Lamp-posts turn to landmarks as London maps out Tour prologue
William Fotheringham
Friday February 10, 2006
The Guardian
Lamp-post E17 will never be seen in quite the same way again. It stands midway down the Mall in central London, and yesterday it was transformed from being just another obscure piece of road furniture to a landmark in the sporting world.
According to a sketch being carried furtively around the central London launch yesterday by the Tour de France's head of logistics, Jean-Louis Pages, E17 is where the finish line of the prologue time-trial of the 2007 race will be.
This might sound over-detailed, but Pages's business is to know every inch of every year's race route, and as the organisers and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, extolled the race's virtues in front of a yellow backdrop depicting outlines of London's great landmarks, there were other intriguing nuances yesterday.
When British achievements in the Tour were listed there was no mention of David Millar, who will be one of the favourites to win next year's opening 7.9km (4.9 mile) time-trial. He has won three stages of the Tour and has worn the yellow jersey, but is serving a drugs ban which expires on June 24.
Millar was not among the British Tour cyclists at yesterday's launch because he was not invited. The name of Tom Simpson, who died in the 1967 race due to a cocktail of amphetamines and brandy, was, however, considered sufficiently far in the past to merit mention.
Amid laudatory comments about English cyclists' "fair play", the Tour's line is that "when Millar has completed his suspension, there is no reason for him not to be there," according to the race director, Christian Prudhomme.
The Saturday prologue course is really a mini-tour of London landmarks, and Sunday's stage was yesterday confirmed as starting in the Mall with the finish at Canterbury, a convenient point for that evening's return to northern France.
While the French organisers made much of the fact that the 130-mile stage will pass through Mick Jagger's birthplace, Gravesend, the tourist agencies will presumably focus more on Rochester's connections with Charles Dickens and the Tour passing the Greenwich meridian.
Mayor Livingstone repeated his contention that the race will bring some £70m to London, but the scheduled prologue date of July 7 will carry other resonances for Londoners. Livingstone said: "Having this event bring London to life and bring people in from around the world will be a demonstration that you can't break the will of a city and its people."
guardian.co.uk
William Fotheringham
Friday February 10, 2006
The Guardian
Lamp-post E17 will never be seen in quite the same way again. It stands midway down the Mall in central London, and yesterday it was transformed from being just another obscure piece of road furniture to a landmark in the sporting world.
According to a sketch being carried furtively around the central London launch yesterday by the Tour de France's head of logistics, Jean-Louis Pages, E17 is where the finish line of the prologue time-trial of the 2007 race will be.
This might sound over-detailed, but Pages's business is to know every inch of every year's race route, and as the organisers and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, extolled the race's virtues in front of a yellow backdrop depicting outlines of London's great landmarks, there were other intriguing nuances yesterday.
When British achievements in the Tour were listed there was no mention of David Millar, who will be one of the favourites to win next year's opening 7.9km (4.9 mile) time-trial. He has won three stages of the Tour and has worn the yellow jersey, but is serving a drugs ban which expires on June 24.
Millar was not among the British Tour cyclists at yesterday's launch because he was not invited. The name of Tom Simpson, who died in the 1967 race due to a cocktail of amphetamines and brandy, was, however, considered sufficiently far in the past to merit mention.
Amid laudatory comments about English cyclists' "fair play", the Tour's line is that "when Millar has completed his suspension, there is no reason for him not to be there," according to the race director, Christian Prudhomme.
The Saturday prologue course is really a mini-tour of London landmarks, and Sunday's stage was yesterday confirmed as starting in the Mall with the finish at Canterbury, a convenient point for that evening's return to northern France.
While the French organisers made much of the fact that the 130-mile stage will pass through Mick Jagger's birthplace, Gravesend, the tourist agencies will presumably focus more on Rochester's connections with Charles Dickens and the Tour passing the Greenwich meridian.
Mayor Livingstone repeated his contention that the race will bring some £70m to London, but the scheduled prologue date of July 7 will carry other resonances for Londoners. Livingstone said: "Having this event bring London to life and bring people in from around the world will be a demonstration that you can't break the will of a city and its people."
guardian.co.uk