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Tour de France could finally return to Germany in 2017

Roar Rookie
9th November, 2015
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Marcel Kittel and Andre Greipel are among the riders in contention on Stage 7 of the Tour de France. (Image: Team Sky).
Roar Rookie
9th November, 2015
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Germany has just come one step closer to hosting the Grand Départ of the 2017 Tour de France.

This week, Düsseldorf municipal authorities voted in favour of mayor Thomas Geisel’s proposal to host the opening stages of the world’s largest annual sporting event.

However, the motion only passed by the slightest of margins, with 40 votes in favour and 39 against, indicating that the road to hosting the event may not be entirely smooth sailing.

The city had originally expressed interest in hosting the 2018 Grand Départ. However, it recently decided to bring forward its bid after London pulled out of the running to host the 2017 event just one day before contracts were set to be signed with race organisers ASO this September.

With the ASO hoping to quickly find a replacement in the months since London’s withdrawal, the German city seized the last-minute opportunity to commence preparations for its bid, and is confident that it stands a good chance of securing the Grand Départ.

If successful, it would be the first time in almost two decades that Germany hosts the event.

The Grand Départ has taken place in Germany on three previous occasions, which saw the Tour de France start in Cologne in 1965, Frankfurt in 1980 and Berlin in 1987.

There is no doubt that cycling remained a popular sport in the country well into the 1990s, reaching its peak when Jan Ulrich won the 1997 Tour and claimed Germany’s only general classification win to date. However, the public’s interest in cycling inevitably waned following the doping scandals of the early 2000s, which also eventually saw German television pull the plug on live Tour broadcasts.

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Yet in recent years the emergence of riders such as Tony Martin, André Greipel, John Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel has created renewed interest in the sport.

2015 marked the first year that German television, namely the public broadcaster ARD, resumed live coverage of the Tour. And it was good timing, too. This year, Greipel, Martin and Simon Geschke won six stages of the Tour between them, with Martin also wearing the yellow jersey for the first time in his career after his solo victory on Stage 4 in Cambrai.

But it wasn’t just this year that Germany put in a strong performance at the Tour. Over the last three years, it has been the most successful nation in terms of stage victories, with German riders winning 19 out of 63 stages. That’s almost one third of all Tour stages since 2013.

Martin recently lauded Düsseldorf council’s decision as a political endorsement of the sport, saying that the work being done by present-day professional German riders to restore credibility to cycling is finally paying off.

However, not everyone sees the decision in a positive light. The German Cyclists’ Federation (ADFC) argues that the costs of hosting a Grand Départ will fail to pay long-term dividends to the city and its regular cycling commuters.

It has expressed doubts as to whether Düsseldorf in particular, which recently placed 34 out of 39 in the ADFC’s ranking of bike-friendly cities, carries the right cycling infrastructure to facilitate any tangible flow-on effects from staging a Grand Départ.

In fact, a lack of return on investment was also the reason given by London organisers for turning down the opportunity to host the event. Mayor of London Boris Johnson publicly stated at the time of the decision that the £30 million necessary to stage the Grand Départ would not be a sound investment in the promotion of cycling within the city.

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However, Düsseldorf council has done the maths slightly differently.

A Deloitte report that it commissioned this year estimates that the event would cost only €6 million to stage, but would inject as much as €57 million into the local economy through tourism, with another €30 million being expected from Tour-related media and advertising.

A further report recently released by council authorities gives the city good reason to hope that the Tour will also have socio-cultural impacts that will continue long after the peloton has left the banks of the Rhine.

It predicts that the number of regular bicycle users in the city could potentially increase from 14 per cent to over 25 per cent in the years following the Grand Départ.

The report also indicates that if Düsseldorf were to introduce systemic strategies to promote cycling among its citizens, similar to the Bicycle Master Plan implemented in London after the 2007 Grand Départ, it could ensure that the 2017 Grand Départ’s legacy produces tangible benefits for both the city and its cycling commuters well into the long term.

Whether Düsseldorf will ultimately be able to harness these flow-on effects from staging the event remains to be seen. However, hosting the Grand Départ would represent a significant step towards re-connecting the German public – after an extended absence – with the sport of professional cycling.

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