Its name is a symbol, a powerful sign of a project, a mission; better still, it is a calling. The Tour de l’Avenir (Tour of the Future), reserved for competitors under 25, prepares the younger generations for the major events of the cycling season. The ten-day race offers an ideal itinerary for future champions: Time-trial, plain, mountain stages: everyone can find a terrain of expression up to the challenge of budding ambitions.

Since its 1961 creation, the Tour de l’Avenir has never ceased to live up to its founding principle. Its list of winners includes some of the most respected names in cycling: Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk and Greg LeMond, the first American contestant to win the trial in 1982. Ten years later, another hopeful from across the pond, a «mad dog» honed by practicing the triathlon, would distinguish himself by winning the Grand Prize for the mountains. Lance Armstrong confirmed his talent by winning it again the following year: in Oslo he became one of the youngest champions in world history. This summer, a more mature cyclist with a prestigious track record, he will attempt to break the absolute record in cycling’s greatest course, the Tour de France.

The Tour de l’Avenir is a proving ground; victory in the general classification, however prestigious, cannot alone express the full richness of the test. Related rankings attest to other levels and types of training and preparation, and the mixing of cycling’s future elite. Names such as Joseba Beloki and Sylvain Chavanel, crowned best climbers, or Laurent Jalabert and Jaan Kirsipuu, listed in gold letters on the roll of winners of the green jersey.

From Picardy to the Alps, the beaches of Fort-Mahon to the ramps of le Grand-Bornand, the 41st Tour de l’Avenir will once again unleash young contestants hungry for glory onto the routes. Their talent requires nothing more than this opportunity to blossom.