Home » Sport » Cycling – The Tour de France defends itself – still – sport

Cycling – The Tour de France defends itself – still – sport

You don’t get too close to Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, if you attest him to a very stable self-confidence. And so it came as no surprise when the 59-year-old put forward a daring thesis in the cycling world two weeks ago that could soon plop him down on his feet. Prudhomme announced on March 11 on French TV that only wars could have slowed the Tour de France so far – as if one would shake off this annoying corona virus somehow like a weakened water carrier on one of the tour’s usual mountain stages. Three days later, the World Health Organization raised the disease to a pandemic.

In fact, the large loop that was breathed into its existence in 1903 has so far only been dormant during the World Wars. But the tour, bigger than a global epidemic?

Corona virus updates – twice a day via email or push message

All reports on the current situation in Germany and worldwide as well as the most important news of the day – twice a day with SZ Espresso. Our Newsletter brings you up to date in the morning and evening. Free registration: sz.de/espresso. In our News app (download here) you can also subscribe to the espresso or breaking news as a push message.

Summer 2020 was planned as a huge sporting year, with the European Football Championship and the Summer Olympics as the biggest attractions. In the meantime, the calendar has almost been swept empty due to the corona pandemic. Only a few national shrines still refuse to cancel, sometimes less (Wimbledon), sometimes more (Tour de France). After all, the latter is the third largest sporting event in the world in terms of interest, sponsorship and TV ratings, behind the World Cup and the summer games. The games were supposed to start shortly after the tour next July – before they were hastily pushed into the next year, like the European Football Championship. It’s hard to imagine that the tour peloton can still roll off in Nice on June 27th. Or does it?

The spring classics have already been postponed

The tour is not only the biggest eye-catcher in the cycling calendar, it is the heart, lungs and soul of the scene. Half of the world is watching the tour, and all the sponsors who finance the teams all year round are building on it. The tour is also a huge market place, the market values ​​of the drivers go up and down like stocks. Team leaders, agents and sponsors haggle over contracts for next year. “If there is no tour, the whole model of cycling can collapse,” said Patrick Lefevere, the battle-proven owner of the Belgian Quick-Step team, most recently to the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: “Since several teams are already under pressure to find sponsorship funds for 2021, the task will only be more difficult if the contract is canceled.”

Lefevere argued that his team had previously lost 500,000 euros in the pandemic; the spring classics, in which his drivers often show off, have also been postponed recently: from Paris – Roubaix via Milan – Sanremo to the Giro d’Italia. If the races fail, many suppliers are likely to suffer: Italy’s sports newspaper Gazetta dello Sport is as closely intertwined with her domestic tour as France L’Equipe with the tour, which, like the newspaper, belongs to the Amaury group.

Velon, an association of various professional teams, recently announced that it would launch a digital racing series from April 22: with several stages in which the professionals can dial in from their home trainers and compete in a regular competition. But does that save an entire industry?

– .

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.