Languedoc looks forward to Tour's return
Highest stages characterise 2024 event as Olympics divert the race from Paris
YOU have to get close to the world’s greatest professional cycling race – the Tour de France – to understand it.
France Televisions’ coverage – with shots from helicopters and motorbikes – may be spectacular but until you get to see it ‘for real’, it is impossible to appreciate its impressive impact.
For example, when the Grand Départ, the ‘big start’, came to Yorkshire in 2014, the build-up had lasted months, infecting the entire region with its own particular Tour fever.
The mixture of carnival and sport is intense, spectacular, momentary and immensely joyous. The ‘caravan’ of commercial floats, with volunteers throwing samples and souvenirs to the crowd, firefighters and trade unions, enhances the holiday atmosphere.
Such a spirit may be important for Florence and Tuscany as they host the Grand Départ in Italy next June 29, helping the area recover economically and psychologically after serious flooding at the beginning of the month.
Six people were killed as record rainfall flooded tunnels and strong winds brought down trees heavy with wet leaves leaving drivers stranded and including a 85-year-old man who drowned on the ground floor of his home near Florence among the victims. The city’s mayor Dario Nardello said the situation was ‘critical’ as the waters of the River Arno rose, causing devastation that left residents clearing houses, garages and cellars of furniture and appliances damaged by the floodwater.
That first Saturday of the 20245 Tour will see the cyclists travel 206 kilometres – 128 miles – from Florence to Rimini, on the Adriatic coast. Day two will take them to Bologna and day three from Plaisance to Turin.
The Tour will return to the Languedoc two weeks later – for the 187km (116 mile) stage from Gruissan on the coast of the Aude département east of Narbonne to Nîmes. The coastal town is best-known in France as a beach resort, its pink salt flats and sea salt. A stage of the 2017 tour ended there.
The initial route map suggests the stage will be close to the course taken in the opposite direction, from Nîmes to Carcassonne, in July 2021, passing inland of Béziers to the Saint-Loup peak in hills north of Montpellier.
Race director Christian Prudhomme said: ‘The sprinters may be heavily tipped for success when the race heads away from the coast near Narbonne, and maybe even when the riders pass over the Pic Saint-Loup.
‘However, the Mistral can blow fiercely at this time of year and could well upset the plans of the sprinters if those teams that feel at home when it’s windy end up scattering the peloton.’
The stage, with relatively few climbs, comes after a rest day at Guissan before others that take the cyclists to mountains north of Nice and Monaco ahead of the finish on July 21.
The 3,492km (2,170 mile) 2024 Tour will – in a break with tradition – end in Nice rather than with laps of the Champs Elysées as the Olympics open in Paris the following Friday.
Cycling journalists have already said the riders may need oxygen masks as the race will include some of the highest roads in France, at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres (6,560 feet), for about 25km (15.5 miles) on day four, after reaching the Alps.
Christian Prudhomme said: ‘To climb this high on the fourth day is unheard of.’
Already among the favourites to wear the winner’s yellow jersey are Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Podocar and Valentin Maduoas.