The Tour de France will be raced from August 29 to September 20, organisers announced on Wednesday, postponing cycling’s flagship event originally slated to start on June 27 due to the coronavirus lockdown.
The news comes as a relief to professional cycling teams and fans with four-times Tour winner Chris Froome welcoming ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for those suffering under COVID-19 lockdown.
The decision moves the three-week race out of its traditional slot in the summer holidays where 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 championships starts, September 20, giving a worrying indication of a potential autumn fixture pile-up as more sports seek to reschedule suspended events.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme 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.”
While the dates have changed the original route remains intact, starting in Nice and finishing in Paris.
“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.
The new date solves a series of problems after organisers faced up to the reality that the race could never take place on the original dates.