Paris (AFP)
Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu said Wednesday "imaginable" to organize the 2020 Tour de France cycling without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Everything is imaginable, we have already done it for other competitions before, it does not have the same impact even if the economic model of the Tour de France is not based on ticketing as it is the case for football and rugby matches ", affirmed the minister, questioned by France Bleu on the possibility of a Big Loop behind closed doors.
The government is in discussions with ASO, the organizer, on the fate reserved for the most prestigious of the Grand Tours, after the postponement of one year of the Olympic Games and the Euro of football and while sport, including cycling , is almost completely stopped until further notice.
"I think that today everyone is aware and responsible for the period of confinement we are going through and everyone has understood the reasons, and the benefits that it will bring to everyone than staying at home and give preference to the television show rather than the live show, so in the end it would not be so detrimental since we could follow it on television, "continued the minister.
Since its creation in 1903, the Tour, which has become a phenomenon of society as much as of sport, was only stopped by the two world wars.
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