Although the precise route is yet to be revealed, as well as many of the climbs and the precise distances, the organisers of the Tour de Suisse have announced the complete list of start and finish towns for next year’s race. The WorldTour event will build up to a final battle on mountain stages to Verbier and Saas-Fee.
The 2014 event will begin on Saturday June 14th with a stage starting and finishing in Bellinzona in Ticino, the southeast of Switzerland. Day two heads from the same location to Sarnen, while day three goes from Sarnen to Region Zürich.
From there the race goes to Ossignen on stage four, then on to Büren A.D. Aare and the following day to Delémont.
The final three days see a stage starting and finishing in Worb, a penultimate day race from Delémont to the top of the Verbier climb, as featured in the 2009 Tour de France, and then a final day race from Martigny to Saas-Fee.
The latter is also a mountain stage, leaving the final outcome to be determined on that last day. Full details of the route will be published next February.
Rui Costa won the 2013 edition, grabbing the race lead when he won the final day time trial. He ended the race one minute and 2 seconds ahead of Bauke Mollema (Blanco Pro Cycling) and one minute ten up on Roman Kreuziger (Team Saxo Tinkoff).
The race organisers have said that they had a huge boost to the media figures last year, due in part to the fact that the final outcome was unknown right until the end.
“More than 400 national and international media and TV journalists were accredited for and reported from the Tour de Suisse. In Switzerland, SRF, RTS and RSI broadcast live in all 3 language regions. IMG Media – responsible for distributing international TV rights – secured broadcasts in 152 countries all over the world, an increase of 28% on 2012,” it said in a statement.
The organisers also confirmed that there was an increase in website visitors from 790,679 to 901,079 compared to 2012, and that the live news update figures were almost twice as big as last year.
Tour de Suisse 2014 (WorldTour):
Saturday 14 June 2014: stage 1, Bellinzona to Bellinzona
Sunday 15 June 2014: stage 2, Bellinzona to Sarnen
Monday 16 June 2014: stage 3, Sarnen to Region Zürich
Tuesday 17 June 2014: stage 4, Region Zürich to Ossingen
Wednesday 18 June 2014: stage 5, Ossingen to Büren A.D. Aare
Thursday 19 June 2014: stage 6, Büren A.D. Aare to Delémont
Friday 20 June 2014: stage 7, Worb to Worb
Saturday 21 June 2014: stage 8, Delémont to Verbier
Sunday 22 June 2014: stage 9, Martigny to Saas-Fee