David Escudé: “We are working until the time comes to hear from Christian Prudhomme that Barcelona will host a great Tour start”
BARCELONA, 14 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The city of Barcelona is in the “final sprint” to be the ‘Grand Départ’ of the Tour de France 2026, after being the official start of La Vuelta 23 in 2023 and already hosting several finals of the Volta a Catalunya, according to the Councilor for Sports of the Barcelona City Council explaining that they have been in negotiations for about six years to be able to participate in the Gala round, the most prestigious race on the international cycling scene.
“It is slow work, because obviously Barcelona is not the only city that aspires to have a great start to the Tour, as you all know. But we are in the final sprint and we will see who reaches the finish line first,” said the councilor. of Sports, David Escudé, to the media present in explaining the details of the F1 Fan Festival in the city, the Formula 1 Grand Prix being one of the events that the Catalan capital will host.
Although he didn’t take anything for granted, he did play with that image of winning a sprint. “No, no. Nothing can be taken for granted, but the news that the name of the city is being heard is the result of the work that is being done to put Barcelona back on the international map of major sporting events. And what? Why not the Tour? There are many things that we are working on and that we hope will also bear fruit,” he noted.
When asked by Europa Press, Escudé assured that he has been talking to the general director of the Tour de France for years about bringing the ‘Gran Départ’ to Barcelona. “There are conversations about who has been talking to you for exactly 6 years, 5-6 years. Because a start is not a stage and to host a start of the Tour de France, which we came from where we came from, first required a job of generating trust with Christian Prudhomme (general director of the Tour de France), in this case,” he said.
“We have two great ambassadors, who are La Vuelta and La Volta, who are Javier Guillén and Rubèn Peris, and we have people from ASO who come to the city to accompany Rubén and come to the country to also accompany Javier, with whom We have a good relationship after so many years that we have been working, so that the time will come to be able to feel from the mouth of Christian Prudhomme that Barcelona will host a great Tour start,” Escudé predicted.
Barcelona hosted a stage of the Tour de France on several occasions and the last presence of ‘La Grande Boucle’ in the Catalan capital was in 2009, when two days were held in Barcelona on July 9 and 10, with the end of the sixth stage between Girona and Barcelona and the start of the seventh stage ending in Andorra.
2024-05-14 16:54:46
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