Tour de France 2022 stage 21 preview: nothing to see here - until the Champs-Élysées sprint!

Stage 21 of the Tour de France 2022 starts in La Défense Arena and concludes with our old friend: the sprint finish on the Champs-Élysées, the classic denouement of the Tour.

Tour de France 2022 stage 21: expected timings

Tour de France 2022 stage 21 route

The Tour’s final stage will have its first ever indoor start within the La Défense Arena, a multi-use stadium opened in 2017 that’s home to the Racing 92 rugby club and has hosted concerts by the Rolling Stones, Mylène Farmer and Paul McCartney. Once the riders have had a glass of Champagne and reached central Paris there will be eight laps of the finishing circuit, which has the Louvre at its bottom end and the Arc de Triomphe at the top, before the finish halfway up the Champs-Élysées.

Useful Tour de France 2022 resources

• Tour de France 2022 route
• Tour de France 2022 standings
• Tour de France 2022 start list
• Tour de France 2022 key stages
• How to watch the Tour de France 2022 on TV
• How to watch the 2022 Tour de France
• Past winners of the Tour de France
• Tour de France leader's jerseys
• Tour de France winning bikes

Tour de France 2022 stage 21: what to expect 

The stage will begin at the traditional processional pace to enable TV and photographers to get pictures of the yellow jersey and his team-mates toasting each other with Champagne. The pace will only begin to pick up on the way into Paris and will become extremely quick once the race leader’s team has brought the peloton onto the Champs-Élysées the first time. 

Although small groups will attempt to break away, there’s very little chance of them escaping the clutches of the sprinters’ teams, who will be absolutely determined not to miss out on the most prestigious sprint of the season.

Tour de France 2022 stage 21: riders to watch

Jumbo-Visma set up Wout van Aert perfectly for this sprint last year, although they received some help from Alpecix-Fenix, who trapped Quick Step’s Mark Cavendish on the barriers as they sought to launch Jasper Philipsen. All three of those teams should feature again, with former Paris winners Dylan Groenewegen (2017) and Caleb Ewan (2019) also likely to be in the frame.