Sunak to support 2026 British Tour de France in £40m Budget pledge
Chancellor Rishi Sunak will today announce a multi-million-pound support package to bring the Tour de France back to Britain in 2026, with stages in England, Scotland and Wales.
According to a press release from HM Treasury yesterday, Sunak will use his Budget and Spending Review to announce £30million of support for the 2026 Tour de France grand depart and the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, plus a further £11million to back the UK and Ireland’s bid for the 2030 men’s football World Cup.
The Tour bid would be for stages “in England, Scotland and Wales” in line with the Government’s levelling up agenda.
The statement said the return of cycling’s biggest race to the UK for the first time since the hugely successful Yorkshire grand depart in 2014 would give “people across the country a chance to watch worldclass sport for free”.
After two stages in Yorkshire seven years ago, the grand depart concluded with a third stage from Cambridge to London but the statement stressed: “Ninety-five per cent of the investment in hosting the Tour de France stages would be outside the South East. The Women’s Rugby World Cup would also see over 75 per cent of the investment outside of the South East with matches in stadiums up and down the country.”
British Cycling declined to comment, but The Daily Telegraph understands that plans for specific locations are well advanced, with the grand depart bid to be submitted to Tour organiser ASO early next year.
The recent Tour of Britain took in stages in North Wales, the North of England and Scotland, and will have given plenty of food for thought in terms of what worked and what did not.
The Scotland stage would almost certainly have to involve either Glasgow or Edinburgh. And given the need to reduce transfers as much as possible, it is likely it would either head to or from England, with a stage in the North, and include one in North Wales.
Whether the three-day grand depart finished in Wales or Scotland, the Tour would then almost certainly require a rest day so the peloton could travel to France.
“I’m excited at the prospect of bringing more world-class sporting events to the UK,” the Chancellor said in yesterday’s statement. “That’s why I’m backing these British bids, with over £40million of funding to make our case.”
Meanwhile, Geraint Thomas says he is close to signing a new deal with Ineos Grenadiers after the “worst” contract negotiations of his career.
The 35-year-old, who won the Tour de France in 2018, is out of contract at the end of this year and has attracted interest from other teams. But he said he was relieved his future was almost sorted.
“It’s pretty much done but it’s still not signed so I don’t want to curse it,” Thomas told the BBC. “I’ve had to separate the emotional and the business side of things.
“I’ve known Dave [Brailsford, Ineos team manager] since 2003 and that relationship is obviously a good one but he has his bosses and his agenda and there’s me and what my family want.
“So it’s been tough. It’s been the worst one [contract] to redo because there’s been a lot going on but I’m happy that it’s finally almost done.”