The Tour de France 2020 would have had to get to grips Saturday, June 27. But because of the pandemic of sars coronavirus, it has been delayed and will depart on 29 August. Which are not concerned about the general manager of the Groupama sailing team-FDJ, Marc Madiot.The general manager of the cycling team Groupama-FDJ, Marc Madiot. (FLOUR VAL?RY / MAXPPP)
“We are going to spend the month of July at home, it has been almost 40 years that I could not come”, smiled Saturday, June 27 on franceinfo Marc Madiot, the general manager of the Groupama sailing team-FDJ. The Tour de France 2020 would have had to start today, but the grand start will take place on the 29th of August due to the pandemic. It will start in Nice to finish on the Champs-Élysées on September 20, but according to Marc Madiot, “the next magic of the Tower will still have its effect in the month of September.”
franceinfo : what is changing for you this deferral, of two months ?
Marc Madiot : We are going to spend the month of July at home. It has been almost 40 years that I could not come. It is a little disturbing in the head to readjust and relocate. It changes the game to the extent where it is no longer on schemes which we have used to practice, with a calendar installed and established for very many years. It goes a little in the unknown as the time of competition upstream in the Tour de France will be reduced, but the exercise will be the same for everyone. So, we will discover it over the steps.
They will have to do in three months what we would have done in five or six moisMarc Madiotsur franceinfo
Your preparation is not too disrupted ?
At a time when the children will go in school holidays, we are going to do our back-to-school in our workshops. He will need to put back all the logistics operation to enable our riders to work well. In July, there will be a stage more or less mountain for all riders of the team. And then, we will resume the competition in early August. The riders have already resumed on may 11, the training from the first day of the déconfinement. The team at the level of the structure has taken on the way to the office. We put the workshops on : the preparation of equipment, vehicles and logistics that will accompany the riders throughout the season. The year is very special this year. They will have to do in three months what we would have done in 5 or 6 months.
Your riders will they do tests ?
Yes, but it will not start in the Tour de France. We have already begun to do testing of our riders. We will re-upstream of the first stages and it will be used on a regular basis. We are in the process of assessing all of this in place with the sporting bodies.
The riders will be as galvanized as usual in the rise of the collars so that the public could be more rare ?
I don’t think. The Tour is extremely attractive. You know, in the month of July, there are a lot of people who are still working and this does not prevent the public to be on the side of the road on the day of the passage of the Tour. There is a tradition, often in those periods where the plant has stopped work because the Tour de France passes, the days are offered to employees of different companies. I think we will have still many people on the side of the road, perhaps less in the mountains, because there will be fewer people on vacation. I think that the next magic of the Tower will still have its effect in the month of September. There will be a true stimulus compared to the Tour because this will be one of the first major events that we will find after this period of Covid-19. We are going to restart a new life with this virus, but it is also going to prove to ourselves, all together, we can refonctionner to normal or near normal with the Tour de France. It is a beautiful test.
