Tour de France to start in Belgium

NEXT year’s Tour de France will start in Belgium, officials have revealed.

It will head off from Liège on June 30. The route then passes west to Boulogne-sur- Mer and around the coasts of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy, before heading east towards Lorraine and from there on a clockwise loop around France.

It will include a single day in the Alps, and two in the Pyrenees before heading to Paris via Brive-la-Gaillarde, Limousin. The Côte d'Azur and the west, apart from a detour to Pau are left out.