SEE VIDEOS OF TOUR DE FRANCE'S CRAZIEST MOMENTS HERE
READ OUR MARK CAVENDISH FEATURE HERE
READ TOUR DE FRANCE FACTS AND FIGURES HERE
It may be set in France and be all about cycling (which generally isn't that interesting, right?), but you can't really get any more gruelling a sports event than the Tour de France. The sheer pain, passion and commitment involved can't help but get our attention. And they also get to wear lovely-coloured tunics should their steroids kick in first. It's really ace. Get involved...
• This is the 96th Tour de France (the first one, in 1903, was conceptualised by a journalist, Géo Lefevre, and 60 competitors took part)
• It runs from Saturday July 4th to Sunday July 26th 2009. Every cyclist get two break days: 13 and 20 July. They spend them together and are contractually obliged to smoke 20 Gitanes between their teeth and rub Cancoillotte or Epoisses into each other's genitals.
• 4 Englishmen are taking part: Bradley Wiggins, Charles Wegelius, David Millar and Mark Cavendish. At the 2008 Olympics Bradley Wiggins was the first person for 40 years to win bronze, silver and gold medals in a single Games. In an interview with The Times he said “I’m going for the top 20, maybe top 15, and will be in the mix on the mountains this year rather than just scrapping around to make the cut-off time.’ If nothing else, he deffo has the best name in the tournament.
• Of the 180 riders across 20 teams, the most celebrated participant on this year’s Tour is Lance Armstrong. You know, the bloke who won the race a record 7 consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, swatting away testicular cancer like it was a bothersome bluebottle, and only started back on the competitive cycling circuit in January. The French hate him, but he is without doubt a living sporting legend.
• Le Tour is made up of 21 stages and covers a total distance of 3,359.5km. This is the equivalent of 2087.5 miles, or once round Gordon Ramsay’s ego. 2009’s course enters six countries: Monaco, France, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland and Italy. (The 1992 race went through seven countries, a course record.)
• These 21 stages comprise the following: 10 flat stages, 7 mountain stages (across the Pyrenees, Vosges, and the Alps), 1 medium mountain stage, 2 individual time-trial stages (55km of overall distance) and 1 team time-trial stage.
• The first time-trial bit (they call it the Prologue) includes a section of the famous Monaco Grand Prix racetrack, though Murray Walker will not be commentating.
• There are 3 mountain finishes on Le Tour 2009. Historically, there has never been a mountain climb on the programme the day before the finish in Paris. This year is the exception, with the Ventoux mountain finish on the 20th stage.
• This year stages 10 and 13 will see the banning of earpieces, neautralizing any communication between riders and their team managers (an ability which got up a few people’s noses and would've probably made talkative women quit, should they have been allowed to enter in the first place).
• In terms of wonga, 3.2 million euros will be dished out to the teams and the riders, including 450,000 euro smackers for the winner of the overall general classification. A huge garlic clove will also be implanted in the winner’s left-brain courtesy of race sponsors and the French government.*
* They can also choose to have a live snail inserted up their rectum.
MORE FEATURES
Bookmark this post with: