April 14/20 7:23 am - Grand Tours Start to Explore Alternate Schedule

Posted by Editoress on 04/14/20
 

Now that French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that public sporting events will be banned in France until at least mid-July, the Tour de France will have to shift its start date from June 27th.  Organizer ASO had been resisting announcing a change to its schedule, but has now been forced to do so.

The Grand Tour organizers - the Giro and ASO for the Tour and Vuelta - have been discussing a new schedule that would see the Tour run August 2nd to 25th, the Vuelta a Espana would move to September, and the Giro d'Italia after the world championships in October. Somewhere in there various Classic and other smaller events would also have to fit in. This tight schedule would see only a week to ten days between each Grand Tour. Organizers are still not considering shortening each event from three weeks to two.