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So Much More than a Cycle Race
• Tour de France set for UK in 2007
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By
The Manx, Transport correspondent
Wednesday,
24 January, 2007
The Grand Départ of the Tour de France, the world’s largest annual sporting event, will be visiting London for the first time during the weekend of 6-8 July 2007.
The Prologue on Saturday 7 July will be a five-mile lap of central London, starting on Whitehall, taking in the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Green Park and St James Park and finishing on the Mall.
Stage One, on Sunday 8 July, will start in central London, passing onto the South Bank via Westminster Bridge and then taking in York Road, Chicheley Street, Belvedere Road, Upper Ground and Blackfriars Bridge. The cyclists will then return to SE1 via Tower Bridge and head east via Jamaica Road. The race will then travel through Bermondsey, Deptford, Greenwich and Erith before heading out into Kent.
In Kent the Tour will pass through Dartford, Gravesend, Medway, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone and Ashford before the stage finish in Canterbury.
"The Tour de France is so much more than a cycle race and creates a carnival atmosphere wherever it visits," says the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. "The Tour will be great for London, showcasing the UK capital to the world, bringing huge amounts of visitors to London and encouraging more Londoners to take to two wheels."
The event will mirror the high standards and pedigree of the major continental Cyclosportives such as the famous L’Étape du Tour, with the riders preceded by the publicity caravan, a huge carnival with floats and vehicles from the race's sponsors providing music and freebies to spectators.
The race will be run on closed roads, with the roads closed for several hours with some additional parking controls in place on and near the race route.
OntheLam 2007
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