"It will be a different Tour and, I hope, unique", announces its director Christian Prudhomme in an interview with AFP before the departure from Nice (Saturday) of an edition that remains, despite the context, open to the public.

Will the public have access to this special Tour due to sanitary restrictions? Yes, the public will have access to the Tour de France, but there will be filtering zones at the start and finish, with the limit that is today that of the government (5,000 people), but what will the authorities impose on the tour, depending on the pandemic.What will happen in the mountain stages? It will also have filtered in a score of ports and climbs, without there being a formal number . It cannot be the same for a 2-kilometer climb as for a 20-kilometer pass. When we talk about filtering, that means that in certain places only people on foot, by bicycle, or who come by public transport can go to ports. And with a mask. It is the State services that ensure the filtering. How was the sanitary protocol developed? The sanitary doctrine was established jointly with the authorities, with a 'bubble' system for the runners and the technical and medical staff of the teams, which they are tested several times, and with the least possible interaction between the different bubbles. To have an authorization for the Tour, you must have passed a test. The test can be rejected, but then there is no authorization. And for the public? There are of course communication campaigns to respect social distance and hand hygiene. During the Tour, two tons of hydroalcoholic gel are planned distributed in 60 points, sanitary brigades to propose to people the washing of hands, the mandatory mask at the start and at the arrival of the stages in the areas managed directly by ASO (organizer ). Common sense indicates that masks are mandatory throughout the tour, but that depends on the prefects, knowing that in the Dauphiné this obligation was given.A Tour in September, that implies less public ... The transfer of Tour two months later it is in fact the first sanitary measure. Going from July to September, that naturally means fewer people, people are at work, children are at school, tourists are gone. On the roads of the Tour there are 20% foreigners in July, 50% in some ports. We already know that there will be no British, Australian or American. Can you estimate the decrease in the Tour caravan in general terms? 'Grosso Modo' a decrease of 35 to 40% of the whole. We were almost 5,000, we will be more than 3,000 authorized. The (advertising) caravan goes from 160 to 100 vehicles, the technical area of ​​the Tour from 9,300 m2 to 5,500 m2. But the brilliance of the Tour will not be affected, there are still 190 countries that take the images of the Tour and 100 countries that broadcast live. What do you think of the criticism from the environmental sectors? The Tour is immersed in an environmental process. There is much less plastic that will be distributed, we have been working on it for years. Next year, it is already approved, there will be more hybrid vehicles. This year, for the first time, all the cars in the Tour organization are hybrids on the race itinerary About the race, what are you expecting to see in particular? From what I could see after the resumption of the competitions, the riders are with very hungry. They have a desire to compete, a thirst to measure themselves against others, the need to shine in a very short but extraordinarily dense season. A question mark arose in Ineos surprisingly with the double under-selection of Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. But there are others about the change in preparation, about the fact that it is in September, the consequences on the weather. There are many elements of sports doubt that I really like

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