Tour back on track
One of the world’s biggest events get new dates as race director Christian Prudhomme remains confident despite pandemic
paris -- Staging the Tour de France this year despite the novel coronavirus pandemic was vital for road cycling, the race’s director Christian Prudhomme said on Wednesday.
The sport’s governing International Cycling Union (UCI) said the Tour, initially due to be held from June 27-July 19, would be staged from Aug. 29Sept. 20 amid measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
“We started to talk about a postponement to the local politicians as soon as March 18 - a day after France was put in lockdown - and all of them were on board,” Prudhomme told Reuters in an interview.
“Everyone in the world of cycling supported the idea, even those who usually don’t like us. Some teams said they would have to close down without the Tour in 2020.
“The Tour is the base of the revised calendar.”
Sponsors usually invest in cycling teams for the broad TV exposure and the Tour de France is one of the world’s most watched events, after the Summer Olympics and the soccer World Cup.
With no racing before July, cycling teams and sponsors have been dramatically hit financially by the coronoavirus, which has infected over two mil
lion people worldwide and brought the world of sport to a standstill.
The Tour route will remain 99% unchanged with a Grand Depart from Nice and the traditional final parade on Paris’s Champs-Elysees.
“The only thing we might have to change sometimes is when we go through bigger cities,” said Prudhomme, who on Tuesday called 49 local politicians to inform them that the Tour dates had been changed.
The 2020 summer holidays are due to end on Sept. 1 in France, where public events have been banned until mid-July although French president Emmanuel Macron said the confinement would be progressively lifted from May 11.
Asked about potential safety measures due to the coronavirus outbreak, Prudhomme said the Tour organisers would adapt.
“We will follow recommendations, just like we did for Paris-Nice in March. At the start, gatherings of more than 5,000 were banned and after a couple of days we had to adapt because the maximum was 1,000,” he said.
Prudhomme added that earlier dates for the Tour in August had been considered before being ruled out. -