The highlights package from this year's Tour de France played out in Paris' Palais des Congrès ahead of the unveiling of the route for the 2017 edition, dramatic music blaring out to accompany the adrenaline-filled snippets of action, but this was not a case of looking back and then asking for more of the same.
The Tour, as ASO like to point out, always innovates. Yet the novelties of next year's parcours were not just a case of innovation for innovation's sake. Instead, it would seem that race director Christian Prudhomme and route designer Thierry Gouvenou have felt the need to do what they can to enhance the drama, excitement, and spectacle of the race.
Even before the guests had taken their seats, an indication of what was to come could be gleaned from the pages of that morning's edition of L'Equipe, where Prudhomme stated: “I want, like many lovers of the Tour, to break out of the 'catennacio'."
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The Italian term, translating to 'door bolt', is used in football to describe a tight-knit defensive set-up, and the link to Team Sky's vice-like control of the race over the past few years – most starkly evidenced this year, perhaps – was not a hard one to make.
Prudhomme also repeated his calls for teams of eight, rather than nine, but with that an area of dispute between ASO, the UCI, and the teams' association, route planning was the tool he had at his disposal to try and restore a brand of cycling "that makes you dream", or "cycling à la Sagan", as he referred to it.
Percentage game
'Percentages' is a concept perhaps more readily associated with the calculated Sky than the free-spirited Sagan, but it's also, in a rather different way, one of the key concepts of the 104th edition of La Grande Boucle.
Grand Slam of mountain ranges
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