Bruxelles Brussel
The 2019 Tour de France kicks off with a stage that pays homage to both Belgium’s greatest champion and race
As the capital of a divided kingdom and of an international union of 28 countries, Brussels is good at compromise. Its official languages are, equally, Flemish, French and diplomacy. So it’s apt that the opening stage of the 2019 Tour de France, which will start in the Belgian capital, tips a nod both to the classics specialists, with its incursion into the Flemish Ardennes of the Tour of Flanders, and to the sprinters, with a flat run-in which all but guarantees a bunch finish. In fact, the spirit of cultural compromise extends so far that though French is the official language of the Tour, the race literature has the stage starting in ‘Bruxelles’ and finishing in ‘Brussel’. A French start, a Flemish finish, and a mix of Flanders, Wallonia and, of course, the Brussels capital region in between.
The Tour is not above making socio-political statements with its route design, and this grand départ reminds us of the original unifying slogan of Belgium, when it declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830: ‘Unity makes strength’.
The stage will head south west towards the Flemish Ardennes and borrow the Muur van Geraardsbergen (the ‘Mur de Grammont’, according to the race literature) and Bosberg
from the Tour of Flanders early on. The atmosphere is likely to be electric on these climbs, and the first rider over the top of the Muur will wear the King of the Mountains jersey for at least two days, but otherwise the appearance of the climbs is largely symbolic. The race will also pass through Woluwé Saint-Pierre, where the greatest rider in the history of cycling, Eddy Merckx, grew up - a nod to it being 50 years since Merckx won his first of his five yellow jerseys in 1969 - and Waterloo, before the final flat kilometres.
These flat early stages have been long controlled by the sprinters’ teams – the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself at the Tour: the first yellow jersey of 2019 will be given to a sprinter. Sprinters are somewhat less given to compromise than the politicians of Brussels.