Le Tour de France
June 30th 2006 23:08
Bonjour tout le monde!!!
(Hi everyone)
As I told you yesterday in my second post, today marks the start of my series which I have cleverly called The “Tour de France” tour. For the next 23 days, we are going to be following around the bicycle race which stops the nation and cyclists around the globe.
Every year at this time, the world goes “bike crazy.” It’s the only time (besides the Olympic Games) when cycling makes the sports section in every news bulletin and paper. But, why does this event create so much interest?
Riders in the 2005 Tour de France (this pic has been decalred public domain and is from wikipedia.org)
The Tour de France is the MOST famous bicycle road race in the world. It has been held annually since 1903 and was cancelled during World War One and World War Two. (This is understandable. It would be very hard to ride and dodge the bombs at the same time!!) Believe it or not, the Tour was originally a publicity event, sponsored by L’Auto newspaper to oppose another cycling event sponsored by rival paper Le Petit Journal and try to increase circulation. The race was a success (circulation jumped from 25 000 to 65 000 papers) and the race has become a French institution. The Tour is divided into “stages,” where each stage is a mini race held over each day. While most stages take place in France, some progress through neighbouring countries like Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, but the 2007 race will start in Ireland??!!
The winner of the Tour is the rider who obtains the lowest combined time for the race. Leaders of the entire race throughout the Tour wear the prestigious “maillot jaune” or the Yellow Jersey. The sprint leader (the rider with the most number of sprint points) wears the “maillot vert.”
To me, the Tour seems to be an epic battle between man, machine and nature for 23 days. And over the next 23 days, I will be following the Tour through my posts. I’ll give you all the tourist info for each of the towns the Tour passes through, so you can plan your trip for next year.
À demain
See you tomorrow
Melinda
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