Race marks comeback for German cycling scene

DUESSELDORF, Germany — The Tour de France calls its start the “Grand Depart.” This year it feels more like the “Grand Return.”

Six years after German TV stopped broadcasting cycling’s showpiece event because of a series of doping scandals and three decades after it last rolled off in the country, the Tour opens this weekend with two stages in Duesseldorf.

The race starts Saturday with a mostly flat 14-kilometer (8.7-mile) individual time trial in Duesseldorf that seems tailor made for fourtime world champion Tony Martinto grab the yellow jerseyin front of his home fans.

Stage 2 goes from Duesseldorf to Liege, Belgium.

The previous time the three-week race started from Germany was in 1987, when the Grand Depart took place in West Berlin — when the city was still divided.

A decade later, German cycling reached its high point when Jan Ullrich became the first and still only German to win the Tour.

While Ullrich’s win set off a golden age of German cycling,the sport quickly disintegrated in the country after doping scandals involving prominent riders such as Patrick Sinkewitz, Stefan Schumacher and Ullrich himself.Even Erik Zabel, the popular rider who still holds the record of six green jerseys in the Tour’s points classification, admitted to dopingafter he retired.

These days, a new generation of German riders led by Martin, sprinters Andre Greipel and Marcel Kittel — who have won 11 and nine Tour stages, respectively — plus classics specialist John Degenkolb, have drawn local fans back to cycling.

German TV station ARD began broadcasting the Tour again in 2015 and the Tour of Germany is set to return next year after it was canceled in 2009.

“A lot of people are looking forward to have the Tour de France back in Germany, and we want to give fans reasons to be proud of us,” said Kittel, who aims to win Stage 2. “Having the Grand Depart here is an important step for the German community.”