The Tour de France can, year after year, cover its 3,500 km in three weeks, be regulated like music paper, it looks like a mammoth when it comes to moving it. Huge and deeply rooted in summer customs. The Tour in July, under the sun at the start of the holidays, was more than a tradition: a ritual. It is deployed on the roads when the French are resting and it sometimes installs its followers in schools or gymnasiums when there is no one left.
But the Covid took its bib in the cycling world as in the rest of French society. Quickly, ASO, the organizer of the Tour, realized that the dates of the race, from June 27 to July 19, would be impossible to maintain. On March 12, in the midst of the Paris-Nice ordeal, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, addresses the French to announce the first measures to contain the pandemic. ASO then understands that it will be impossible for him to make Paris-Nice progress until March 15 and shortens the test the day before.
But the worst is yet to come and Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, knows it. “We met on Sunday, Place Masséna in Nice, with two assistants and a city already closed. The restaurants had just closed and we ate three sandwiches on a bench. Normally, at this hour, we should celebrate the end of Paris-Nice. On Monday, we understood that we were already going to have to postpone Paris-Roubaix and the Critérium du Dauphiné. “
“The Tour in August was mission impossible”
The Critérium du Dauphiné and even Paris-Roubaix are not vital to ASO’s financial health. The Tour, yes. Prudent, Prudhomme probes the ground with all the mayors of the stopover towns. “When I suggest that the Tour could be postponed, everyone tells me: No problem, we will adapt, he savored. Then, as the days go by, all our contacts in the world of cycling, such as the International Federation or the team bosses, tell us that the overhaul of the new calendar must be done around the Tour. It’s up to us to deliver new dates and the other events are ready to fit around. On April 8, the decision to postpone the Tour was taken. “
On April 13, in a new address to the French, the Head of State announced the start of deconfinement for May 11. “There, we had two days to find a precise date for the start of the Tour, rewinds Prudhomme. First, we had the hypothesis to leave on August 1 or 8. But, very quickly, an insoluble problem arose: the accommodation of several thousand people around the Ile de Ré and the Ile d’Oléron, for the first day of rest. This took us to August 10 or 17, in full vacation. It was mission impossible. “
The organizer decides and decides that the Tour will be contested in September. “Remember that we are then in the midst of a pandemic, loose Prudhomme. We said to ourselves: Let’s go as far as possible in the summer, which ends on September 21. Sunday September 20 was ideal for the arrival on the Champs-Elysées. In any case, we couldn’t go further: the following Sunday was taken by the road race of the World Championships ( Editor’s note: on August 12, the Worlds in Switzerland were canceled because the country maintained the ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people ). »
Finally, choosing a date is one thing, applying it is another. “I started a marathon without leaving my office,” smiles Prudhomme. I had the fifty or so elected officials concerned on the phone. I have not given up all day. But I only had yeses. Yet this posed problems for some. The department of Isère, instead of receiving us on July 14, will have us on September 15. Which is not the same. But the Isérois, like the others, first thought of the Tour. “
Other departments see it as a godsend. Like Charente-Maritime, the scene of the unprecedented stage between two islands (Oléron and Ré), which will thus continue its hotel season in September. “La Corrèze will receive us on September 10 and, over there, it’s a day dedicated to memory,” explains Prudhomme. So that’s good too. “
“Everyone has made an effort”, assures Jean-François Debat, the mayor (PS) of Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain), the starting city of the 19th stage. “As soon as Christian Prudhomme called me to suggest that the Tour de France could be postponed, I told him it was stronger than anything. There will be fewer people on the side of the roads. It will be a little less partying, but it would have been so much sadder if we hadn’t had a Tour at all! “For him, it was not so difficult to adapt to the demands of the postponement:” The stage for which we are concerned will start in front of the Brou monastery and the Tour must be set up in the parking lot of a hypermarket. What was possible in the middle of July is more difficult to accept in September. But we found an agreement with the hypermarket. “
But if the boss of the Tour took care of the institutional work, we had to put our hands in the fat on the bike and manage the problems on the ground. And that is the prerogative of a man in the shadows but essential at ASO: Pierre-Yves Thouault, deputy director of cycling and right-hand man of Prudhomme. “I was with Christian when we were told about postponing everything in September,” says Thouault, “my reaction was the same as his: It’s impossible! And then we started. I have made hundreds of calls to resolve all the issues. My cell phone battery eventually died. “
Only 3 km of the initial route have disappeared
The initial route will hardly be changed. Only 3 km will disappear on September 12, when the arrival in Lyon (Rhône) for the 14th stage. “We removed the climb to the Fourvière hill so as not to block traffic too much that day,” explains Thierry Gouvenou, the technical director of the Tour. In July it was possible, but not in September. “
ASO sometimes had to look for other places to set up its hotlines or press rooms when they were installed in colleges or high schools. In Sisteron, the mayor solved the problem. The 4th stage will start this Tuesday, September 1st, the day of the start of the school year. But the councilor of the commune of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has decided to offer a day and give schoolchildren leave!
The biggest project of the postponement was that of the hotel industry. Compared to what was planned, ASO had to modify… 42 hotels. “A part of those who had been reserved no longer exist, the crisis has passed through there,” decrypts Thouault. Others could no longer adapt to our new specifications: one team per floor and one dining room per team. This posed a lot of problems. We even measured the size of some dining rooms to find out if we could install temporary trellises to separate certain formations at mealtimes. They must not cross each other. “
Another request from the organizers to the hoteliers: each establishment must have an additional room or an isolation room in the event of contamination to keep the patient away from the rest of the group. “It has sometimes turned into a puzzle, admits Thouault. Usually, the hotels are all booked before the end of October and the announcement of the Tour route. This time, everything was finished at the beginning of August, less than a month before the big departure! “
The caravan has grown from 180 to 110 vehicles
The internal organization also led to a slimming cure. “The Tour caravan has gone from 180 vehicles to 110,” continues Thouault. Usually we are a sort of traveling village of 5,000 people. This time, we reduced the gauge to 3,500. “
But there have been additions such as a “Covid team” of around twenty people, with doctors and hygienists, who will devote themselves every day to the health aspect. Another novelty, a mobile laboratory will follow the race. If necessary, he will be able to carry out detection tests with almost instantaneous results. The organizers do not want to wait several hours in case of suspicion. Three Covid vehicles will be on the road, in front of the caravan, to remind spectators of the health rules. The public will be prohibited in the feeding zones and 500,000 masks will be available to be distributed if necessary.
Of these months of reorganization, Pierre-Yves Thouault will remember one thing for a long time… “I suspected the power of the Tour,” he emphasizes. Everyone gave their agreement in principle and did everything to help us. The Tour de France is definitely a steamroller. But if I have to be honest: this one was the hardest part of my life to organize! “
