The Tour de France will kick off in 2022 in Copenhagen, making it the northernmost start in history and it forces him to challenge him to compensate for that departure with a tour of France, which will be revealed by the organizers tomorrow, Thursday.
It will be the first departure abroad since Brussels in 2019 and the northernmost, overtaking Leeds in 2014.
The Danish capital was scheduled to be the departure in 2021, but the pandemic made them delay it, forcing the Tour to take refuge in Brittany.
Denmark will become the 10th country to host a Tour outing outside of France, an exercise that began in 1954 with the start in Amsterdam, and in the fourth non-border country to do so.
The three Danish stages have already been unveiled, a 13-kilometer time trial on the streets of the capital to start, 199 kilometers between Roskilde and Nyborg subjected to the whipping of the wind and another 182 between Vijle and Sonderborg promised to the “sprinters”.
Pending the official announcement, indiscretions – often by mayors or regional leaders – augur that the squad could jump to Lille, where it would rest for a day before attacking the French side.
The first two days will take place in the north, with a possible visit to the Atlantic coast and arrival in Calais and a stage marked by the cobblestones, stars of the spring classics and who return to the gala round after three years of absence.
From there, they will head east to face the ascent to La Planche des Belles Filles in the seventh stage., scene in 2020 of the comeback against the clock of the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, who won the first of his two Tours there.
Converted from its first promotion in 2012 into a classic of the gala round, the Vosges mountain will be the goal for the third time in a row and for the sixth time in total.
RETURN OF THE ALPE D’HUEZ
On the way to the Alps, the Tour can head south, with an internship in Switzerland for a couple of days, including a visit to Aigle, headquarters of the International Cycling Union (UCI), before resting on the slopes of the massif.
Rumors point to a stage ending in Col de Granon, at 2,400 meters above sea level, 12 kilometers with an average slope of 10% that has only been goal in 1986, when the Spanish Eduardo Chozas won.
The next day, a national holiday in France, the 21 curves of the Alpe d’Huez will return, absent since 2018 and will be the goal for the 31st time in history since his first ascent in 1952.
The caravan will head southwest along the Saint-Etienne route, an ascent to the Mende aerodrome and its hard final 3 kilometers, and a rest in Carcassonne or Narbonne, the last before facing the final stretch.
The Pyrenees will be approached by Foix, from east to west, and could include some of the mythical peaks of that massif, Peyregudes and its slope of 17%, or the Hautacam as the culmination of a day that also includes the Aubisque and Soulor.
The squad will start from Cahors from the Pyrenean massif, towards the Lot Valley, where on the eve of the triumphal walk through the Champs-Elysées it is noted that the time trial will return.
It will be about thirty kilometers with the goal in the sanctuary of Rocamadour, in the Dordogne valley, nestled in the mountain and which, while waiting for the details to be revealed by the organizers, promises a mid-mountain journey.
