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TOUR DE FRANCE

Italian Nibali set for Tour de France glory

Vincenzo Nibali will be able to sit back, sip champagne and pose for photos on the final day of the Tour de France on Sunday as the peloton rolls into Paris.

Italian Nibali set for Tour de France glory
Italy's Vincenzo Nibali celebrates his overall leader yellow jersey on the podium at the end of the twentieth stage. AFP Photo/Jeff Pachoud

The 29-year-old Italian all but secured his first Tour title on Saturday with an impressive fourth-placed finish in the 54km individual timetrial from Bergerac to Perigueux.

Barring a bad crash or some unforseen disaster, Nibali will be crowned Tour champion when he arrives at the Champs Elysees on Sunday evening.

And after three weeks of riding at the front of the peloton in his race leader's yellow jersey, for once the Sicilian will be able to take a back seat and let the sprinters have their day.

Since the first week of the race, chances for the sprinters to shine have been few and far between and German Marcel Kittel, winner of three of the first four stages in bunch sprints, has been inconspicuous since.

The only television shots of him have been as the burly Giant-Shimano rider slowly lost contact with the back of the peloton on climbs.

Yet he will come into the 136km dash from Evry to Paris as the favourite to add to his three victories from earlier in the Tour.

Although he is far from the kind of dead-cert he might have been.

Since that first week, his main sprint rival, German Andre Greipel, has won one sprint while Norway's Alexander Kristoff has come home first on two occasions.

In the case of Kristoff it was at the end of stages with a few lumps in the run-in that shed some of the heftier sprinters such as Kittel out the back.

But the German will surely be there on the flat Champs Elysees, where he won last year.

In fact if he wins again in Paris he will match, exactly, his achievement from last year in which he won four stages and held the yellow jersey for a day.

The sprinters have been taking to social media such as Twitter to express their delight at having another day in the sun after the trials and tribulations of the Alps, Pyrenees and Saturday's timetrial.

"Time trial done, massage done, shaved the legs, suitcase packed – looks like I'm ready for Paris! #onemoresprint," wrote an upbeat Kittel, who added a
picture of the view from his hotel just outside Bergerac.

"Our last hotel is also my fav: Château les Merles. Awesome location & very charming. Felt almost like holiday… ;)"

Greipel was thankful that Saturday's winner Tony Martin, the three-time world timetrial champion, had not gone so fast that some of the other riders finished outside the time limit cut off point.

Martin, 29, won the race against the clock by 1min 39 from Dutch timetrial champion Tom Dumoulin and even Nibali finished almost two minutes behind.

"Thanks @tonymartin85 for going not faster otherwise some of us could go to Paris already 2day.Congrats you machine!!!!" said Greipel after Saturday's
race.

Meanwhile the host nation are gearing up to welcome their first podium finishers since Richard Virenque in 1997.

In fact, with Jean-Christophe Peraud due to finish second and Thibaut Pinot third, it is the first time since 1984 when Laurent Fignon beat the great Bernanrd Hinault into second that two Frenchmen will have stood on the podium
together.

L'Equipe newspaper said the two home heroes made the "hair stand up on the back of the neck" and dedicated it's front page to Peraud and Pinot.

But no matter how happy the home nation will be on the Champs Elysees, the day will belong to Nibali, who described this achievement as eclipsing his Vuelta a Espana win in 2010 and his Giro d'Italia success last year.

"What makes the Tour so much bigger is the international attention it demands. It's different, it's bigger, it's more beautiful," he said.

"The level of competition is also higher than the others, although I had great rivals in both the Giro and the Vuelta."

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SPORT

Inaugural Women’s Tour de France to start at Eiffel Tower

The route for the inaugural women's Tour de France was unveiled on Thursday with eight stages, embarking from the Eiffel Tower on July 24th next year.

French cyclist Marion Rousse delivers a speech next to Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme during the presentation of the first edition of the Women's Tour de France cycling race.
French cyclist Marion Rousse delivers a speech next to Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme during the presentation of the first edition of the Women's Tour de France cycling race. Photo: Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP.

The first complete edition of the women’s version of cycling’s iconic race starts on the day the 109th edition of the men’s Tour ends.

After a route that winds through northern France, the race culminates in the Planche des Belles Filles climb in the Vosges mountains.

Danish cyclist Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig said she was over the moon to be taking part.

“I want it to be July now so we can get stared,” she said actually jumping up and down.

“The Tour de France is a reference and when you say you are a cyclist people ask about that. Now I can say I race the Tour de France,” she said after the presentation.

MAP: Details of 2022 Tour de France (and Denmark) revealed

Race director Marion Rousse, a former French cycling champion and now a TV commentator, told AFP it would be a varied course that would maintain suspense over the eight days.

“It is coherent in a sporting sense, and we wanted to start from Paris,” she said of the 1,029km run.

“With only eight stages we couldn’t go down to the Alps or the Pyrenees, the transfers would be too long.

“The stages obviously are shorter for the women than for the men’s races. The men can go 225 kilometres. For the women the longest race on our roster is 175km and we even needed special dispensation for that,” she said. “But it’s a course I love.”

Christian Prudhomme, the president of the Tour de France organisers, was equally enthusiastic.

“The fact it sets off from Paris the day the men’s race ends gives the new race a boost because it sets the media up to follow it more easily.

“It also means that with the Tour de France starting on July 1st and the women’s race ending on the 31st, there will be cycling on television every day of July.”

The men’s race is broadcast in around 190 countries.

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