The rumour mill continues to turn for the route of next year’s Tour de France, with Breton newspaper Ouest France, the sponsor of he recent Plouay ProTour race. The paper claims that there will be more stages for the northwestern region, although this has not been officially confirmed.
All that has been confirmed by race organiser ASO is that the race will be starting with a road stage between the Passage d Gois to Mont des Alouettes in the Vendée region, followed by a team time trial at Les Essarts, and that stage three will begin in Olonne-sur-Mer.
As VeloNation reported earlier this month, Ouest France has already clamed that the third stage will finish in the small town of Redon in Brittany; it also claimed that the next stage would start in Lorient and head further north to Châteaulin, just south of Brest where the Tour had it Grand Depart in 2008.
According to Ouest France though, the proposed stage finish at the Neolithic monuments of Menez-Quelc’h has been blocked by local officials, so the nearby town of Carhaix may step in.
Rather than turning south straight away and heading for the Pyrénées, says Ouest France, the course will head further north to the town of L’Aber-Wrac’h on the very northwestern point of France. The day’s destination is not yet known, but it is speculated that the route will head east into the Côtes d’Armor department.
Stage six will start from Dinan and head either to the small town of Saint-Georges-de-Reintembault, or into Normandy and either Alençon or Lisieux.
Ouest France points out that Brittany “has not seen the race since 2008”, when the race started there with three stages. Should the race pay a visit to Normandy, it would be the first time the Tour has passed through the region since 2006, when stage 5 finished in Caen and stage 6 started in Lisieux.
Situated as it is in the centre of the north of the country, Normandy is not on the way to anywhere, and so the Tour rarely pays any kind of meaningful visit. Prior to 2006, the race passed through in 2002, finishing in the regional capital Rouen and starting in the spa town of Forges-les-Eaux the next day.
The last time the Tour did more than pass through Normandy was in 1997, when it started in Rouen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of local rider Jacques Anquetil, the first man to win the race five times.
It is still assumed that the 2011 Tour de France will travel in an anti-clockwise direction, and visit the Pyrénées first. By the time the race reaches the stage six stage finish it will have used the best part of the first week; it will now have to travel from the very north of the country to the very south in as quick a time as possible.
The full Tour de France route will be officially presented by ASO in Paris in mid-October.