Nice and the Tour, it’s a meeting that is confirmed and continues!
In 100 years of the history of the Grande Boucle, which will be celebrated with the 2013 edition, Nice has been a stage city 35 times, and once, in 1981, it was the departure city of the race.
After the Grand Départ and two other stages in Corsica, the 2013 Tour de France will return to the continent on July 2nd for the 4th stage, which will be a team time trial in the streets of the capital of the Côte d’Azur.
The starting point will be determined later, while the finish, as was the case in 1981, is already planned on the Promenade des Anglais. The stage will be about twenty kilometers long.
The start of the 5th stage will be given the next day (July 3rd) from the westernmost city of Nice Côte d’Azur, Cagnes-sur-Mer, which will host the Tour de France for the first time.
Christian Prudhomme’s statement, director of the organization:
Officially beginning to reveal, eighteen months in advance, the route that will immediately follow the Grand Départ is a rare initiative*.
But with an unprecedented Grand Départ in Corsica, a particular announcement; the choice of Nice to reach the continent was quickly made.
The capital of the Côte d’Azur offers everything the Tour de France could wish for its hundredth edition: prestige, international influence, beauty of the site, recognized expertise in organizing major events, and unwavering connection with cycling.
Next March, we will thus celebrate the seventieth anniversary of Paris-Nice, the “Race to the Sun”, the first major meeting of the international peloton on our continent, as it should be.
