2011 Tour de France route announced, teams pending
On Tuesday, the route for the 2011 Tour de France was announced at a presentation in Paris, to which most of the top riders from this year’s race were invited. While the 2010 Tour was a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the first time the peloton
climbed to Pyrenees, with an unprecedented double-climb of the infamous Col du Tourmalet, the 2011 route will celebrate the Alps.
“After the second rest day, in the department of Drôme, the peloton will head for the Hautes Alpes,” said race organiser Christian Prudhomme. “The hundred years of the Galibier echo the 100 years of the Pyrenees celebrated last year at the Tourmalet, and
gives an opportunity to pay tribute to the creator of the Tour, Henri Desgrange.”
After the success of the Pyrenees in 1910, the organisers of the Tour designed a route through the Alps for the first time in 1911 and the 98th edition of the world’s biggest race will be the centenary of that fateful year. The first of two climbs
of the Galbier will be the highest summit in the history of the Tour, at 2645 metres.
“I like this course,” said 2010 runner-up Andy Schleck, a definite favourite for 2011. “The four uphill finishes suit me. Well, this year’s Tour did suit me as well. I can’t say the next one has been made for me, but it’s a Tour for climbers, so it’s good
for me.”
Schleck and his brother Frank will be competing with a new Luxembourg-based team this year, the line-up of which hasn’t yet been announced. That announcement is expected this week, as is the announcement of the teams who will be invited to the Tour in 2011.
There will be either 21 or 22 teams, but the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which runs the Tour, is still finalizing the rules with the UCI for how the teams will be chosen.
"Within one month, we should finalise with the UCI if we go for the proposed new system or if we keep the agreement of 2008," said Prudhomme. "21 or 22 teams will be chosen with 17 or 18 of them based on sportive criteria and invitations will be allocated
as well."
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