Cyclists pass in front of Arc de Triomphe during the 106th Tour de France in Paris, France, July 28, 2019. /VCG
Tour de France, the most important cycling event on the annual sports calendar, has been rescheduled to take place from August 29 to September 20, following the French government's extension of a ban on mass gatherings to mid-July because of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers confirmed on Wednesday.
The event was originally scheduled from June 27 to July 19.
The decision moves the three-week race out of its traditional slot in the summer holidays, when roadside crowds of around 12 million would be expected to gather in festive spirit.
It will now finish on the same day the postponed French Open tennis tournament starts, September 20, giving a worrying indication of a potential autumn fixture pile-up as more sports seek to reschedule suspended events.
Organizers also said the women's event, La Course by le Tour de France avec FDJ, which was initially scheduled to take place on July 19 on the Champs Elysées, will also be postponed. The date is still unknown, but the event will take place during the Tour de France 2020.
Equally, the 30th edition of the Etape du Tour cyclosportive, an annual event to allow amateur cyclists to race over the same route as a Tour de France stage, will be postponed to a date yet to be determined even though it was originally scheduled on July 5.
Christian Prudhomme, director of Tour de France, speaks during the presentation of the 107th cycling event in Paris, France, October 15, 2019. /VCG
Tour's route remains intact
While the dates have changed the original route remains intact, starting in Nice and finishing in Paris. Christian Prudhomme, director of Tour de France, said the new start was based on a double rationale. "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 remain intact," he said of the hotly anticipated climb-laden route that rarely strays far from the mountains.
Cyclists pass the Colosseum during the 101st Giro d'Italia in Rome, Italy, May 27, 2018. /VCG
Cycling's landscape
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), cycling's governing body, has said Giro d'Italia would be raced after the Tour de France, and the Vuelta a Espana after that, with dates to be announced in May.
An October 3 start date has been bandied about in Italy for the rescheduled Giro, meaning just a two-week gap between it and the Tour de France, ruling out the possibility of a double.
The Giro being raced in October instead of May would mean it is raced in similar changeable, rainy and potentially cold weather. These conditions make the three-week Giro tricky to survive for riders such as Chris Froome of Britain, who has said he disliked the cold.
A Vuelta in November would be colder than usual as well, a Grand Tour has never before been raced so late in the year, taking the discipline into uncharted territory.
Egan Bernal (C) is surrounded by his Ineos teammates Jonathan Castroviejo (L) and Geraint Thomas after winning the 106th Tour de France in Paris, July 28, 2019. /VCG
Riders' thoughts
Tour de France champion Egan Bernal said on Wednesday he will reconsider his training program so he can defend his title.
"We have four and ahalf months to get back to 100 percent," Bernal posted on Instagram. "It is time to rethink all the training and start with more motivation than ever to get to this date in the best form."
Bernal, the first Latin American to win the Tour, has been confined in central Colombia since returning from Europe after his team, Ineos, withdrew from Paris-Nice, where he was also the defending champion, following the death of their sports director Nicolas Portal.
In the last few days, Bernal has posted videos on social media showing him training on an exercise bike.
Ineos' Colombian rider Egan Bernal shows the Tour de France champion's yellow jersey after winning the 106th edition of the cycling event during a welcome celebration in Bogota, Colombia, August 7, 2019. /VCG
Bernal said his team "will continue to work hard, calmly, with a lot of patience and intelligence, to be back on the starting line with a clear conscience having done the right job."
Britain's Froome, a four-time Tour winner and also a member of Ineos, said, "It's the news we have all been waiting for, some light at the end of the tunnel ... I'm seeing a lot of negativity and despondency on my timeline, I know this period has been tough on all of us, and bike racing is not important in the greater scheme of things. But let's take hope in that we may return to some sort of normality in the near future."
Another Ineos member Geraint Thomas, who won the Tour in 2018, echoed their thoughts. "It's nice to have that date in your head to at least work towards," Thomas said in an Instagram live.
(With input from agencies)