Tour route changed due to landslide

TOUR de France organisers have had to change this year’s route in Normandy after landslides made the planned route dangerous – and just 13m from the cliff edge at Dieppe.

Details of the route were revealed by Tour director Christian Prudhomme who said the sixth stage from Abbeville to Le Havre on July 9 would cross 54 communes in Seine-Maritime. Dieppe will still feature but the plan for the peloton to race along the coastal clifftop road there have had to be cancelled.

The 2015 Tour starts on July 4 from Utrecht in Holland but does not hit French soil until three days later when it reaches Cambrai after leaving Seraing, near Liège in Belgium.

But the first kilometres will be very hard as Mr Prudhomme says the Stage 3 route includes seven sections of the cobbled pavé roads made notorious by the Paris-Roubaix road race.

There are six sections over a bone-shaking 30km stretch and it was on the pavé cobbles that 2013 winner Chris Froome fell in heavy rain last year and had to abandon after breaking a collarbone. He was not alone in falling as Tony Martin, Alexander Kristoff, André Greipel and Sylvain Chavanel also came down, but less badly.

Here is former Tour winner Alberto Contador’s view of the pavé

Tomorrow, difficult and slippery stage due to wind and rain. We have to pedal strong and cross fingers. pic.twitter.com/ieX5GtTIJF— Alberto Contador (@albertocontador) July 8, 2014

Stage 6 this year from Abbeville to Le Havre on July 9 is one of the most dramatically beautiful of the event with the white cliffs and especially those at Étretat, on display to millions of TV viewers in 180 countries over more than 100km of the 191km stage.

Mr Prudhomme said the riders would not be enjoying the view as they would be battling the coast’s fierce winds.

The Tour’s sixth stage enters Seine-Maritime at Longroy before heading south to Fresnoy-Folny, Envermeu and Martin-Église before passing through Dieppe town centre.

It heads long the coast to St-Valéry-en Caux before turning inland to Cany-Barville and then back coastward to Sassetot-le-Mauconduit and Eletot towards Fécamp. Then south to Saint-Léonard, Froberville and Etretat before Saint-Jouin-Bruneval and Quai de Southampton in Le Havre when it turns up the town streets past the Hôtel de ville before finishing the stage at Rue du 329ème.

Stage 7 also starts in Normandy, in Calvados cheese town Livarot - the smallest town to host a stage on this year’s tour – when the riders head across Basse-Normandie for Fougères, 190km away in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany.

* All this week we are looking at newsworthy events in Normandy to tie in with a feature on Normandy food festivals in this month’s Connexion.

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