"Impressive and tough" Le Tour route unveiled

Next year's Tour de France will feature more mountainous terrain

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Thursday, 26, Oct 2006 12:25

The route of next year's Tour de France will feature more mountain stages than in 2006, it was revealed today.

Beginning in London on July 7th, cyclists will be required to traverse six mountain stages instead of five, including a gruelling summit finish on the Col de l'Aubisque.

"For the first time in 20 years, the last mountain stage will finish at the summit," new tour director Christian Prudhomme today told journalists.

The newly designed route will see cyclists cross the Alps via Picardie, the Yonne, the Bourgogne and the Ain, with Prudhomme admitting that the massif crossing will be "impressive and tough".

"The trilogy of the Pyrenees will terminate in a flourish with a finish at the summit of the Aubisque, overlooking the ski resort of Gourette," he added.

The London leg of the 3,500 km race begins in Whitehall and finishes in the Mall, with riders travelling through Kent before ending the opening stage under the shadow of Canterbury cathedral.

Prudhomme said the UK's capital represented the perfect stage for the competition's prologue: "Two legendary capitals, two exceptional cities, two rivals also, on occasions. Could we have dreamt of a finer association, after the bitter battle for the Olympic Games, than a Tour de France linking London to Paris, Big Ben to the Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace to the Arc de Triomphe?"

But the Le Tour director admitted that the "events of the summer have left their mark", with 2006 champion Floyd Landis' appeal still pending after testing positive for excessive amounts of male hormone testosterone.

"But if the spirit present in Strasbourg at the end of June is indeed the expression of a staunch and shared commitment to fight against doping, then not only do we have nothing to fear in the future, but everything to hope for," Prudhomme concluded.