 This
years Tour
de France runs from Saturday July 4th to Sunday July 26th 2009,
the 96th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total
distance of 3,500 kilometres.
These 21 stages have the following profiles:
10 flat stages,
7 mountain stages,
1 medium mountain stage,
2 individual time-trial stages,
1 team time-trial stage.
Sunday 19th July - Tour de France Stage 15:Verbier
(207km)
A new stop-over town on the Tour de France, the Swiss ski resort has already
played host to a number of decisive stages on the Tour de Suisse. The
final climb, more than 9 kilometres long, provides the possibility for
riders in top form to forge gaps, or at least triggers head on confrontation.
For the record, in the last mountain finish in Switzerland on the Tour
de France, in 1984, Laurent Fignon outclassed all opposition by winning,
in yellow, at Crans-Montana, his third alpine stage of the year..
Tuesday 21st July - Tour de France Stage 16:
Martigny > Bourg-Saint-Maurice (160 km)
Martigny was already the starting point of a stage for the world’s
cycling elite during the 2002 Tour of Switzerland. Alex Zülle, who
topped the general classification, was about to win the last race of his
long career. The Spanish Garate sprinted to win the stage of the day,
which finished in Vevey
Bourg-Saint-Maurice was the scene of two individual time-trials, in 1939
and on a historic day in 1996, when “King Miguel” lost control
of the race he had handily dominated since 1991. Indurain was still a
frontrunner in Bourg-Saint-Maurice and poised for a sixth consecutive
win. But his destiny changed a little later during the climb to Les Arcs,
when the lead group left him behind 3.5 km from the finish line. It was
the end of an era.
Wednesday 22nd July - Tour de France Stage
17: Bourg-Saint-Maurice > Le Grand-Bornand (169 km)
Le Grand-Bornand - the Haute-Savoie ski resort has already been the setting
for two stage starts. In 1995 it is where Alex Zülle pumped himself
up with energy to win the stage in La Plagne. In 1999 Lance Armstrong,
who had just taken control of the Tour in the Metz time-trial, made a
dash for Grand-Bornand, winning his second stage in a row in Sestrières.
Five years later he won the stage that started in Bourg-d’Oisans."
Thursday 23rd July - Tour de France Stage 18:
Annecy > Annecy (40 km)
The Tour has not stopped in Annecy since 1959, when Switzerland’s
Rolf Graf won a stage for his second time in the race, after Albi, in
a stage that started in Saint-Vincent d’Aoste near the end of the
Tour. Meanwhile, the “Venice of the Alps” has become one of
the classics of the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré.
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