When most of the big favorites to win in the next edition of the Grande Boucle still see the departure from Brussels as a very distant event in their calendars, the Tour de France organization presented this morning the first two stages of the Grand Départ of The 2020 edition, which, as was already known, will start from the coastal city of Nice, where the stage test linking the French capital and this city ended yesterday.
These are two stages online, which the Tour has not wanted to miss the opportunity to play with the mountains that surround Nice, proposing some paths in which, although there will be no havoc in general, they can establish the first differences and, above all, will serve to see the real state of the legs of all the candidates for the Paris podium.
Nice will be the point of departure and arrival of the two stages. The first of them, of 170 kilometers, will have three steps along the Aspremont stop which, on the last occasion that is promoted, will be followed by Levens, from whose top 40 kilometers of descent will subtract that will give the opportunity to teams with sprinters to reorganize in case some brave man has made a decided bet from afar to cover the first yellow jersey.
The second stage, of 190 kilometers, will be much more similar to the average final day of Paris-Nice and will include the Col d’Èze just over 30 kilometers from the finish line and just before the ascent to the Col des Quatre Chemins, whose top will only subtract nine kilometers to the end. It will be an inspiring day, and with options for all kinds of tactics since, as soon as you leave, the squad must face the climb to Col de la Colmiane and, immediately after, to Col de Turini.
In any case, no matter how attractive these paths are, it is essential to remember that it is only the first two stages of a race that will be decided, as always, in 21 days and that, unless huge surprise, will live its most essential days in the Alps and the Pyrenees.
ASO, organizing company of the Tour de France, announced today that the 2020 Grande Boucle would depart from Nice, a confirmation that has been made public this morning, just a few hours after the spectacular end of Paris-Nice that yesterday the Spanish Marc Soler (Movistar).
Although Nice and cycling form a binomial with a great relationship, the Tour de France, the most crucial race in France and the world, has not returned to its streets since in 2013 Orica-GreenEdge was imposed in the team time trial which served as the fourth stage of that edition of the century.
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, assured at the presentation of this Grand Départ that he will follow those of La Vendée this 2018 and Brussels in 2019, that “it is an immense pride to welcome the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2020 to Nice for the second time after 1981. Le Tour is the third most important international sporting event and consequently ensures considerable economic benefits for our entire area. Seven years after welcoming the 100th edition in 2013 that attracted almost 100,000 spectators, this is another step that strengthens my desire to make Nice an essential city to host major sporting events .”
For his part, the general director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, explained that “the most recent editions of Paris-Nice, including the one that just ended yesterday, have shown us that the variety of landscapes in this region is conducive to the Thriller, attack and a show. This is exactly what we want for the Tour de France 2020: a dynamic tone”.