Starts June 29th,early this year because of the Olympics and not finishing in Paris.
In Britain Live and ad free on the Eurosport App and Discovery Plus.
Live with frequent adverts on ITV4 and Eurosport One.
Worth forking out a one month subscription for ad free I reckon.
We’ve come a long way from the days of weekly highlights on World of Sport.
Start list here
Official website here
BBC The 111th edition of the Tour de France gets under way in Florence, Italy on Saturday, 29 June with the three-week race ending in Nice on Sunday, 21 July.
The riders will tackle seven mountain stages including trips to the Pyrenees and Alps during the 3,492km (2,170-mile) race.
There will also be two individual time trials, with La Grande Boucle concluding with a race against the clock for the first time since 1989 - when Greg LeMond famously pipped Laurent Fignon to the yellow jersey by eight seconds.
I used to watch the Tour de France religiously every year. My interest has dropped off since I retired possibly triggered by the furore over Lance Armstrong.
It used to be broadcast on SBS a (partly) government funded free to air ethnic channel who broadcast it live (in the middle of the night of course) and a half hour daily summary. It may well still be broadcast on SBS - I don’t know.
Thanks Furryanimal, I consider it one of the greatest and hardest sporting competitions of the year and I never miss a stage, although I can’t justify sitting for four hours plus in an afternoon so I record the hour long highlights on ITV 4 at 19:00 and watch it next day usually (that’s if Mrs Fox wants control of the telly on the night) …
So I might be late with my appraisals.
Couldn’t reply to your post Furryanimal because I was a day late watching the recording.
What a truly amazing sportsman Cavendish is, and very respected by riders, officials and past hero’s, who are still in the shadows apparently. Ever since the days of Miguel Indurain, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov and my favourite Marco Pantani, has there been such a dedicated and exciting rider…
He got persuaded to ride by Astana this year after announcing his retirement.
Just to try to get that win in France.
Mission accomplished.
Shame the final stage is a time trial in Nice.
After I thought his tour was going to be over on stage one
I think with the help of that Greek bloke he is as fit as he’s ever been, Cavendish speaks very highly of him and they go way back together. It would be a shame to waste all that training and not continue. I don’t think the sprinters are as strong as other years, but I might be proved wrong on that as it’s early days yet.
They’ve finished on time trials in the past, and on some occasions the race was won and lost on those final tests of speed endurance, but it won’t be the same as not finishing in Paris…
When interviewed earlier on in the tour Vinegaard said he was not too worried about falling behind Pogacar because he [Podacar] was bound to have a bad day sooner or later…
But by careful planning of his hard days and easy days I don’t think he [Podacar] has had a bad day yet has he…
And watch out for Evenepoel poised to take second after the time trial on Sunday, he is an awesome time trialler…
Pogacar looked like he had just bumped into Vinegaard while cycling down to the shops for his paper…Awesome turn of speed…
Hellish name to pronounce though…
Rob Hatch sometimes has me wondering who he is on about with his name pronunciations!
Anyone Pogacar is so good he is danger of making races boring.
Hope someone can step up to give him a challenge.
Wonder if he is going to do the Vuelta?
And Mark Cavendishes recently set record is probably going to be beaten if he stays fit.
Anyway,it was business as normal in the final Time Trial which I’d hoped would be a contest as in 1989!
But next year Pogacar probably won’t win the final stage which is presumably back to the sprint around Paris.
Final GC