For Bennati, that last line is key: the route can be aggressive and spectacular, but the finale should still be set up in such a way that a bunch kick remains possible.
Dry roads, heavy legs
The reworked Paris stage will again tackle Montmartre, but this time the climb comes once and sits roughly 15 kilometres from the finish, rather than being repeated three times with the last passage just 6 kilometres from the line as in 2025. On paper, that extra distance should help sprinters regroup – yet Bennati is clear that everything hinges on how the day plays out.
“It’s clear that after three weeks the energy levels are what they are,” Bennati continues. “But if it is dry, the sprinters can definitely think about trying to play their card in a sprint.”
That reference to dry roads comes directly from last year’s chaos. In 2025, the first Montmartre edition was run in the rain, the GC times were neutralised and the stage effectively turned into a showdown for attackers. A six-man group went clear and Wout van Aert ultimately produced one of the rides of his life, dropping Tadej Pogacar on the final ascent and soloing to victory on the Champs Elysees.
From a sprinter’s point of view, Bennati did not like what followed behind. “I don’t think it will rain again next year,” he clarifies, “but we cannot know. Wet roads, in a way, penalise the spectacle, because last year after the first acceleration there were only six riders left, and that’s not great for a final stage on such a beautiful stage. I have to say that as a sprinter it was not nice to see riders all over the place and groups simply easing up to reach the finish. Honestly, if it were like that again, I would prefer the traditional circuit. Not because I was a sprinter and won on that finish, but because I think it made the final stage much more adrenaline-filled.”
Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogacar went toe-to-toe on Montmartre in 2025
“The climb itself isn’t extremely hard – but you arrive there after three weeks”
From a pure numbers point of view, Montmartre is hardly the most fearsome climb to feature in a Grand Tour. It is the context – the timing, the fatigue and the riders likely to attack there – that worries Bennati.
“The climb itself isn’t extremely hard,” he nods. “Compared to any Flemish berg it’s much easier. The cobbles are quite uneven, but not too bad — it’s fairly light. However, you arrive there after three weeks of racing, so if a rider like Pogacar decides he wants to win the final stage, it becomes tough for the sprinters. The GC riders recover better than sprinters, so they are potentially advantaged.”
He also points out that the supposedly ceremonial nature of the last day is mostly a myth that evaporates as soon as the race hits the circuits.
“On the subject of the short stage, from personal experience the final day of the Tour, the Giro or the Vuelta is never a walk in the park. You come off three very demanding weeks, and the opening kilometres are slow with celebrations and toasts. As a result, the feeling I always remember is a brutal effort once the pace suddenly lifts on the circuit. On a route like this, riders like Van Aert and Van der Poel are always advantaged, even if they are not pure climbers. Because the sprinter has tried to contest the sprints and maybe fought for the green jersey, so he has spent more energy than them. So paradoxically, such a short stage could turn that little climb into a real problem. The sprinters will need every remaining team-mate in front of them.”
The message to the fast men is blunt: if they want a shot at Paris, they cannot simply drift through Montmartre and hope it all comes back together by itself.
Looking back to 2007 – and ahead to Pogacar
Bennati’s own win in Paris came at the end of the 2007 Tour, when he beat Thor Hushovd and Erik Zabel in a straightforward sprint on the classic Champs Elysees circuit. That experience colours how he looks at today’s route. “The Bennati who won in Paris,” the Tuscan reflects, “felt better than most sprinters in the final days because I probably recovered better.”
He admits that, in the current configuration, he might have to think differently – and that much would depend on what the yellow jersey chooses to do. “We would need to understand whether, if I were racing today, I would ask my team to set the pace on Montmartre for my rhythm — because most likely Pogacar would take control of the race if he wants to attack and try to win. For someone like him, 15 kilometres is not much. That’s another great reason to wait for this stage with huge curiosity.”
It is a neat summary of the tension at the heart of the Montmartre experiment: a finale designed to encourage stars like Pogacar, Van der Poel, Van Aert or Evenepoel to attack inevitably pushes the pure sprinters to the brink.
Bennati’s stance is not to strip away the climb entirely, but to ensure that organisers, teams and riders still “shape the stage in a way that leads to a sprint”. For him, Paris should remain a day when Jonathan Milan and the other fast men still roll to the start with a real chance of winning – not simply passengers in a show designed for someone else.