Preview, favourites, profile, route and predictions Paris-Tours 2025 - INEOS amongst the big favourites to win gravel race

Paris-Tours is one of the biggest and most prestigious classics of the year, and it is the final big one-day race of the 2025 season. Taking place on the 12th of October, the day after Il Lombardia, the French classic will allow the sprinters and classics specialists fight for one last big win in the European continent. The race is set to start at 12:10CET and finish at 16:45CET.

Paris–Tours is one of the oldest French one-day classics, first held in 1896. Over the decades it has earned the nickname “Sprinters’ Classic,” thanks to its generally flat profile that tends to favor fast men in reduced bunch sprints. In recent years, organizers have added vineyard tracks and gravel or 'chemin de vigne' sectors near Tours to make the finale more selective and unpredictable - a modern trend followed by many other races.

Interestingly, even legends like Eddy Merckx never managed to win Paris–Tours, but the list does include some recent big names such as Erik Zabel, Philippe Gilbert and John Degenkolb who all conquered this classic in the prime of their careers. Last year’s race produced a thrilling contest in wet and muddy conditions. Christophe Laporte of Team Visma | Lease a Bike claimed victory after breaking clear with Mathias Vacek in the closing kilometers and winning a two-up sprint. Jasper Philipsen led home the chasing group for third. This year we could see a podium with similar riders.

The race features 212.5 kilometers in length, the first 145 of which relatively uneventful after leaving the city of Chartres (not Paris, as the race name would indicate). However a very different race begins then, with 9.6 kilometers of gravel roads in total, spread throughout 10 sectors.

These will also be a few short and explosive climbs, some of them paved whilst some are on gravel roads. It's an explosive finale, where positioning, tactics and luck will all play a role in the outcome of the race. The final 8 kilometers of the race into Tours are flat and do allow for regrouping which could lead to a sprint deciding the race.

*** Arnaud de Lie, Soren Waerenskjold, Ben Turner
** Jonas Abrahamsen, Matthew Brennan, Mathias Vacek, Olav Kooij
* Dries de Bondt, Paul Lapeira, Matteo Trentin, Corbin Strong, Albert Philipsen, Jasper Stuyven, Edward Planckaert, Joshua Tarling, Victor Campenaerts, Axel Laurance, Alberto Bettiol, Tobias Lund Andresen, Christophe Laporte, Mikkel Bjerg, Stefan Küng, Valentin Madouas, Lukas Kubis, Marius Mayrhofer, Riley Sheehan

Pick: Soren Waerenskjold

How: Small group sprint.