No guarantee Tour de France will go ahead, says French sports minister
The French sports minister Roxana Maracineanu has delivered a stark warning to cycling, declaring that there is “no guarantee” that the Tour de France will go ahead this year.
The Tour has already been rescheduled from June to a 29 August start because of the Covid-19 crisis, but the minister could offer little assurance that the race would be given the green light. With crowd-drawing events banned in France until the end of August, special arrangements might have to be made for the start of the Tour in Nice, the sports ministry said last month.
“Many people are begging me to keep the Tour even behind closed doors,” Maracineanu told France Television. “I hope it will take place but I am not sure. We do not know what the epidemic will be like after lockdown.”
France’s lockdown, in place since 17 March, will be partially lifted on Monday, although the seasons of several sports championships, including-football’s Ligue 1 and rugby’s Top 14, have been abandoned. Maracineanu added that the Tour and tennis’s rescheduled French Open, which will now start on 27 September, could be held behind closed doors should the ban be extended. The news came on the day cycling’s world governing body confirmed the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España will overlap in October as the UCI unveiled its revised calendar. The Giro is scheduled to take place from 3-25 October, with a shortened 18stage Vuelta slated for 20 October to 8 November.
The Giro Rosa, among the highlights of the women’s calendar, will clash with the final week of the Tour de France as it is scheduled for 11-19 September, the week before the UCI’s Road World Championships in Aigle-Martigny, Switzerland.
Included in the revamped calendar is a first women’s Paris-Roubaix in October. Reacting to the addition, the former world champion Lizzie Deignan said: “Obviously this is an amazing surprise, I’m really delighted!
“I think Paris-Roubaix is an iconic race, one of the races that attracts most fans in cycling and if we can attract those same fans to women’s cycling, I think it’s a really positive thing. The race will happen at the end of an intensive racing period and in the aftermath of such a challenging year with the coronavirus pandemic but to have a Paris-Roubaix to look forward to makes the motivation easy.”