The Tour de Suisse starts in Italy today and there are only five stages. What was once the fourth biggest stage race on the World Tour calendar has now become the joint-shortest.
If Pogačar wins on Sunday he’ll add the Tour de Suisse to his palmarès where he’s got little else to win beyond the Vuelta and Olympics. If Primož Roglič wins he’ll add the only missing stage race, alongside the Tour of course. Missing because the Tour de Suisse has been held up as a week-long race to go alongside the Dauphiné, the Tour of the Basque Country, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and other pillars of the calendar. Now at five days nobody will put an asterisk next to the Tour de Suisse but it is not what it was.
The Tour de Suisse started in 1933. Despite the French name, it was organised by the Schweizerischer Radfahrer Bund, one of two cycling federations in Switzerland at the time and as the name hints, the one from the German-speaking cantons. Rather than being called the Schweizer Rundfahrt, French was for long the international language of cycling and the Tour de Suisse label was used to appeal outside of the country.
The race has shrunk over time. It used to have a mid-week start and finish. In 1986 it started on a Tuesday and after 12 days of racing finished on a Friday. In 2004 it settled on the weekend-to-weekend format, nine days from Saturday to Sunday. In 2021 it went to eight days, Sunday to Sunday.
Now in 2026 it’s been cut to five days. It makes the race is shorter than the Tour Down Under and the Tour de Romandie, and only matched by the Renewi Tour, five days too. Anything less probably wouldn’t be allowed as a World Tour stage race.
Why the shrinkage? There’s some spin around this. The women’s Tour de Suisse is growing from three days to five so the men’s reduction has been presented as equalisation. It’s great that the women get five days. But what is also happening is the women’s race happens in the morning, the men in the afternoon and on the same course which allows for savings as the organisers have the same finish arch in place, the same staff on the ground. Putting the women’s race in the morning gives them low audiences compared to the men’s race in the late afternoon.
In an interview with newspaper HLN (paywall), Thomas Spiegel of race shareholder Flanders Classics (it bought in 2023) call it a facelift and say the race has been “condensed” to better accommodate riders wishing to dip and in out of pre-Tour altitude training camps.
Read the Swiss press and the message is blunt: the race has been shortened because it has had financial and logistical difficulties. News website Watson.ch says the Tour de Suisse budget last year was eight million Swiss francs (€8.7m), of which the women’s race was one million and it lost several hundred thousand francs. Now the budget is cut to six million, and putting on both races together saves money. But a shrinking race is less valuable, five days of content rather than eight.
Similarly the concept of having the start and finish in the same place each day has its merits, the idea is to create an event for the day rather than seeing the buses park, riders assemble then then ride away, host towns now get a lot more. But again this is not always by choice, another report suggest the race was struggling to find routes with locals and “growing opposition” to road closures.
What happens in here though can happen elsewhere. The Tour of California came and went because it was financially unviable. The Volta Catalunya has needed emergency loans. The Tour de Romandie has financial troubles today. If wealthy Switzerland has problems running bike races, look at its neighbouring countries with high debts that are looking for budget cuts and sports funding by regional government is a soft slice. Meanwhile countries like the UK and Germany have disproportionately small races outside of the World Tour.
None of this criticism is meant to be against the race. There’s the famous joke told by Woody Allen at the start of his film Annie Hall where he cites two women at a resort and one says “Boy the food at this place is really terrible” and the other says “Yeah, I know, and such small portions.” Today the only complaint is that the serving has shrunk but the dish remains mouthwatering. Give me more racing, give me the Sustenpass, the Furka, the Grosse Scheidegg, the Albula, the Gotthard and its Tremola cobbles, glacial lakes and landscapes that evoke the Sound of Music and Heidi, the Shangri-La for Alpine cycling, and all in the sublime June sunshine.
Conclusion
A diminished Tour de Suisse goes from eight to five days. Once heralded as the fourth stage race of the season, now its ranks alongside the Renewi Tour, although with far better scenery. Contrary to some reports, the shrinkage is because of financial losses.
The dual format of men and women will be interesting to watch, as will the circuits format but less from a sports viewpoint and more the insider perspective of logistics and event management. There’s plenty to enjoy, the wish is there was more.
Pogacar has brought a serious team of support riders si this really does look like a dress rehersal for UAE.
It’s a missing leaf in Pogacar’s laurel wreath
Miss the week long race but nothing lasts for ever.
PS why does it start in Italy ?
It’s a willing and generous host. The race has a deal with the Valtellina, the valley in Lombardia on the Swiss border, designed to attract Swiss tourists to Italy. The agreement was signed a couple of years ago and so persists this year and the race will visit next year too.
You could even say “once heralded as the 3rd most important stage race”, in absolute terms, right after the Tour and the Giro (around the same years when it rather was “the Giro and the Tour”, so quite a while back 😉 ).
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Last year watching the women and men races on the same course in Küssnacht only provided a double dosis of excellent racing, but it’s true that besides hardcore fans it’s a killer timetable for women audience. The sort of kafkian writing and application of rules thanks to which we got the Giro Donne very harshly sanctioned some years ago for providing a recorded show, broadcast just after the men TDF stage on the same day, which granted very good viewing figures on free national channels – but of course it’s all fine if you provide “a live feed” which few will broadcast and close to nobody will watch, with finish scheduled at noon.
Of course the problem isn’t forcing the existence of a live TV feed, which is necessary to say the least, but the proportion between that sanction and a sort of ahem “solution” like this one.
Really interesting to see how this dual format works out. It makes sense from a logistics and format perspective but there’s definitely an impact on course design with the same start and finish locations. Stage 3 for the women is a blast around the Rhine valley with Netherlands-esque levels of elevation. For the men it’s an equally odd route that would make for great racing if it was reversed but which front loads some decent climbs through the Alpstein only to drop into a flat last 60km.
What I liked last year was that the stage was the very same route, although it developed differently of course.
This year they did a good job having routes which will work in similar ways across the two races (with exceptions), but I’d have liked also a truly identical stage besides the ITT.
Surely TP couldn’t hold off an entire peloton for 60km on flat roads if he decides to attack on the earlier climbs… 🤔
For what I’m being told by locals, I think that in Switzerland it’s not an issue about money as such (obviously), rather some cultural resistance about what you’re spending public money in.
The Swiss cycling federation (despite CH being an historical key country for the sport and the sport itself being, on turn, an asset for the country) goes chronically through periods of underfunding; I can’t remember the details now but they happened to leave athletes out from international competitions (especially women – it’s not the best country in terms of equality, relative to their privileged condition of wealth and cultural capital, many achievements are shockingly recent, so many issues are still rooted across society and mentality). I think they even had to shut the MTB marathon team or so.
As a wholly different example, the excellent public tv recently faced the risk of severe cuts in their incomes as a few years ago it was proposed to cancel the specific tax which partly funds it, then again to reduce it by some… 40% (!). The proposals were finally voted against but the political general attitude is “no more spending by the Federation or public institutions”.
It’s a bit like the USA. Cycling usually struggles in societies where the idea of “public spending” is weak and individualism is rampant.
(Worth noting the – terrible – figures about Swiss public expenditure on GDP).
This is somewhat mis-leading. Switzerland has a very decentralized form of government with a lot of spending at the local level which is not included in your figures. If we include ALL spending at EVERY level of government then they don’t look so different from other European countries.
And in any case, we should look at what the Swiss are buying with their money. For example, their roads are well-maintained and the roadside is clean and tidy. These are things that other countries struggle to achieve.
I didn’t write any figures here, would you write those you have to make sense of your comparison?
Plus, I must suppose you didn’t pay much attention to this sentence: “I think that in Switzerland it’s not an issue about money as such (obviously), rather some cultural resistance about what you’re spending public money in.”
Just to avoid to look like I’m asking your figures without writing down some myself (which I hadn’t done before, so I can’t say what you referred to when assuming I hadn’t included the local level in my “phantom figures”), let me be more specific: public expenditure *at any level* in Switzerland sits around 30% of GDP whilst in most European countries it’s about 45-50%. Albania is the only country in Europe I can come up with with so low a public expenditure on GDP. USA is reported at some 37%.
Grosso modo, the Swiss federal expenditure is 10% of total GDP, municipalities some 7% and Cantons some 13%.
Well, the TdS has already gotten even shorter today…oof!
It hardly seems like sport when Pogacar cruises away with 70kms left while three teammates (Grosschartner, McNulty and Narvaez) who would be leaders in many other teams discourage the chase. The playing field may be level though it doesn’t feel like that.
Can Vingegaard and Visma (without WVA) make a fight of it in July?
Isaac del Toro dominated the Dauphine, but maybe it wouldn’t have been so lopsided if Seixas hadn’t crashed badly.
Nevertheless, IMO, with Del Toro also on the TdF team, I think it will be a massacre in July.
@TomH After watching Pog yesterday (del Toro in the Dauphine) and Vinny in the Giro, I can’t see how Visma and their leader can live with them in the Tour. Vinny was clearly building into amazing form but there is no way he could have done what Pog did yesterday. Sadly.
And if Pog has a Tour issue, del Toro could well be too much for Vinny and his team to handle. Sadly.
Yesterday the music was a bit different. And on Wednesday strategy and mentality played a big part, bigger than watts, as shown by Carapaz. Above all, we shouldn’t forget that the decisive TDF stages will begin a month from now, early form peaks aren’t necessarily the best path to the TDF final GC.
Well, apparently Carapaz and Bagioli were also able to get away and build a serious gap with their own solo attempts.
You’re definitely clutching at straws – the final stage just confirmed what I wrote. Vinny would have cut the gap for sure but he wouldn’t have wiped it out and then go on to win.
Do you seriously think that between current Vingegaard and current Carapaz there isn’t a *huge* difference?
Shrinking – not even “cancelling” – that gap has potentially “catastrophic” (in a mathematical sense) effects, as in, Pogi doesn’t get away solo on st.1, Vingegaard sticks to his wheel, which he can do even with inferior figures thanks to slipstream.
Of course in any “normal” scenario, Vingegaard wouldn’t have won this Suisse in any case, essentially due to the flat ITT.
And, of course, this TdS didn’t show anything like “ouch, Pogi will struggle at the TdF”.
Yet, despite the time gaps, I wasn’t shockingly impressed – within the special “Pogi range”, of course.
Quick prediction based on 2 hours of TdS.
Come July, Pogacar will obliterete the field, including Vingo and Seixas, clinch the overall GC by more than 10 minutes, and viewing figures will plummet even further. You heard it here first.
Naaaah… maybe too much form too soon? This TDF is backloaded. We can hope for him launching early fireworks to get a good advantage in GC then being forced to defend against a solid Vingo later on. Obviously I’d root for Pogi.
Ps Anyway viewing figures don’t plummet in the main markets when Pogi wins.
Maybe
https://cyclingflash.com/news/concerning-global-decline-in-tour-de-france-tv-viewership
But we’ll see come July.
Yeah, but one needs to read the articles, and differentiate between data and opinion, then between expert opinion and journo’s opinion, if the intention is understanding things.
The figures were terrible in 2026 *before* the GC race was over, then they recovered little by little precisely as Pogi established again his domination. And 2024 was in stark contrast with generalised increasing.
So you need a modest level of insight to relate Pogi’s dominant performances with the modest figures.
Then you can perform further checks with other races, like the Giro.
In fact, experts actually underline other aspects.
Note that I didn’t like last TDF, but what people watch and why is a different matter.
If anything, what I find perplexing is that the TDF is strengthening itself a lot in France, including some new success among younger generations (and that was before Seixas!), but they’re suffering abroad, partly because cycling is changing his traditional public of reference. Thinking that the TDF can triumph abroad as a sociological phenomenon detached from cycling in general, as it does in France, is not that convincing to me.
Again, maybe.
You might be right, and viewers could flock to their screens to watch Pogacar dominate the field by several multi-minute margins. But in real life, I’ve yet to meet a single cycling fan with that kind of burning passion. Yes, I’m of course influenced by the fact that I’ve gone from being indifferent to Pogacar to feeling intense dislike. But we will see how it plays out in July.
@Ryan Felt
No, it’s not that I might be right, it’s that I know what I’m talking about.
2.6 M people in Italy only watched the whole time as Pogi attacked solo 34 kms from the line on Monte Grappa to leave the closest competitor on the day over 2 minutes behind and thus winning an already won Giro with a total of nearly 10 minutes on the runner-up.
Despite being a Saturday afternoon and on the secundary Rai 2, it was the 2nd most watched show of the day on Rai (excluding access), beat only by the prime time show on Rai 1 at 3.1 M.
Official RAI figures here:
https://www.rai.it/ufficiostampa/assets/template/us-articolo.html?ssiPath=/articoli/2024/05/Ascolti-tv-di-sabato-25-maggio-5d1911a4-a0c1-406a-966d-7d7588754624-ssi.html
The most watched stages this year were over 20% down on those 2024 figures, which weren’t limited to that single day, other stages were surprisingly good. But I focussed on that because the Giro was already decided and so was the stage some 45′ before it finished.
I’m not questioning what I myself find true, for example that many stages of the last TDF were poor watching despite Pogi winning. I’m questioning that this POV really affects viewing figures of mass spectators, who follow a different logic, dunno, stardom, watching something historical etc., or whatever, so they watch all the same. Or more.
Did you see the sheer enthusiasm of the people on the roadside today on the last wall and at the finish line? In a supposedly minor stage of an, alas, now minor race.
@Ryan
I think there are two different elements here. One is Pog’s willingness to go all-in and break the stifling tactics that have plagued so many races over the years, and the other — a completely different thing, of course — is when it results in an hour-long break where he just crushes the competition. Whether you like Pog or not the first thing is what has drawn so many fans to like him and watch him. I have to admit, the second element is probably just as much of a turn-off for many people. Honestly, as much as I like Pog, I rarely watch his victories all the way through. The truth is, cycling with Pog in the lineup feels like a completely different sport compared to races without him.
I agree with Gabriele here.
Whatever the views of hardcore fans (the people who comment on websites like this), the experience of more casual viewers is completely different since they don’t watch much racing. For these fans, they want to see “a name” and they want to see him win.
Casual fans don’t have any idea of tactics or strategy, all they see is someone at the front of the race. For these fans, the idea that the rider at the front isn’t winning is confusing. And these are the fans that tune in to watch Pogacar win rather than some “no name” sneak out of the pack in the last few metres after the breakaway is caught. The fundamental point is that these casual fans are the people who form the vast majority of viewers of cycle racing, rather than us strange people who get cycling tactics.
The claim that the audience fell by a third in Spain was too big to believe. 30 seconds of searching shows that the race got an audience share of 14.6% in 2024, and 14.1% last summer. Down, but exactly the the fall suggested.
This year the Tour is up against a great audience rival, the World Cup. But the time difference could help as there won’t be any direct clashes (although the Barcelona TTT is in the evening).
Ryan,
I’ve seen these figures and even linked to them myself, but they should be taken with caution. It’s hard to compare viewing numbers across years, as the entire media landscape is changing rapidly. Free-to-air options are fading away, and with the combination of expensive streaming services, VPN geo-spoofing, and the constant presence of social media and other options for tracking races, it’s becoming harder to get a clear picture of actual numbers and genuine interest.
Netcompany mentioned, amid the brouhaha surrounding their investment, that they believed a competitive Tour would create a very different level of exposure and interest from a marketing perspective. How they plan to measure and evaluate this, however, is unclear to me.
Exactly. Personally speaking, I don’t watch live cycling anymore as I simply cannot afford it.
I hear Channel 5 in the UK are doing a daily hour-long highlights show for the tour this year (and all Grand Tours for the next 3 years), which is good news 🙂
@Thomas
All very good points.
My wife works in marketing, and they’re increasingly treating interest (like clicks), engagement, and full-scale attention (such as watching an entire cycling stage or football match) as separate concepts with their own metrics. When measuring interest in cycling, you have to be clear about exactly which type you’re tracking. If not your “viewing figures” are going to be worthless.
Thomas: you forgot the outright piracy. Interestingly, I get the impression that ASO, the races and the teams are not too bothered by that (in cycling anyway, other sports are different) since it is still “views” and provides value to the sponsors.
John,
That’s a completely valid point about piracy, and it might actually be the fastest-growing segment….
Is there a record for the quickest a stage race lead has been taken and held for the duration? Either as an absolute measure (time from start, km from start) or percentage of overall duration/distance?
Good question – I’ll try to dig in to the available stats on my PCS account.
Some riders have taken the lead in a grand tour and held it to the end, eg Gianni Bugno in the 1990 Giro. But this is all off-topic.
What is the point watching racing any more? Un believable and i mean to leave that gap. Why ste they allowed to race?
The way Pogi got away was great to watch. Same for the chaos which followed. Same for Carapaz’ action and Bagioli’s great performance as the local boy. Then the final wall was also good to watch. We had a great hour of racing, only it happened 80 to 40 kms from the line. Which actually makes me more willing to watch more hours of racing – I’ll start earlier than in past years, then I might be watching just an hour, if the race is finished before the line is crossed, or something more if there are various factors of interest. As today, indeed.
I was watching as soon as the live was on, whereas ten years ago I’d have begun 20 kms to the line watching just the last 30 minutes – and I wouldn’t have lost much, pretty probably.
@gabriele
It’s an interesting topic. I like Pog, and his presence in a race definitely makes it more likely I’ll tune in. On the other hand, I have to admit that I usually stop watching when it’s clear he’s going to win, so I skipped the last hour today.
I have no figures to back it up whatsoever, but i wouldn’t be surprised if many others watch the same way. On balance, Pog has been a huge benefit for cycling, but I also believe that excessive dominance can be a concern.
I agree with your take, also as you explained it in more detail above. Pogi (and MvdP, and Vingegaard etc.) took much interest away from many races, but at the same time added a lot to value to other ones, above all with their mutual clashes, but also through sheer riding style or personality.
We are actually lucky for having some top quality names able to race each other in a narrative which must be perceived in a longer term perspective, not just evaluating races one-by-one. For example, the duel between Pogi and Vingegaard built much of its depth across the seasons, and what Pogi himself or MvdP do is measured against the decades.
Sport is about selecting and admiring outstanding talent, but of course it’s also about competition. Cycling suffered from similar issues with Indurain, with the Boonen-Cancellara couple, and even with Merckx himself. Curiously, all those situations didn’t eventually hinder the fanbase, unlike say Froome, despite the latter having dominated to a lesser extent.
But, yes, Pogi dominating this TDF with no credible competition would be a hard blow, although what I really hope is that the situation might evolve towards a double duel against Vingo across Giro and Tour next year (if Pogi wins, he might feel confident enought to try that, and if Vingo does, or performs well anyway, he might feel that the Giro isn’t that bad for his form building).
At the end of the day, many were afraid we’d have a poor Classics season with just two predictable winners, while we really had huge Sanremo and Roubaix plus excellent E3, Waregem, Amstel, Flèche… and eventually also entertaining Liège, Ghent, Het Volk. The “spoilt” races were only Strade (Seixas improved that, too, anyway) and Ronde. This was actually better than most average Classics seasons.
@gabriele
Good points and I agree with everything. Except maybe that I would turn your statement around:
Sport is about competition, but of course also about selecting and admiring outstanding talent.
Without the competition, the rest is irrelevant.
I’m following the World Cup now, and like most other aficionados, I’m blown away by Messi’s magic. But if I knew beforehand that every Argentina game would end with, say, an 9-0 victory and Messi scoring one or two hat tricks each time, would I still watch? Of course not. Not for a second, except for maybe some highlights.
The beauty of football is Messi, but it’s also in those moments—like in Qatar four years ago—when Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina, or this year when determined, hard-fighting players from Cape Verde and Morocco held Spain and Brazil to draws. Or gritty matches between (almost) evenly matched teams like England and Croatia yesterday, all fueled by the thrill of uncertainty that comes before each game.
I know it’s tough to compare such different sports, and as I’ve mentioned before, I have no metrics to back this up—just my 35 years of experience watching cycling. But in the age of Pog, we risk overlooking the essential competitive aspect of the game. It’s not Pog’s fault at all—he wants to win and enjoys winning, just as it should be.. 🙂 And we can’t do anything about it, but for cycling’s sake, I really hope for a competitive tour.
PS: I disliked Indurain and his Tour dominance intensely, and even though Riis wasn’t the most likable rider around, watching him break Indurain in ’96 was one of the turning points in my Tour experience. Apologies to all Spanish and Danish readers. 🙂
“Riis wasn’t the most likable rider around, watching him break Indurain in ’96 was one of the turning points in my Tour experience.” I guess we’re all different. Riis winning the Tour that year was why I quit following the sport for 20 years*. This was a guy who might have snuck a stage between the Alps and the Pyrenees in previous years when the GC heavies were watching each other. He wasn’t getting any younger and he suddenly transmogrifies into the Monster of the ’96 Tour. In the early 90s it was getting harder and harder to avoid the elephant in the room, but with that race I couldn’t hold my nose any longer.
* Not all his fault. Got back in a few years later, just in time for Armstrong. Thought it was safe after Armstrong retired, just in time for Landis. Gave up for a good decade after that.
In a single shortish stage, Pogačar built the kind of lead it took himself six stages to achieve in Romandie and Vingegaard fourteen stages in the Giro.
Either he’s peaked for the Tour far too soon, or the event itself is going to be as exciting as watching paint dry.
Yes, I agree with you. I watched the stage and thought that the Tour de France will not be a meaningful contest this year.
I think part of the problem is that road cycling in Switzerland is pretty much out of fashion. First it had been superseded by MTB, then by gravel. Young people starting road riding? A niche of a niche sport.
Add to it that outside of racing, everybody is on an ebike nowadays in Switzerland. The country is pretty hilly. It always was, and still people used to cycle a lot. Now it seems they are only accepting that if they have some electrical support. Some acquaintances explained to me in all honesty that only on an ebike it’s possible to go on a 60km ride.
No wonder there are almost no swiss riders in the pro ranks any more, even less so at the highest level. And therefore, no need to invest the public money into that sport.
I think that your last paragraph is too harsh.
Küng is no doubt a top rider, the terrible injury in February destroyed his 2026 season, but it’s been steadily top 5 or thereabouts even in the cobbled Monuments for some years now, then European ITT champion etc., I think the guy is “highest level”, absolutely so, unless you include in that category only the regular podiumers… but that makes little sense, as in that case only Slovenia, Belgium and the Netherlands could sport “highest level”!
Jan Christen is still too young, but I think he’s got the potential to be considered “highest level”.
Mauro Schmid is being a fundamental asset for his team, a WT one albeit not a superteam, and was among the very best in the Ardennes this year (again, unless you consider that the “highest level” is restricted to top 3). I believe that he’s still in a trend of growth and probably entering his prime from now on, at 26, as it was usual.
On the contrary, an early talent like Hirschi, winning the Flèche and a TDF stage at 21 when still at Sunweb, looks like he’s on a downward curve since he left UAE and the relative “support” two years ago. He looks a bit lost now, but the potential he manifested is undeniable.
As a whole, just think that barring a couple of exceptions, Swiss athletes were normally winning around 20 races a year, more or less, 15-20 years ago in the Cancellara years, with the likes of Albasini and Elmiger adding quantity. Save for 2025, it’s the same winning rate as in the years ’20s.
Not to speak of the women (yes, I know and pointed out the issues of Switzerland with gender equality), where you have one of the absolute best in Reusser, plus strong athletes like Chabbey or Rüegg who no doubt belong to the “highest level”. Stiasny is an upcoming climbing talent.
I think it’s rather the general attitude of the country towards public investments in general. As I said, just check public expenditure over GDP and it gives you enough context. The rest look like escuses, they were cutting down MTB disciplines when they were strong both in terms of competitive sport and everyday practice by common people.
Maybe I’ve been a bit too harsh. I’m more comparing to even more back.
Alas, the day of Koblet and Kübler are gone since a while…!
(I’m joking, of course, the 90s were also a strong moment for Swiss cycling with Rominger, Zülle, Richard or Camenzind, and also excellent second-line athletes like Järmann, Zberg, Dufaux… or Gianetti. Yet, the 60s and 70s were meagre and the 80s had had their up and down, although with one of my favs in Urs Zimmermann; well, I guess things have their cycles. All in all, this isn’t a top moment for Swiss cycling, but comparatively not that bad, either: I suppose that what Switzerland really has been lacking for some 30 years now, which is quite some time, is a GT contender – which had happened to other historic nations like Belgium or France, and for many years to the Netherlands, too).
Where are you betabug?
Cycling in big towns is, especially more women, now fashionable and cool. My group ride has problems of too many people in summer. But it is not the same in countryside places with only farmers.
Public investment creates excellent roads and public transport, hosting of world championships, Tour de France women. Tour de Suisse women was created with federal money.
Oh, I’m not at all against using public investments and creating excellent infrastructure.
I’m just comparing to the “old times” … which I admit ofcoz always can be distorted. When I was a kid, there were 2 cycling clubs in the area. Cycling (obviously road cycling, there was nothing else) was obviously much smaller than football and ice hockey, but still they were there. At least one of the clubs is gone (good riddance, it was shit when I was there), don’t know if the other is still there. It wasn’t a big city, but today the area is even more populated than back then.
One thing not mentioned above but worth adding is that the race gets 500 UCI points, the top rate for a non-grand tour stage race, and not 400 points like Catalunya, Itzulia, Pologne, Renewi (details here https://inrng.com/2026/02/uci-points-rankings-tables-2026/)
I still don’t get this out-and-back stage design. Surely a concatenated approach where the stages are the transfers would be cheaper, save time and rider/staff energy, and have a lower carbon footprint. Each town would still have a departure and arrival, just in the reverse order. Then again, I’ve never been a fan of transfers, especially long transfers (I know in this day of really short stages that is decidedly old-fashioned).
Less hassle getting all the local authorities on board along each route stage, perhaps.
The whole point is to sell an “event” to the host towns so they have a day’s activities with the women’s stage in the morning, the men later. This can make it more attractive; it can also see some places desist because of the all-day traffic closures. But it does limit the route choices, it’s now very hard to have one of the magnificent mountain passes which have defined the race.
I am guessing (others would know better), some of the equipment like the winners/sign-in stage-equipment, barriers at the finish etc. can be reused. And the coaches can be parked up for the day.
Inrng makes a nice point about not being able to use the mountain passes. I would not have thought of that.