Tour to go ahead after 2-month delay

PARIS • The Tour de France will be raced from Aug 29 to Sept 20, organisers announced yesterday, postponing cycling's flagship event owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

Originally slated to start on June 27, the Tour's new dates follow French President Emmanuel Macron's extension of a ban on large public gatherings until mid-July and organisers said the race would follow the same route as the original itinerary, starting in Nice and ending in Paris.

While the news comes as a relief to professional cycling teams and fans, with four-time Tour winner Chris Froome tweeting there was now "light at the end of the tunnel" for those suffering under Covid-19 lockdown and safe distancing measures, a new raft of issues have emerged.

The race will now finish on the same day the delayed French Open starts, giving a worrying indication of a potential autumn fixture pile-up as more sports seek to reschedule suspended events.

Moving the three-week race out of its traditional slot in the summer - a time when around 12 million people traditionally gather along its route in festive spirit - also raises the spectre of a possibly muted atmosphere.

And it does not solve the problem of how appropriate social distancing can be enforced, even among a thinner crowd.

But while Tour director Christian Prudhomme did not address those matters, he expressed his confidence to Agence France-Presse that the grand tour would overcome all obstacles.

"We wanted to be as far away from the pandemic as possible," he said. "The President put a July 14 date on public gatherings, but it seemed more reasonable to us to allow the riders time to get into peak condition.

"The Tour is still the Tour. All the challenges we set (including the mountain climbs) remain intact. The Tour is 3,000km of smiles."

The sport's governing body, the UCI, added: "Holding this event in the best conditions possible is judged essential given its central place in cycling's economy."

Pushing back the race does, however, give Tour organiser ASO time to stage the warm-up Criterium du Dauphine. It is traditionally held ahead of the Tour, but had to be postponed as the spring season was swept aside by Covid-19, leaving no practice races on the calendar.

Cycling teams will also stave off financial ruin - a cancellation could have resulted in many going bankrupt as the Tour accounts for 60 per cent of earnings in a season, according to French team AG2R's boss Vincent Lavenu.

As for the rest of the calendar, the UCI confirmed that the other two grand tours, the Giro d'Italia, which had been set for next month, as well as the Vuelta a Espana, which was originally planned for August, will take place after the Tour.

No dates have been announced, but a confirmation is expected by next month.

With no other major race on the horizon - the Tokyo Olympics road race has been delayed to next summer - the Tour will be more competitive than ever as the whole spectrum of elite cyclists focus on one race.

Froome also believes the race will be more of a shared national experience than usual and seen by the public as part of the healing process amid the Covid-19 crisis.

"I know this period has been tough on all of us, and racing is not important in the greater scheme of things," he tweeted. "But let's take hope we may return to some sort of normality in the near future."

However, not all share his optimism, given how unpredictable the outbreak has become.

Lotto Soudal rider Thomas de Gendt told Belgian TV channel VTM News that he still feels "(last month's) Paris-Nice was the last race of 2020".

He added: "I can't imagine that the virus will suddenly disappear and everything will just go back to normal. Sport will be one of the last things to be considered."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS