Stage 1 of 2016 Tour de France set for sprint finale at D-Day's Utah Beach

The medieval monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel will as expected host the start of the opening stage of the 2016 Tour de France – one that will end in what is likely to be a bunch sprint at Utah Beach, used in the Normandy Landings on D-Day.

The details of the opening days of what will be the 104th edition of the race, which will begin for the first time in Normandy’s Manche department, were revealed today by Tour organisers ASO.

Stage 1 on Saturday 2 July will be a 188-kilometre road stage from Mont-Saint-Michel that crosses the Cotentin peninsula for a finish at Sainte-Marie-du-Mont by Utah Beach, one of the five used in the Normandy Landings on 6 June 1944.

With much of the stage following the coast, there is the risk of the peloton splitting and echelons forming should it get windy, but it represents a chance for sprinters – not least, Mark Cavendish – to get into the race leader’s yellow jersey.

Mont-Saint-Michel last featured in the race during 2013’s 100th edition when it hosted the finish of an individual time trial won by Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Tony Martin, with eventual champion Chris Froome of Team Sky finishing second.

Whoever is in the race lead following that opening stage will struggle to keep it on the following day’s 182-kilometre Stage 2 from Saint-Lô to Cherbourg-Octeville, with a tough day’s racing in prospect including a three-kilometre climb at the end that has a section with a gradient of 14 per cent.

The third and final day in the Manche will see the peloton leave the port of Granville for an as yet unknown destination that will be revealed when the route of the 2016 Tour is unveiled in Paris next October.

Race director Christian Prudhomme said: “The Manche is a very beautiful department with breath taking scenery. It offers varied terrain that will favour the sprinters at Utah Beach, and allow the puncheurs their chance to standout in the hills above Cherbourg-Octeville.

“Let us not forget the Mont-Saint-Michel that will majestically enhance the very first pedal strokes of the riders of the peloton, three years after it was the backdrop for the 100th Tour de France.”

Jean-François Le Grand, President of the Manche General Council added: “It was written that the history of cycling, the Tour de France and the Manche would one day converge.

“We are proud to offer cycling a sumptuous setting, to promise the Tour de France a warm and passionate welcome and to offer the Manche all the glory it deserves. The coming together of the three during the 2016 start will be magic.”

The 2016 Grand Départ will be the third time in four editions of the race that sprinters have been given the opportunity to fight it out for not only the stage win, but also the overall lead.

Up until 2012, the race typically began with a prologue but that year, when it started in Corsica, a road stage saw Giant-Shimano’s Marcel Kittel win the sprint, with Cavendish held up by a crash.

Kittel won the opening stage of this year’s race in Harrogate as Cavendish hit the deck on the approach to the line, his injuries forcing him to abandon the race the following morning.

Next year’s Tour starts in the Dutch city Utrecht with an individual time trial – the only one in the three-week race and, at 14 kilometres, too long to be classified as a prologue.