Mark Cavendish is one Tour de France stage win away from breaking the record of 34 and a more balanced route for the 2024 edition presents plenty of opportunities.
While Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and the others targeting the yellow jersey will focus on four mountain-top finishes, gravel on stage nine and a final time trial to Nice, Cavendish will look at a first half which offers several chances to target a record-breaking 35th Tour stage win.
After crashing out of this year's Tour, Cavendish earlier this month confirmed he had signed a new contrast with Astana-Qazaqstan, postponing his planned retirement to take one more shot at taking the Tour record outright, having matched Eddy Merckx on 34 in 2021.
And organisers have offered up a route designed to create a more open race as defending champion Vingegaard and Pogacar both target their third overall victories.
Next summer's Tour will begin in Florence, Italy on June 29 and end 3,492 kilometres later in Nice on July 21, a first ever finish outside Paris or the wider capital region forced on the race to avoid the final preparations for the Paris Olympics.
After two lumpy opening stages, the first of them taking in almost 4,000 metres of climbing between Florence and Rimini, which should create immediate gaps in the fight for yellow, the first sprint opportunity will come on stage three from Piacenza to Turin.
The race crosses the Alps via the Sestriere and Col du Galibier to reach France on stage four, but there are then further flat stages to Saint-Vulbas and Dijon where the sprinters could have their fun if breakaways can be contained.
After a 25km individual time trial through the Bourgogne Cote d'Or vineyards, there is another flat stage into Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises a day later. The 199km stage nine, starting and finishing in Troyes, includes 47km of gravel across 14 sectors.
After a rest day in Orleans the Tour heads to the Pyrenees via the Massif Central, with sprint opportunities expected on stages 12 and 13 into Villeneuve-sur-Lot and then Pau.
The high mountains beckon with stage 14 crossing the Col du Tourmalet and the Hourquette d'Ancizan, and stage 15 tackling just shy of 5,000 metres of climbing across the Col de Peyresourde, Portet d'Aspet and Col d'Agnes on Bastille Day.
A rest day in Gruissan will be much-needed before a transition stage to Nimes and the big finish in the Alps. After a series of mountainous days, the battle for yellow could go right to the wire with the final stage a hilly 34km time trial from Monaco to Nice.
Organisers also unveiled the route for the third edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, which will cover eight stages across seven days as the race heads from the Netherlands to a grand finale on the Alpe d'Huez between August 12 and August 18 following the Paris Olympics.
There will be three flat stages, one time trial, two hilly stages and two mountain tests across 946.3km of racing, heading from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, through Ardennes Classics country in Belgium and then into France for a finish in the Alps.
