It must be a racing certainty that the Montmatre modification will be seen again, whether next year or not. I hope that next time conditions are good and that times contribute to GC as intended.
The change I would propose is to designate the final sprint before the first Montmatre ascent as a flying stage. This is effectively the same as an intermediate sprint, but given the status of a full stage. There is precedent as flying stages were used in 1977 and 1978, not that most accounts will tell you this. Stage 21 in 1978 technically had three winners - Freddy Maertens at Soissons, Wilfried Wesemael at Compiègne and Jan Raas at Senlis where the day's entertainment concluded. Unsurprisingly the public didn't take to the concept and it was not seen again. Valid idea, wrong time and place perhaps?
As an aside I've often thought the winner of the day's intermediate sprint should get more recognition - maybe a podium visit?
. However, I do have corroborating evidence from David Walsh's 1986 biography of Sean Kelly. I remember reading the chapter on the 1978 Alpe d'Huez scandal, where Kelly's teammate and yellow jersey wearer Michel Pollentier was thrown off the race for trying to cheat the doping control. Naturally there was a team meeting to decide what to do. They decided to continue, largely justified in the event as "Demeyer won in Belfort, Maertens in Soissons". Sometimes Maertens is credited with 15 career stage wins, sometimes 16. With the information on flying stages this all starts to add up.
