“It seems difficult to me to say that we are endangering the runners. The organization is doing everything to put them in a good mood, and everything we can do for their safety, we will do. We have already taken measures in recent days so that runners benefit from more supplies and that they can more easily change their water bottles by throwing empty ones where they want, which is not the case normally. We have also extended the arrival times on the stages.
We could study other measures to combat heat waves, but that would be marginal since the Tour de France is an old event with parameters that have been established for a very long time. And its history is made up of 200 km stages which take place in July, under very hot weather. I knew Eddy Merckx who was already running stages under 40°C in the 1970s. Move the event to the start of the school year or to the autumn? The Tour is the celebration of the month of July, it is a popular event, which weaves social ties, and it is a symbol which represents the holidays.
Shifting the Tour, a colossal task
For the moment, we are not at all considering moving it later in the season, especially since it would involve an overhaul of the calendar. The only time we had to change the dates to organize it in September was two years ago due to the Covid, and it had been very hot. To shift had required a colossal work. We must contact the cities, renegotiate with the prefectures and the departmental councils, agree with the television channels which broadcast the race, the International Cycling Federation and the teams of the runners. There are many stakeholders on the Tour, not to mention the caravan which also employs young people for seasonal work, and who are less available outside the summer.
Running the hottest stages in the morning is also complicated. There would of course be fewer audiences than in the afternoon, and fewer people on the side of the roads. And at what time should we leave, knowing that it has already been very hot at 11 a.m. for the past few days and that a stage can last five hours? I also don’t know if it would be less dangerous to shorten the steps. Over three weeks, the runners ride between 3,000 and 3,500 km. Stages of 50 km every day, it would no longer really be the Tour de France. Nor are we considering canceling a stage in the event of exceptional temperatures, especially since as far as the race is concerned, I haven’t heard any riders complaining, even if they of course suffered from the heat. The peloton is already taking part in races where it is even hotter, such as in Australia under 45-47°C for the resumption of the season in January, or in California. The runners are used to making efforts in these extreme conditions. »
