Let the fun begin.
The world’s greatest annual sporting event gets underway tomorrow and I’m looking forward to three weeks of amazing cycling action.
The Tour de France is a wonderful display of of supreme athleticism. Some people have said that it’s like running a marathon every day for 21 days.
This year’s event will start in London and finish on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Between those two cities riders will endure the agony and experience the ecstasy of pushing their bodies to extreme limits with excruciatingly tough mountain stages and technically difficult individual time trials.
On Sunday the 29th of July we’ll toast a new winner but anyone who makes it through the event, whether they’re first or last, will be an absolute champion.
We’ll thrill to the chaos of the sprint stages and then feel our muscles ache as we see the riders climb mountain passes while they suck in every bit of air they can.
21 teams, each with 9 riders, will make up the 189 competitors for the 94th Tour de France.
Millions of spectators will line the route to see the race live. Many millions more will watch events unfold on television around the world.
The Details
Running from Saturday July 7th to Sunday July 29th 2007, the 94th Tour de France will be made up of a prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,550 kilometres.
These 20 stages have the following profiles:
* 11 flat stages
* 6 mountain stages
* 1 medium mountain stage
* 2 individual time-trial stages
Distinctive aspects of the race
* 3 mountain finishes
* 2 rest days
* 117 kilometres of individual time-trials (including the prologue)
* 21 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed
I’ll be looking out for the Australian riders to make a big impact on the race this year, particularly Cadel Evans, Michael Rogers Stuart O’Grady and Robbie McEwan.
Bring on the late nights in front of the television.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: Tour de France – Cycling – Sport
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Oh! Love the Tour. I was hooked several years ago when Lance was starting his run and I was getting into mountain biking. Looking forward to seeing how this one pans out.
I hope there is no clear winner off the bat and the yellow changes hands a dozen times and it’s worn by guys from several different countries and at the end everyone goes, “Oh man, that was fun!”
what a pity James isn’t goping to be there this year
[setting TV to SBS]
[Removing tuner button]
[Hiding remote]
And so morning daylight becomes just a vague memory for the next three weeks. Wonder how I will fit my photography in.
Commenting a bit late here (the tour is heading into it’s second week!)
I notice a certain australian sprinter has been doing very well. His recovery from the back the other day was amazing.