The Tour de France is an annual road bicycle race held over 23 days in July. Established in 1903 by newspaper L'Auto, the Tour is the most well-known and prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours"; the others are the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España.[1] The race usually covers approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi), passing through France and neighbouring countries such as Belgium.[2] The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual finishing times for each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner at the end of the race.
The course changes every year, almost always finishing in Paris; since 1975 (except for 2024) it has finished along the Champs-Élysées. The start of the course is known as the Grand Départ. Since the 1950s it has typically taken place in a different town each year, and since the 1970s it has been common to award the Grand Départ to cities outside France as a way of increasing international interest in the competition and the sport. In all, the Grand Départ has occurred outside France 26 times: 13 times in the Low Countries, 4 times in Germany, and 9 times elsewhere. The right to host the Grand Départ is now highly sought after, with cities bidding to host, and has been shown to increase economic activity as well as interest in cycling in the host area.[3][4][5]
In 2024, the first Grand Départ outside France for the Tour de France Femmes took place in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.[6]
Host cities
editTour de France
edit
Tour de France Femmes
edit| Year | Country | Region | Grand Départ host |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 |  France
|
 Île-de-France
|
Paris |
| 2023 | France
|
 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
|
Clermont-Ferrand |
| 2024 |  Netherlands
|
 South Holland
|
Rotterdam |
| 2025 | France
|
 Brittany
|
Vannes |
Countries that have hosted the Grands Départ
edit| No. | Country | Cities |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Netherlands
|
s-Hertogenbosch, Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam, Scheveningen, Utrecht |
| 5 |  Belgium
|
Brussels (2), Liège (2), Charleroi |
| 4 |  Germanyinc. West Germany
|
Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, West Berlin |
| 2 |  Luxembourg
|
Luxembourg City (2) |
| 2 |  Spain
|
Barcelona (future), Bilbao, San Sebastian |
| 2 |  United Kingdom
|
Leeds, London |
| 1 |  Denmark
|
Copenhagen |
| 1 |  Ireland
|
Dublin |
| 1 |  Italy
|
Florence |
| 1 |  Monaco
|
Monte Carlo |
| 1 |  Switzerland
|
Basel |
Notes and references
edit- ^ FAQ. Union Cycliste Internationale. Archived from the original on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 17 August 2009.
- ^ Dauncey, Hugh; Hare, Geoff (2003). Tour de France: 1903-2003. Routledge. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-7146-5362-4.
- ^ "Yorkshire will host the 2014 Tour de France Grand Depart". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
- ^ Yorkshire tourism boost after Tour de France Grand Depart. BBC. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
- ^ Guide Historique (PDF). Tour de France. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
- ^ Farrand, Stephen (2023-07-10). "Tour de France Femmes to start in the Netherlands in 2024". cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 2023-07-10.
Bibliography
edit- Jacques Augendre (2012). Tour de France Guide Historique (PDF). Amaury Sport Organisation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
- "Memoire du Cyclisme" (in French). Memoire du Cyclisme. Retrieved 30 September 2009.