Cavendish will be pleased by an increase in sprint finishes, while Froome can battle for a fourth Tour triumph on the shorter but steeper mountain stages

Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome had reason to smile on viewing the 2017 Tour de France route owing to an increase in the number of sprint stages and a continuing emphasis on the shorter, steeper climbs that have favoured Froome, three times the winner and once the runner-up in the past five Tours.

The Tour organiser, Christian Prudhomme, said his objective was a “more open, less controlled race, with the aim of rediscovering a form of cycling in the spirit of the five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault, who will be absent from the race in either an official or competitive role for the first time in more than 40 years as he has retired.

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Whether the objective is reached remains to be seen. Prudhomme and his route finder, Thierry Gouvenou, have tried hard to free up the race in the past few years to no obvious effect, although Prudhomme also repeated his calls for the UCI to enable a reduction in the number of riders in each team from nine to eight, with the aim of making it harder for teams to shut down a race.

There is a reduction in “medium mountain stages”, which are often the hardest for teams to keep a grip on. That goes against the tendency in recent years, as does a reversion to longer mountain stages. Next year there is only one day in the mountains under 160km – the second Pyrenean stage to Foix at 100km – while most are around 180km.

With only 36km of time trials – the final one in Marseille is only 23km long – this will be another Tour for the climbers. Froome said: “It’s very light on time-trial kilometres but that’s all part of the race and that’s something I’m going to have to focus my training on, being the best I can be on the climbs. It’s going to be a race that is won or lost in the mountains.”

The 2017 Tour, which starts in Düsseldorf on 1 July, will have only four mountain-top finishes but they include the super-steep climb to La Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges, where Froome won his first Tour stage in 2012. That comes on stage five, extremely early in the race, and the serious climbing starts only four days later with a stage through the Jura containing 4,600m of ascent and three steep climbs en route to Chambéry: the Mont du Chat, Grand Colombier and Col de la Biche, all around 10km long.

The major Pyrenean ascents such as the Aubisque and Tourmalet are absent, so too Mont Ventoux on the 50th anniversary of Tom Simpson’s death on its slopes, but there is a return to Alpine giants such as the Cols de Croix de Fer and Galibier, with the final summit finish on the closing Thursday on the Col d’Izoard, following the climb of the Col de Vars, “an absolute beast of a stage”, in Froome’s words.

What is striking is the steepness of some of the climbs, beginning with an 11% ascent close to the finish of stage three at Longwy. As well as La Planche des Belles Filles and the climbs in the Jura, the stage to Peyragudes in the Pyrenees includes an ascent at 16%, the following day has the Mur de Péguère, stage 15 includes the Col de Peyra Taillade, at 14%, while even the final time trial takes in the 17% ascent to La Garde. These are leg-breakers but again recent history suggests they are not usually sufficient to split up the strongmen.

After two years when the quota of flat stages destined for a sprint finish has been low – seven in 2016, five in 2015 – there is a distinct increase, with at least nine stages suited to Cavendish and company, with a further two – Longwy and Rodez – including short climbs at or near the finish. Cavendish, with 30 stage wins, has complained that sprint opportunities on the Tour are being curtailed but next year, if his form is the same as in 2016, he could close on Eddy Merckx’s record of 34.

Hints that the women’s race run alongside the Tour, La Course by the Tour de France, would be expanded to a multiday event were premature, as the race’s shift in date was to enable it to be held alongside the stage finishing on the Izoard, the first time that La Course has moved from its initial format of a criterium on the Champs Élysées. That will partly placate those calling for a tough road race but the distance of 67km is short for Lizzie Deignan, née Armitstead, and her ilk, and the finish will be 4km short of the top of the Izoard.

There are nods to history – a visit to Charles de Gaulle’s home village of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises on stage six, and a start in Montgeron, where the first Tour began in 1903 – and to the venues pitched as part of Paris’s bid for the 2024 Olympics, including Marseille and a passage right through Paris’s Grand Palais on the final stage.

Most amusing as the British agonise over Brexit – and surely an ironic nod to events by the organisers – is the visit to Luxembourg on stage four, which will pass through the town of Schengen, where the agreement paving the way for the elimination of border controls in most of the EU was signed in 1985.