D-Day to be remembered at start
SAINT-LO, France — The landing beaches. The war cemeteries. The museums. The first towns that were liberated more than 70 years ago.
The D-Day and World War II history that is embedded in the culture of Normandy is earning extra spotlight this weekend when the Tour de France opens with two stages in the region.
Today’s opening leg starts at Mont-SaintMichel, a World Heritage Benedictine abbey perched on a rock off the coast, and ends at Utah Beach, one of the key landing sites for Allied troops on June 6, 1944.
The first stage also passes through SainteMere-Eglise, where American paratrooper John Steele dangled from a clock tower after his parachute got caught during the invasion, and survived. The town now is home to the Airborne Museum.
Stage 2 on Sunday finishes in Cherbourg-En-Cotentin, site of the Battle of Cherbourg.
Tejay van Garderen, the BMC rider who represents the United States’ best hope for overall victory in the Tour, was wide eyed as he took a look around this week.
“It really puts into perspective what we’re doing here,” Van Garderen said Friday. “We always say that we’re soldiers going to war and then you see the real soldiers and you’re like, ‘OK, maybe this is just bike racing.’”
Teams were driven into the official team presentation in Sainte-Mere-Eglise on WWII-era jeeps and trucks Thursday.
“I like the way organizers and the local people here have put together the appropriate historical reminders, that teams have been accompanied on the jeeps by the local people in costumes,” said Brian Cookson, the British president of the International Cycling Union.
A legacy of the war was freedom, underlined by the diversity of the Tour teams.
Van Garderen, who was in third place when he had to abandon last year’s Tour in tears because of illness four stages from the end, shares the BMC leadership with Australian standout Richie Porte. They are backed by riders from Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland and Belgium.
“We’re such an international team,” Van Garderen said. “It shows that the world has come a long way.”
The favorites for overall victory in the three-week race are two-time winner Chris Froome of Britain, two-time runner-up Nairo Quintana of Colombia, and two-time champion Alberto Contador of Spain.
After today’s stage, a group of American, British, Canadian, French, and German riders will lay white roses in front of Utah Beach’s Peace Monument to commemorate the Allied landings.
“We will celebrate cycling as a peace symbol,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme said. “The only thing that prevented the Tour de France taking place was world war, twice.”