The Italian Job? Turin to give Mark Cavendish the first of eight record-breaking chances at 2024 Tour de France (+ video of route)

Turin – the city in northwest Italy with a distinctly French flavour – will provide Mark Cavendish with his first opportunity to move ahead of Eddy Merckx as the rider with the most stage wins at the Tour de France when it hosts the finish of Stage 3 of next year’s race, one of eight likely opportunities for a sprint finish in the 111th edition of the race, the route of which was announced in Paris today.

The sprinter, who earlier this month confirmed he is staying with Astana for another season with the goal of securing that historic 35th stage win at the Tour – his best stage finish at the race this year was second before he crashed out with a broken collarbone – was in the audience at the Palais des Congres in Paris today as the 21 stages were revealed.

Two stages finish in places where Cavendish has previously crossed the line at the head of the bunch – Saint-Amand-Montrond on Stage 10, where he took his 25th Tour victory in 2013, and Nîmes on Stage 16, scene of his fourth stage win way back in 2008, and which will be the last opportunity for the sprinters in next year’s race.

What won’t happen is Cavendish finishing his Tour de France career with an unprecedented fifth victory on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, where he reigned supreme from 2009 to 2012, winning the final stage for four years in a row until Marcel Kittel got the better of him in 2014.

The Manxman came painfully close to triumphing on cycling’s most famous finish line at last year’s race, a win that would have given him the outright record, but was edged out by Wout van Aert.

With Paris gearing up to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, however, the Tour skips the French capital this year, with the finale set for Nice – the most Italian of French cities that for much of its history was ruled by the House of Savoy and was the birthplace of Guiseppe Garibaldi, becoming part of France in 1860, the year before Italy was finally unified.

Should Cavendish, who turns 39 in May, get that elusive win next summer, he would also be the second-oldest stage winner in Tour de France history – second only to the Italian rider Pino Cerami, who was 41 when he won a stage from Bordeaux to Pau in the 1963 edition.

Speaking after the presentation, Cavendish told journalists that while there were several stages with a strong chance of a sprint finish, “you've got to get to them, that's the problem you know.

“The start in Italy is super nice, it is right by my home for many years,” he continued. 2It is only a few kilometres away, so I know the first kilometres really well, but it makes no difference because it starts hard, finishes hard and is all hard. It will be beautiful in Italy, the Giro is always an incredible race and I know the Tuscan people just love cycling. It is really quite special.

“I think Torino should offer the chance for sprinters,” he added. “It is a difficult Tour de France, you know, it could be more comfortable.”

Besides those eight flat stages, the race will also feature four summit finishes (officially – in practice, five stages merit that description) where the battle for the yellow jersey will be played out, as well as two individual time trials.

The second of those comes on the final day and runs from Monaco to Nice – the first time the Tour has finished with a stage against the clock since Greg Lemond pipped Laurent Fignon by seven seconds in Paris to win the 1989 edition, in what was the closest ever finish to the race.

The Grand Depart in Italy begins with a what looks like a brutal hilly stage from Florence to Rimini with no less than 3,600 metres of climbing, and the following day’s stage from Cesenatico to Bologna promises to be equally taxing ahead of that first sprint opportunity in Turin, that day taking the peloton from Piacenza and across the Po valley to the city that next May also hosts the start of the Giro d’Italia.

Stage 4, beginning in Pinerolo, sees the first mountains of next year’s edition, unusually early for the Tour and including the climb to Sestriere as well as the Col du Galibier as the race heads across the border into France with a finish in Valloire, and is followed by a flat stage finishing in Saint-Vulbas, after which comes another sprinter-friendly day with a bunch finish expected in Dijon.

The first of the two individual time trials comes on Stage 7, covering 25km from Nuits-Saints-Georges to Gevrey-Chambertin, and that will be followed by another chance for the sprinters in a stage from Semur-en-Auxois to Colombey-Les-Deux-Eglises, home of General De Gaulle, the arrival town chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of the soldier and statesman’s death.

The opening week concludes with a hilly stage starting and finishing in Troyes, some 140km southeast of Paris, ahead of a rest day in Orleans, racing resuming with Stage 10 into Saint-Amand-Montrond Stage which most likely will end in a sprint.

The race is back in the mountains the next day with a quartet of tough climbs late on ahead of a finish at Le Lioran, while the two days after that once again favour the fastest men in the peloton, a finish in Villeneuve-Sur-Lot on Stage 12 followed by one in Pau, a near-perennial host city of the race.

More than half the stages to date have a flat profile, but that’s about to change, as the penultimate weekend kicks off in the Pyrenees with successive summit finishes at Pla d’Adet and Plateau de Beille – the latter on Bastille Day – ahead of the second rest day and then what is set to be a very tough final week.

It begins with that stage into Nîmes that will be Cavendish’s last chance to grab the outright record if he has drawn a blank so far in the race, but after that the climbing comes thick and fast, with a summit finish (though not described as such by organisers) at Superdévoluy on Stage 17.

A hilly stage from Gap to Barcelonette precedes two days of summit finishes, the first on the Friday at Isola 2000, the second starting in Nice and heading up to the Col  de la Couillole.

In any other year, we’d now know the identity of the winner of the race ahead of the usual procession into Paris, but the final day’s individual time trial means that the 111th Tour de France could go right down to the wire, and certainly that is what the organisers will be hoping.

Starting in Monaco, the road swiftly rises on the climb to La Turbie before dropping down briefly with the riders then heading up the Col d’Eze from the less familiar eastern side before the descent into Nice and finish on Place Masséna in the heart of the city, close to the sea front and sitting between the old town and the Promenade des Anglais.

The 2024 Tour de France takes place from 29 June to 21 July.