Tour de France 2014 for Yorkshire

YORKSHIRE will host the start of the 2014 Tour de France – with the Grand Départ for the 101st race being in Leeds.

The first two days of the Tour will be held in Yorkshire on July 5 and 6 before the race moves south for the third stage in the south of England to finish in London.

It will have been seven years since the Tour de France was last in the UK – for the Grand Départ from London in 2007 - and director Christian Prudhomme said that the move was as a result of the British successes in the Olympics and after Bradley Wiggins’ historic win this year.

Britons were one and two in this year’s Tour, with Christopher Froome in second. World champion Mark Cavendish, another Briton, won the last stage on the Champs Elysées.

Yorkshire was chosen ahead of a separate UK-wide bid that would have seen the race start in Edinburgh. It would have had three stages in the north of England, Wales and then the south of England to cross the Channel.

Details of the route will be announced next month.

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Tour de Yorkshire for Tour de France
Success for UK in Tour de France
Photo: Igs165