1997 Tour Route AnnouncedThe itinerary for the 1997 Tour de France cycle race was announced on Friday by the organisers as follows: July 5 - Prologue: Rouen (8 km individual time trial) July 6 - 1st stage: Rouen - Forges-les-Eaux (192 km) July 7 - 2nd stage: St-Valery-en-Caux - Vire (262 km) July 8 - 3rd stage: Vire - Plumelec (217 km) July 9 - 4th stage: Plumelec - Le Puy-du-Fou (225 km) July 10 - 5th stage: Chantonnay - La Chatre (257 km) July 11 - 6th stage: Le Blanc - Marennes (216 km) July 12 - 7th stage: Marennes - Bordeaux (190 km) July 13 - 8th stage: Sauternes - Pau (165 km) July 14 - 9th stage: Pau - Loudenvielle-Vallee du Louron (178 km) July 15 - 10th stage: Luchon - Andorra-Arcalis (242 km) July 16 - 11th stage: Andorra - Perpignan (186 km) July 17 - Rest day July 18 - 12th stage: St Etienne (individual time trial 55 km) July 19 - 13th stage: St Etienne - L'Alpe d'Huez (204 km) July 20 - 14th stage: Bourg d'Oisans - Courchevel (140 km) July 21 - 15th stage: Courchevel - Morzine (217 km) July 22 - 16th stage: Morzine - Fribourg (180 km) July 23 - 17th stage: Fribourg - Colmar (190 km) July 24 - 18th stage: Colmar - Montbeliard (164 km) July 25 - 19th stage: Montbeliard - Dijon (172 km) July 26 - 20th stage: Disneyland (individual time trial 62 km) July 27 - 21st stage: Disneyland - Paris (150 km) Route CommentaryThe 1997 Tour de France, starting in Rouen in honour of the late five-times winner Jacques Anquetil, returns to its roots with an almost entirely French itinerary announced on Friday.Rouen, birthplace of Anquetil, will mark the 10th anniversary of the great Frenchman's death and 40th anniversary of his first Tour triumph in 1957 with the prologue on July 5. The 1997 Tour will then head down the western side of France, including Brittany which missed out this year, embarking on an anti-clockwise reverse swing to the 1996 race won by Dane Bjarne Rijs. There are just two individual time trials apart from the prologue, the first over 55 km at St Etienne -- the 12th stage on July 18 after the only rest day and before the tough climb to Alpe d'Huez. There is a second on the penultimate stage, like this year, over 62 km at Disneyland before the traditional run-in to the Champs Elysees in Paris on July 27. Five of the opening seven stages are longer than 200 km as the Tour makes for Bordeaux and the traditional crossing of the Landes before hitting the Pyrenees ahead of the Alps. The itinerary does not appear to favour time trial specialist Miguel Indurain of Spain, who is rumoured to be seeking a change of team in a bid for a record sixth tour victory that escaped him this year. He would no doubt have preferred the dreaded Alps before his favoured Pyrenees where the ninth stage on July 14 includes the mountain passes of Soulor, Tourmalet, Aspin et Val-Louron. The next day the riders hit the highest point in the Tour at Envalira -- 2,407 metres -- and then head for Andorra-Arcalis, first of three uphill finishes. The others are at Alpe d'Huez -- left out of the 1996 race -- in the 13th stage and the new climb to Courchevel (14th). The 16th stage takes the riders into the Swiss town of Fribourg with the return into France through the Alsace and the 19th stage which ends at Dijon, another traditional tour stop. |