Copenhagen (AFP)
One more year of waiting for the Danes: Copenhagen will host the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2022 instead of 2021, an indirect reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.
The mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen made official on the Danish television channel TV2 on Monday the postponement of one year. The Tour de France, brought forward a week by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to avoid new competition from the Tokyo Olympics, themselves postponed for a year, could no longer leave Denmark on this new date.
Where will the 2021 Tour start? Everything indicates that Brittany is the best placed to host the Grand Départ of the biggest cycling race in the world.
Already on July 20, the regional newspaper Le Télégramme congratulated itself: "The 2021 Tour should start from Brittany!". No confirmation came from the organizers (ASO). But the Regional Council, project manager, and the organizing company are in close contact.
The working hypothesis remains to be finalized so that the Tour returns to Brittany, away from the route this year as in 2019. The last Grand Départ in the region, labeled "the eldest daughter of cycling" because of its popularity of this sport in Armorica, dates back to 2008 (Brest).
For Denmark, we will have to wait a little longer before having the Tour peloton on its soil. The pandemic has postponed the Tokyo Olympics for one year but also the Euro football, several matches of which are scheduled to take place in Copenhagen. However, the capital cannot combine two events as important as the Euro and the Tour, mainly for reasons of safety, traffic and hotels.
- Avoid overlap -
"Many of us are delighted to have the Tour de France in Denmark next year and unfortunately we must now wait a little longer," said the mayor of Copenhagen on Monday.
"In return, the Danes can rejoice in view of an even bigger yellow popular festival in 2022, when the start of the Tour will not be stuck between the Euro and the Olympics and that we will have, I hope, kept the (risk of) coronavirus away, ”added Frank Jensen.
The situation had become inextricable when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced last month the maintenance of the Olympic cycling program. With the road race set for July 24, 2021, which would have corresponded to the day before the arrival of the Tour in Paris, the best riders in the peloton should have chosen!
Last week, the UCI, anxious to avoid an overlap, therefore brought the Tour dates forward by one week when it was published on the WorldTour calendar. And, therefore, made it impossible to leave Denmark, the most northerly in the history of the Great Loop.
According to Danish organizers, the postponement has a cost of 5.8 million Danish crowns (780,000 euros) which will be borne by the Danish state and ASO. Additional expenses will be borne by the start and finish cities since the Tour will have three days of racing in Denmark. But on the horizon of two years.
© 2020 AFP