Stage Details

Stage 20 - Sunday, July 28: Melun - Paris Champs-Elysées

Distance:	140km
Start Location:	City Center of Melun
Start Time:	Flying Start: 1:30 p.m. on D.35
Description:	Course: With a 1:25 p.m. start, the survivors will have time to relax before starting this flat final stage of 140km from Melun into Paris. The last 10 laps around the 6.15km Champs-Elysées circuit will be the usual warp-speed blur, and then come the awards, the laps of honor and the evening’s celebrations. History: The Tour has finished in Paris every year except for the inaugural race in 1903, when the last stage ended in the suburbs at Ville d’Avray. From 1904 to 1967, the finish was on the velodrome of the Parc des Princes, now a soccer stadium. From 1968 to 1974, another velodrome was used, the Piste Municipale de Vincennes. Since 1975, every Tour has finished on the Champs-Elysées. Of the 26 winners of road stages on the Champs, there have been only two repeat winners, Bernard Hinault (1979 and ’82) and Abdujaparov (1993 and ’95). Favorites: Zabel has won the green jersey six times, but never the final stage. He has finished second the last three years, beaten by Jan Svorada (in 2001), Stefano Zanini (in 2000) and McEwen in 1999. Any of those three could win again, as could other former winners Steels (1998) or Fabio Baldato (1996). But the odds, this time, are that Zabel will crown his Tour career with a victory in Paris.