The sparkling Mediterranean along Port Vell in Barcelona must be a comforting sight for the sprinters of this year's Tour de France. Nice and sea-level and flat – just how Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Premier-Tech) like it.

But even the gentle slope up to the Sagrada Família, where the team presentations are being held in impressive fashion before the hordes in the stinking July heat, are a reminder of what's to come for our poor fastmen. Rising into the Catalan hills from day two, the 2026 route is particularly pointy, even by Tour standards. 54,450 metres of climbs in the Pyrenees, Massif Central, Vosges, Jura, and Alps, and a double Alp d'Huez crescendo – because why the hell not – should make for an ever-tighter general classification, much heavyweight suffering, and even more ASO chortling.

To put that number into a bit of perspective: 123 times the height of the Empire State building, 6.15 times Mount Everest, and more than halfway to the edge of space. A deeper search suggests a column of 30,300 emperor penguins standing on each other's shoulders. Whichever you pick, it's a lot.

So you can imagine how the sprinters of the peloton are feeling. Speaking to journalists in Hospital Sant Pau at kilometre 0, elevation gain 0 of the Grand Boucle, three-time Tour stage winner Merlier seemed relaxed – but addressed questions of the 'up' to come with a nervous chuckle.

"My preparation has been the same as last year. I think I'm ready for the Tour. I'm still a sprinter and not a climber, so I need to survive. The climbers are stronger than I am!" quips the Belgian, who had a delayed start to the season following a knee injury over the winter. His teammate Valentin Paret-Peintre, a contender for the mountains classification this year, sits next him on the stage, grinning.

Not only does the parcours make reaching Paris feel the equivalent of finding Oz for these fast favourites, but they also have to wait four whole days (with an accumulated 9,350 metres of climbing) until their first opportunity for a stage win arrives in Pau. After that, there are six supposedly 'flat' days: stages 8, 11, 12, 17, and 21. But after the Chalon-sur-Saône finish of stage 12, the phraseology becomes questionable. Chambéry to Voiron amasses over 2000 metres of climbing. It doesn't sound a lot compared to other stages, but after over two weeks in the furnace (and having banked five summit finishes by this point), it'll be a bit of a heave.

Of course, it's never been more necessary to dissipate Tadej Pogačar's staggering dominance, or at least make the battle fierce between those left in his wake. Besides the arrival of French phenom and perhaps Pog's most exciting challenger 19-year-old Paul Seixas, it does beg the question: is it all a little unfair? 10-time Tour stage victor Philipsen, who won the green jersey in 2023, was diplomatic:

"It's just how it is, we just have to be ready on stage five. Stage one [team time trial] is of course also important for the team. We have four stages to get the legs going a little bit. I think as a sprinter you'll still be motivated to ride to Paris. The hardest part of the Tour will be the last week, and you just have to survive.

"You never know how the balance arrives," he continues. "If [riders] decide to go in the breakaway, and make it hard to make a bunch sprint, then of course in the end maybe you will only have a few bunch sprinters, so it will not be so balanced. It's difficult to say. But we'll see."

It's true, and a sentiment which will sting for last year's green jersey winner Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who is absent from the Tour this month. The recent Giro d'Italia, in which Merlier's Soudal Quick-Step teammate Paul Magnier secured the Maglia Ciclamino on debut amidst crashes and carnage as Milan stuttered, was a reminder of just how volatile a sprint stage can be.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

So when the opportunities are sparse and the stakes are high, it's important to get it right. Never has that been more relevant than this year. Previously, flat stages awarded 50 points to the winner, but this year the fastest rider will now take 70 points. The podium places have jumped too: the second-place finisher on flat stages will receive 50 points rather than the previous 30, while third place is now worth 40 points rather than 20. The seven flat stages now also feature two intermediate sprints rather than one, and that payout has risen as well, from 20 to 25.

If you're confused by all those numbers, know one thing. The talk of the town is that it's Pog-proof. Last year, the four-time Tour winner – who is going for a fifth this year – came second behind Milan in the points classification, in addition to taking yellow and the polka-dot jersey. Under the new rules, it's effectively harder for Pog to gobble up all the various palates and patterns available to him.

"If you win three or four stages, then you are in a good way," says Merlier. "Last year it was close between Tadej and Milan. We have to win some stages to have an opportunity. It would be nice to ride in the green jersey once this Tour, and we will see later on if it's still possible to go for the green or not."

For Merlier – a pure sprinter in an age of increasingly versatile fastmen – hoarding points is made easier by the fact that a lot of the intermediate sprints are earlier on the stages or before the big mountains. But while his fifty professional wins include a stack of sprinters' Classics, two Belgian National Road Race Championships, the 2024 European Road Race Championship and a fistful of Grand Tour stage wins, the old system isn't really why an overall points classification victory at those stage races has eluded him. Even though Merlier has beaten his compatriot Philipsen in the last two editions of Scheldeprijs, and he took their most recent meeting at the Baloise Belgium Tour, Philipsen is the better Tour sprinter. While not of the same elastic quality of Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Philipsen does have more ways to win than Merlier when the going gets tough.

Still, the new system means that while the parochial-sprinter-types like Merlier – the strongmen en velo – face the toughest odyssey of this year's race, they at least can revel in the fact there's a points classification competition which works in their favour more than the last few years, and which throws it back to the good old days of Mark Cavendish and Marcel Kittel. The only thing left to complain about is the colour. It's a bit meh, subdued, if you will. Bring back the lime.