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Tour de France – fear of breaking off – sport

The makers of the Tour de France do not want to miss the opportunity to simulate a little mood. Drummers and dancers take to the stage on Place Masséna in the heart of Nice, many colorful videos flicker across the screen, and the speaker sometimes raises his voice as if he were expecting a thousand applause. But there are empty chairs in front of the stage. Only 1000 guests are allowed at the traditional Presentation of the teams watch directly, but that many didn’t even come.

Usually the team presentation on the Thursday evening before the tour starts is a solemn overture. This time, despite the drummers and dancers, it is a dreary event – and therefore probably the right prelude to what cycling has to offer in the next three weeks. In Nice this weekend the Grand Départ of the 107th Tour de France will climb two circuits, then the peloton will fight its way through 19 more stages and almost 3500 kilometers to Paris. The field is accompanied by two big questions on this tour.

The first is why in Corona times it even needs that the tour crosses the country, 176 drivers, a total of 3000 members in the entourage and many, many fans who travel for three weeks. And the second: Can it really work as far as Paris? Without premature termination? “It hangs over us like the sword of Damocles that every day can be the last. It’s a shame,” says the German veteran Tony Martin, who is doing his twelfth France loop in the service of the Jumbo team.

This national institution called the Tour de France has existed since 1903. From 1915 to 1918 and from 1940 to 1946 it was canceled due to the world wars, but it took place in all the other 106 summers, a breakdown would be a novelty.

Now this tour has to be based on the pandemic. It was moved from early to late summer, but in the days before the start the situation worsened almost daily. 21 French departments have now been flagged as a red zone, i.e. a high-risk region. The Ministry of Health reported 7,379 new cases within 24 hours on Friday evening. Just Nizza, host of the Grand Départ, is particularly affected. “We are increasing the measures from strict to very strict,” said Bernard Gonzalez, prefect of the department, on Thursday: “People should stay at home and watch the race on TV.”

Some observers consider it irresponsible that the tour takes place at all. But the teams and the cycling scene make no secret of why it is so important to them: The tour is of great importance, for some it is of existential importance.

Now the atmosphere of the race will change a lot. The many aspects of the accompanying program, from the advertising caravan to the award ceremony, are planned in a slimmed-down form. The drivers and their immediate supervisors will move in a dense bubble, without contact with the large entourage that surrounds them, and certainly not with the spectators – although that is what makes this event across France so special.

In principle, the spectators are allowed to come to the track, they should wear a mask. Access should only be limited on some difficult climbs, on which the distance to the peloton is particularly short: completely – or in such a way that spectators can only come up the mountain on foot or on their bikes, but not by car or mobile home. The tour organizers also declare that they deliberately chose a period outside of the holidays as an alternative date so that not so many fans can come to the route.

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