The corona pandemic not only affects the current cycling season. The Tour de France has been postponed from the classic month of July to August and September – for the first time in the history of the tour. That should bring fewer spectators to the track. In France, the holidays are coming to an end: children have to go back to school, employed people to work, even if in many cases this still means having your own kitchen or the stool by the bed as the basis for teleworking. Fewer international guests are also expected. “It is not advisable for Dutch fans to come to the tour now,” warned co-captain Tom Dumoulin at the press conference of the Jumbo-Visma team. Those who come anyway, the former Giro winner urged to wear a mask.
The effects of the pandemic are not limited to the current, 107th edition of the Tour de France. The Grand Depart of the 2021 tour, which was actually planned in Copenhagen, has also already been relocated to Brittany. Denmark’s capital is already the venue for the European football championship, which has been postponed to the following year due to Corona. Conducting the crowds, who are fascinated by the round leather, and also those who enjoy gleaming spokes, seemed too complex to the city fathers of Copenhagen. In any case, nobody knows what the corona situation will be like in summer 2021. Relocating to the less populous Brittany makes sense. Especially since the region had already positioned itself as the starting point for the year 2022.
More appropriate with regard to the “new normal” – the new normal in life with the virus threat – is also the waiver of transfer flights for the peloton and entourage that goes along with the postponement. Even with the current tour, which provides for two longer transfers, transport by air is dispensed with. That would burst the hygiene bubbles. The teams travel in their buses and support vehicles. Even the helicopter trips, which benefited the big stars from Lance Armstrong to Chris Froome, especially at the end of mountain arrivals, fall victim to the current corona rules. And concentrating the tour on motherland France in the following year also corresponds logistically to the scenarios for a persistence of the pandemic.
The Tour of France 2021 could also encourage a new philosophy in terms of sport. When Brest was presented as the location of the Grand Depart, tour manager Christian Prudhomme indicated that a prologue to roll in could be dispensed with again. At the last start of Brittany in 2008, the classic prologue was canceled for the first time since 1967. After that it was more common. The current tour also starts this Saturday with a “real” stage around Nice. And the second stage already has a real Hammerberg in the program with the Col de Turini. So far, Chris Froome has made himself fit for his victories at the Tour, Giro and Vuelta on the serpentines there. The Briton is not there this time for reasons of form – but his increase in exercise is heavy. And the descent is tough too.
Here, too, parallels to the following year can be seen. Because the Breton landscape is known for its crisp hills and, above all, the strong winds blowing from the sea. That also promises the toughest of efforts. The route planners of the tour are more and more abandoning the established pattern of the “roll-in week” before heading to the Alps or the Pyrenees. They follow their colleagues from the tour of Italy and Spain. They have already experimented earlier with placing heavy climbs in the first week. On the one hand, this creates more tension in the fight for the yellow jersey. But it can also ensure that contenders for overall victory have to bury all their hopes quite early on. In terms of racing drama, the early difficulties represent a game of vagueness.
This reorientation requires above all physical fitness and mental freshness from the beginning on the class riders. Gone are the days when Jan Ullrich could get himself up to operating temperature in the first week and then tackle the mountains with a mighty kick later. There is now also a demand for types of drivers who can get along well on a wide variety of routes. That should be an advantage for the all-round trained off-road drivers. Julian Alaphilippe is such a guy, as is Wout van Aert. And of course all-rounder Mathieu van der Poel. A rogue who now suspects that the tour fathers build more and more on a course that is tailor-made for the grandson of the “eternal runner-up” Raymond Poulidor. Van der Poel’s father Adrie, himself a professional with victories in classic races on the road and a world title in cyclocross, once married Poulidor’s daughter Corinne. Very special cycling genes mixed up. Mathieu van der Poel has also expressed ambitions to win the big tours, at least for the future. The exact route of the Tour of France 2021 will not be found out until October. Then at least this year’s tour is over, the Giro d’Italia, the classic spring tour, but still in full swing. New normal.
.
