World Sport News

Tour of France 2006

The Tour will end in Paris on the 23rd, a Sunday.

The 2006 Tour will run a counter clockwise route around France, heading into Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland after the first three days in Alsace, then across Northern France to the Atlantic. It will shuttle then to the Pyrenees, then across Provence to the Alps and on to Paris.

Here is a list of the stages:  (see map below)

Saturday, July 1 (7 km), Strasbourg Region: Alsace

Sunday, July 2 (183 km), Strasbourg > Strasbourg Region: Alsace

Monday, July 3 (223 km), Obernai > Esch-sur-Alzette Region: Alsace > Luxembourg

Tuesday, July 4 (216 km), Esch-sur-Alzette > Valkenburg    Luxembourg > Netherlands

Wednesday, July 5 (215 km), Huy > Saint-Quentin   Belgium > Region Picardy

Thursday, July 6 (219 km), Beauvais > Caen  Region Picardy > Region Normandy

Friday, July 7 (184 km), Lisieux > Vitré   Region Normandy > Region Brittany

Saturday, July 8 (52 km), Saint-Grégoire > Rennes   Region Brittany

Sunday, July 9 (177 km), Saint-Méen-le-Grand > Lorient   Region Brittany

Monday, July 10 (Rest day) - Bordeaux   Region Aquitaine

Tuesday, July 11 (170 km), Bordeaux > Dax   Region Aquitaine

Wednesday, July 12 (193 km), Cambo-les-Bains > Pau  Region Aquitaine

Thursday, July 13 (208 km), Tarbes > Val d'Aran - Pla-de-Beret   Region Midi-Pyrénées

Friday, July 14 (211 km), Luchon > Carcassonne   Region Midi-Pyrénées > Region Languedoc-Roussillon

Saturday, July 15 (231 km), Béziers Méditerranée > Montélimar   Region Languedoc-Roussillon > Region Rhône-Alpes

Sunday, July 16 (181 km), Montélimar > Gap   Region Rhône-Alpes > Region Provence-Alpes-Côte D'Azur

Monday, July 17 (Rest day), Gap  Region Provence-Alpes-Côte D'Azur

Tuesday, July 18 (187 km), Gap > L'Alpe d'Huez  Region Provence-Alpes-Côte D'Azur > Region Rhône-Alpes

Wednesday, July 19 (182 km), Bourg d'Oisans > La Toussuire Les Sybelles   Region Rhône-Alpes

Thursday, July 20 (199 km), Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne > Morzine-Avoriaz  Region Rhône-Alpes

Friday, July 21 (193 km), Morzine-Avoriaz > Mâcon   Region Rhône-Alpes > Region Burgundy

Saturday, July 22 (56 km), Le Creusot > Montceau-les-Mines  Region Burgundy

Sunday, July 23 (152 km), Antony-Parc de Sceaux > Paris Champs-Elysees  Region Paris

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Cycling: Tours of a lifetime - Peaks and valleys

For more than three weeks every July, the Tour de France is nearly a sovereign state, closing and opening roads to other traffic throughout the country and boasting its own police force, post office and the only bank allowed to remain open on July 14, the French national day.
For the past 18 years, Jean-Marie Leblanc has been monarch of that state, and now he is retiring. On July 27, four days after the world's greatest bicycle race concludes in Paris, he will reach the age of 62, a time when many French leave their jobs.
So, when the Tour starts on July 1 in Strasbourg, Leblanc will once again be in a top official's red car, but not the one that the director rides in just ahead of the pack. Like last year, when he began to break in his successor, Christian Prudhomme, 45, Leblanc will be in the second red car in line.
"I won't be busy with the sporting side of the race but with keeping an eye on things and carrying guests," he said during an interview last week in his office in a suburb of Paris. "In particular, I'll be busy with protocol - relations with politicians, sponsors and guests."
Shortly thereafter he will retire. "The time has come," he continued. "I've had 18 years as the head of the Tour de France, 12 years before that as a journalist with the Tour and two years as a Tour rider - that's 32 years.
"I've become a little blunt," he said. "Blunt," he repeated.
"Physically, because directing the Tour is hard work - so many problems, so many obligations to the press. And the ProTour today has 20 teams, 26 or 27 riders each, more than 500 riders altogether, so many of them new ones, young ones, and I don't know them. I've become a little outdistanced."
The ProTour, which began last year, groups the 20 top teams that must be invited to all big races, forcing each team to increase its roster by at least a quarter.
"Another reason that I'm retiring," Leblanc continued, "is that I've dedicated so much of my life to the Tour de France that I haven't been able to do other things.
"For example, music," said the man who plays clarinet in the five-piece Tour Jazz Band. "For example, political life, politics in the higher sense, in the life of my village and my region - tourism, employment, our image.
"And then there's travel, obviously. Also, I want to support the use of the French language, a language I love, around the world. I want to help the French language flourish.
"A lot of things to do, " he summed up. "Plus my grandchildren." He has three.
Relaxed in his office, Leblanc looked back and talked about the high points and the low during his tenure.
His happiest moment? "There have been plenty," he said, "but if I have to choose one, it was the finish in Paris of the Centennial Tour in 2003.
"That Tour was magnificent in the sporting sense, Lance Armstrong's greatest victory. And we worked so hard beforehand to celebrate the centennial. We had the champions there, we honored our founder and all the villages we passed through were decorated for us.
"Above all, there was the parade of ordinary cyclists on the Champs-Élysées the day the Tour arrived there. Magnificent!" Thousands turned out.
"And when it was all over, to hear people tell me, 'Jean-Marie, bravo, thank you, it was wonderful,' that was the most beautiful emotion of my career with the Tour."
Of the low points, there were two, he said.
The first, "Of course, the Festina Affair" in 1998, when the Festina team was ejected from the race for systemic doping. Its confessions led to police raids on team hotels, which caused the withdrawal of a handful of teams to protest the raids. On the verge of collapse, the Tour de France limped into Paris.
"But before that," Leblanc continued somberly, "the death of Fabio Casartelli in 1995." The 24-year-old Italian rider for the Motorola team, the Olympic champion in the road race, was killed when he crashed in the Pyrenees and hit his head on a stone abutment along the route.
"Terrible, terrible, when I heard the doctor say on the phone, 'It's over, he's dead.' First I had to inform everybody in the race and then I had to decide whether to stop the stage or let it continue."
"I decided to let it continue and to this day I don't know if I made the right decision," Leblanc said. "It was extremely difficult."
Brightening, he moved on to a question about the state of the Tour's health.
"I'd say the Tour is in good health but the paradox is that we're tied up now in a doping scandal. However, these last years the crowds of spectators have been enormous, the overall mood is very positive, the international development very strong.
"But, but there's doping. And there's gigantisme," or too much growth. "That's the problem of staying within our limits and not being overwhelmed by our size, as some sports have been.
"Too much money and the sporting spirit declines. We're not there yet, where there's too much emphasis on money, but we have to be careful."