The 100th edition of the Tour de France gets underway in Corsica on Saturday 29th June and arrives in Nice next Tuesday, 2nd July.
Preparations are well underway in Nice to welcome the 100th Tour de France as it crosses from Corsica to the mainland. The 4th stage of the race, the team time trials over a 25km course, will be held in and around Nice on Tuesday, 2nd July. Team time trials were last held during the 2011 race. The fifth stage will be contested from Cagnes-sur-Mer to Marseille on Wednesday 3rd July.
To mark this big occasion, la Ville de Nice and the Tour organisers will be laying on plenty of entertainment and events for the public, with all the action taking place along the Quai des États-Unis and the Promenade des Anglais.
At 4pm on Saturday, 29th June, the festivities commence, with the arrival of the Tour Nice Métropole back in Nice, after a gruelling 7 days of cycling, covering over 800km. This will be followed at 5:30pm by the arrival of the 77th Grand Prix Cycliste de la Ville de Nice (which is being run on the course proposed for the Jeux de la Francophonie this September).
The evening rounds off with the first Prom’Party of the season on the Promenade des Anglais, with seven different stages and musical styles on offer.
On Sunday, 30th June, there will be a time trial for amateur cyclists, starting at 8am, and finishing at 2pm. If you think that you have what it takes to be the next Bradley Wiggins, please feel free to sign up for the event!
Tuesday, 2nd July is the big day, and gets underway at 12:30pm with a charity cycle in aid of Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque. This will be followed by demonstrations of wakeboarding, surfing, kiting, and jet-skiing, all taking place on the Beau Rivage beach. At 1:10pm, junior cyclists from local cycling clubs will take to the 4th stage course of the Tour de France, trying to emulate their spandex heroes.
At 1:30pm, the real excitement starts to build with the arrival of the Tour caravan, a long procession of all the tour sponsors and partners, throwing freebies to the masses – be sure to get there early and get as many goodies as you can! Then from 3:15pm onwards, the team time trials are underway, and Nice will be the focus of attention of the cycling world for the afternoon.
That evening, there will be a free performace of Le mariage forcé by Molière in Place Pierre Gautier in Vieux Nice, followed by the pre-requisite fireworks display to end a great four days of partying! See you on the Promenade!
Lead image courtesy La Ville de Nice
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