Cycling enthusiasts have marked the date for a long time in their diary. In a month Monday, March 7 Orléans will host the Paris-Nice. The 80th edition of the “race to the sun” will start the day before from Mantes-la-Ville, in the Yvelines. Orleans East finish city of the 2nd stage. The race takes place this year from March 6 to 13. Twenty-two teams will take the start, for a total route of almost 1200 km with eight stages up to Nice. This makes ten years since Orléans did not host the peloton.
A stage for sprinters
This 159.2 kilometer long second stage will set off from Auffargis (Yvelines) it will cross the plains of Beauce, the peloton will enter the Loiret at Neuville-aux-Bois then will cross Loury, Trainou, Donnery, Saint-Denis-de-l’Hôtel, then direction Darvoy on the other side of the Loire, Sandillon, Saint-Cyr-en-Val and Orléans where the runners will take the Thinat bridge to enter in the city. The finish will be judged on boulevard Alexandre Martin, around 4 p.m.
In Orleans we risk having a very good show
“It’s a great course. but the riders won’t like us, they’ll even hate us, because if there is wind, it will “explode” everywhere on this step” said smiling, the director of Paris-Nice François Lemarchand. “I think that there are teams which will take advantage of this second stage to create automatisms for the rest of the season, in particular for the Tour de France which will start in Denmark. (next July 1) and where there will be almost the same racing conditions with wind as well”. On the side of the runners the best will be there, assures the race director, the Slovenian Primoz Rogic, the Belgian Wout van Aert or even Fabio Jakobsen, the Dutch sprinter.
– Lydie Lahaix
The last time that Paris-Nice went to Orléans it was in 2012, it was the Belgian sprinter Tom Boonen who then won. A great cycling enthusiast, Serge Grouard, the mayor of Orléans is delighted to host the event. Orléans has hosted Paris-Nice five times in the past, notably in 1974 with the victory of Eddy Merckx (who won his fifth and last Tour de France the same year).
“It’s a very nice step. that we will live and that will end in the heart of Orleans on boulevard Alexandre Martin where there is a very large esplanade. We will have a kind of “village” with movement and life” hopes the mayor. The city is expecting a lot of people and has planned events linked to schools and cycling clubs of the metropolis. “We need to smile after this very painful period linked to the Covid, we want to rediscover this simple joy of attending a superb competition and share this together” assures Serge Grouard.
Waiting for the Tour de France…
The mayor of Orléans displayed a frank smile and a real complicity, this Monday, with the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, who came to thank the elected officials of the City and the Loiret Department for their support. The opportunity to ask him the question, when will the Grande Boucle return to Orléans? The last time was 21 years ago, in July 2001.
“The Tour everyone dreams of” recognizes Christian Prudhomme. “We are lucky to have 300 applications to be a stage city each year for around thirty places. And I am well aware that a long time ago probably too long, that we did not stop in the Loiret, twenty years for Orléans and ten years for Montargis (July 2010)”. Christian Prud’homme adds “corn you will see the Tour here in the years to come and in any case I am committed to it before the elected officials, in the current mandate whether it is the municipal mandate or the departmental mandate” he concludes, in other words by 2026 or even 2028.
Christian Prudhomme is the guest of FRANCE BLEU ORLEANS this Tuesday at 7:45 am.