Paris-Tours, a prestige race created in 1896, is the private preserve of real sprinters and finishers. Over a relatively flat course, teams of sprinters manoeuvre to allow their last man to exert his fleetness and put his back into the final sprint along the superb Avenue de Grammont in Tours. Just a few climbs towards the end of the course can disrupt the well-constructed plans drawn up at the start in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines and anticipate the preparations for the final fling. Disputed one week before the World Championships, Paris-Tours keeps all its attraction for the “greyhounds” of the road, without forgetting those who come to put the finishing touches to their preparation for the Rainbow Jersey.