Tour de France competitors will face new and steeper mountain climbs and longer time trials next year, making for a wide-open race that will give stars like defending champion Cadel Evans and three-time winner Alberto Contador plenty of challengers. At Tuesday's presentation of the 2012 course, Tour director Christian Prudhomme said “more favorites can potentially be in the mix” in the quest for the leader's yellow jersey over the 3,479-km route. The Tour's 99th edition, which starts June 30 in Liege, Belgium, will feature nearly 100 kms of individual time trials and 25 tough mountain climbs. The super-steep Planche des Belles Filles in eastern France will make its Tour debut in Stage 7. “The route has been made so more favorites can potentially be in it (the title hunt),” Prudhomme told reporters before welcoming hundreds of riders, cycling personnel, sponsors and fans for the presentation at a Paris convention center. This year's Tour was one of the most exciting in years, with the yellow jersey up for grabs until the next to last stage. Prudhomme said organizers couldn't rest on their laurels and needed to continue to shake things up. “There is nothing worse than old routines. And teams adapt at an incredible speed. We have to try to bring new things each time so that they have to change,” he said. The Planche des Belles Filles, with a patch of a staggering 20-degree gradient, is but one of nearly a half-dozen new mountain climbs for the Tour. Riders will also struggle up the Col de la Croix in the Jura mountains of Switzerland – a 3.7 km climb with an average gradient of 9.2 percent. “On the Col de la Croix, even without attacking, you have to be in it. It can't be otherwise, it's too steep for there not to be a shakeup,” Prudhomme said. The climb comes just 15 kilometers from the finish line of Stage 8. A group of cycling stars lined the front row for Tuesday's glitzy presentation at a top-grade Paris hotel: Evans, new world champion Mark Cavendish of Britain, brothers Andy and Frank Schleck — who finished this year second and third behind Evans — and Belgium's Philippe Gilbert, the top-ranked rider this year in the International Cycling Union scale. Gilbert will join Evans' BMC Racing team next year. Major centerpieces for the Tour's last two editions were the centennial celebrations of the race's debut in the Pyrenees mountains — in 1909 — and the Alps the following year. For 2012, the theme will be novelty, Prudhomme said.
