France

Bringing the Tour to your city… or village

Revel départ

Regional newspapers are big in France, selling more than the national dailies. Open a local newspaper and you don’t have to turn many pages before you find the latest on the grape-picking harvest or minor traffic accidents. It reinforces the pleasant idea that not much happens in rural France, there just isn’t enough bad news to report.

For many places in France the passage of the Tour de France is the highlight of the year or even the decade. In a great piece Le Monde today reports on the importance of a stage visiting French towns. There are 36,000 mayors, from Paris down to tiny villages, and most of them would love to see the race visit their corner of France.

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Tony Gallopin wins the Coupe de France

Tony Gallopin

The Coupe de France (“French Cup”) is a season-long trophy awarded for races in France. There are fifteen races and riders can score points in each round. Typical races include the season-opening Grand Prix d’Ouverture La Marseillaise, Paris-Camembert or Châteauroux Classic de l’Indre. The final round was on Sunday, the Tour de Vendée won by Marco Marcato of Vacansoleil and results allowed Tony Gallopin (Cofidis) to retain his lead.

Each of these races are open to the usual teams but points for the Coupe are only awarded to French riders and foreign riders on French teams. For example past winners include Thor Hushovd and Philippe Gilbert as they rode for Crédit Agricole and FDJ respectively.

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Longo and French bias

Jalabert + Lappartient

Yesterday Jeannie Longo’s husband Patrice Ciprelli was buried alive under newsprint allegations from L’Equipe but strictly speaking, Jeannie Longo is not named. For the time being, I’ll put that aside and want to revisit the first allegation, of three no shows for anti-doping controls. I’m concerned about favouritism.

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The French media landscape

Kiosk

The Tour de France is such a big event that you’d think cycling is a big sport in France. Perhaps but it’s a long way from other sports. Here’s a scan across the airwaves, news stands and servers.

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Tour de l’Avenir preview

Tour de l'Avenir

There are many prestigious stage races for amateurs to win during the year. The Giro Bio, the Ronde de l’Isard and the Giro Della Valle d’Aosta come to mind. But the Tour de l’Avenir is probably a level above. It starts on Sunday.

Avenir is French for “future” and so this is the Tour of the Future. Rather than a decent stage race in its own right the Tour de l’Avenir is purposely named as a race that unveil’s tomorrow’s stars – note the graphic above – and it’s a staging post for those heading onto bigger things plus a chance for followers of the sport to identify potential talent.

It’s also different in that pros ride, this is a race for riders aged under 25 although it’s for tomorrow’s stars, riders on World Tour teams like Taylor Phinney or Peter Sagan can’t steal the show. It’s run by ASO, organisers of the Tour de France and many other races in France and beyond.

It’s also used by ASO to test new roads and even ideas. The Tour de France race director Jean-François Pescheux has described the U-25 race as a “laboratory” where he can measure the effects of new climbs and ideas as finally the organisers realise that the Alps and Pyrenees are about more than the Galibier and Tourmalet. Note the route of some of the stages because the 2012 Tour de France could well look similar.

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Arnaud Lagardère’s eyes aren’t on ASO

Back in April 2010 I covered rumours of a bid for the Tour de France, the suitor being Arnaud Lagardère. He’s the owner of Lagardère Group which owns a range of media assets in France. Primarily it does publishing, newsprint and as well as owning a stake in the country’s prime satellite broadcaster Canal+. But it’s got an extra division called Lagardère Unlimited that specialises in sports management and entrainment and it’s the growth of this part that made people wonder if Lagardère could bid for ASO, the sports management business that runs the Tour de France but also the French Open golf tournament and the Paris Marathon amongst other events.

But the bid never came. Yet Lagardère is still interested in the sports business. Only his stock is taking a battering in France thanks to a video of him with a new girlfriend, Jade Foret. She’s a Belgian model, aged 20.

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Is Pierre Rolland the next big thing?

Pierre Rolland Alpe d'Huez

Aged 24, Pierre Rolland won the Tour de France stage on Alpe d’Huez today and took the White Jersey. Is he the next big thing in French cycling? No, Pierre Rolland was the next big thing three years ago.

It happened in 2008 when he was a second year pro on the Crédit Agricole team and took the mountains jersey in the Dauphiné stage race in June, aged just 21. Don’t take my word for it, back then cyclingnews.com asked aloud: is Pierre Rolland France’s next big thing?

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Where are they now? Crédit Agricole 1999

Crédit Agricole 1999

The Leopard-Trek team spent the first rest day of the Tour de France at the Gabarit Hôtel and in the reception area were several photos from the past when the GAN team, later known as Crédit Agricole. Fabian Cancellara joked about Stuart O’Grady who features in the photos from the late nineties but he’s not the only big name rider on this team.

I found the full photo on the excellent Site du Cyclisme website and the first thing that stands out is the size of the squad. 18 riders in total, small by today’s standards when several teams are at the UCI-limit of 30 riders and able to cover three races simultaneously even with a few injured riders. Back in 1999 Crédit Agricole was not the biggest team but it certainly was competitive; in 2001 the squad won the team time trial stage of the Tour de France.

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Brittany, hotbed of French cycling

Tro Bro Leon

The Tour de France is racing across Brittany at the moment. This the region in north west, the big finger that pokes westwards into the Atlantic. It’s a hotbed of French cycling where many a village festival is accompanied by a small race and where one of the biggest races in France takes place, the GP Plouay.

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The smell of fresh tarmac

La Patrouille

They say the Queen must think the world smells of fresh paint because everywhere the British monarch goes it is likely that the buildings have been smartened up with a fresh coat of paint for the occasion. It’s not that dissimilar to France at the moment, where with the Tour de France just days away, final preparations to the roads, towns and even fields along the route are underway.

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