3,300km Tour ride completed
£900,000-PLUS FOR CHARITY
A FUND-RAISER has completed the entire Tour de France route – and helped raised more than £900,000 for charity.
Martin Smith, 43, a corporate lawyer from Market Harborough, rolled into Paris having completed all the stages ridden by the cycling world’s elite.
The Tour 21 finishers rolled down the Champs Elysées, to the finish line by the Eiffel Tower to complete 3,349.8km (2,081 miles), cheered on by more than 100 friends and family.
Martin and the team faced mountain climbs, 40 degree heat, driving rain, broken bones, crashes, punctures and illness along the way.
They were raising money for Cure Leukaemia’s Trials Acceleration Programme, which aims to drive medical advances.
Martin said: “My motivation here is to keep raising awareness of Cure Leukaemia. I lost my father at the age of 12 to leukaemia and the advancements in treatment and knowledge as a result of the work that’s done thanks to funding since he passed away mean that the funding is crucial.
“The more we can raise, the more we can invest in the programs Cure Leukaemia supports.”
Cure Leukaemia chief executive James McLaughlin said: “What the three weeks have shown is the unique sense of team spirit, camaraderie, dedication and the bravery needed to take on all 21 stages of the Tour de France is something pretty unique.
“Every single one of the team and crew should be immensely proud.
“This is without a doubt, one of the toughest sporting challenges in the world.
“What they have done is put their bodies on the line for others and for that, we are eternally grateful.
“By supporting the Trials Acceleration Programme, they are opening up new therapies and new trials through the network that we fund that ultimately will give blood cancer patients access to pioneering treatments that aren’t readily available.
“Without this network, these new kinds of therapies don’t become available.
“It is easily fair to say that this team and the back-up crew are effectively life-savers, because what they are doing, they are ultimately helping to save people’s lives and changing the way that blood cancer is treated now and in the future.”