year, the event will start with an individual time trial prologue in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes). It will be six years since the Tour de l’Avenir offered this type of exercise as a preamble, so all the specialties of road cycling will be covered for this event that serves as a springboard for tomorrow’s champions.

The so-called flat section, through the Aisne and Seine-et-Marne, will also be marked by a team time trial around Laon, and then the course will make a large incursion into the Grand-East region.

As is traditional, the mountains will be the main focus of the event, from the Jura to Savoie, the usual stopping point. A first day of medium mountain through the Jura will precede an arrival at the top of the dreaded Grand-Colombier pass, approached by the twists and turns of the Culoz slope (Ain), where Tadej POGACAR had won a stage of the 2020 Tour de France. The next day, the day before the finish, a “flash” stage (60 kilometers), on a very spectacular format already experienced by the Tour de l’Avenir in recent years, will put the bunch of hopefuls to the test of the Alps with the Col du Mollard before the finish in Saint-Jean d’Arves, on the flanks of the Col de la Croix-de-Fer. And nothing will undoubtedly be definitively decided until the final stage and the outcome at an altitude of more than two thousand meters, at the top of Petit-Saint-Bernard, on the French-Italian border after crossing the Iseran, the highest road pass in Europe (2764 m) where Egan BERNAL had forged his success in the 2019 Tour de France.

Organized by Alpes Vélo, the Tour de l’Avenir, which supports the final round of the UCI Nations Cup for the under-23s, will take place as usual under the formula of the national selections (six riders). The return of this event is essential for the age group of international hopefuls wishing to prove themselves in order to reach the upper echelons. In this respect, the Tour de l’Avenir is the benchmark event and a revelation of new talent.