A vivid, clear-cut image, like a vision: hundreds of thousands of jubilant spectators gathered in closed, uninterrupted ranks at the heart of Rotterdam, clapping and cheering at the Tour Start. An absolute certainty: at the beginning of July 2010, our Dutch friends will welcome the Tour de France with fervour and enthusiasm in a magnificent popular celebration on a par with last year’s festivities – even more spectacular than usual – for the length of the race route, and for a full three weeks.
This passion for the Tour is deeply rooted. If it has traversed the years and braced all hurdles, it is thanks to Henri Desgrange and his organising team. One hundred years ago it was their heroic audacity – or their folly or recklessness, dependent on opinion – that perfected the structure, the backdrop to the event, by adding an element that to this day no-one has ever wanted to remove: mountains! In this way, reaching the summits seven years after its creation, the Tour rose to new heights.
After climbing the peaks of the Jura and the Alps, we will pay tribute to our magnificent Pyrenees with four key stages in the third week of the race. On the programme: the hitherto legendary mountain passes of 1910, with the mythical Tourmalet in pole position, but also more recent 21st century conquests, like the Pailhères and the Port de Balès, confirmation of the Tour’s constant forward shift.
Prior to this, the riders will already have encountered an element that should add particular spice to this year’s race: cobblestones, divided into seven sectors and thirteen kilometres that will, evidently, delight some and terrify others. Imagining that the 2010 Tour could also – and why not? – be played out on the flat is a manner of saluting and celebrating, one hundred years later, the history of the Tour and the “invention” of high mountains…
Christian PRUDHOMME
Director of the Tour de France