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MAP: What you need to know about the 2022 Tour de France (and Denmark)

The 2022 Tour de France starts on Friday and is once more an international event - setting off from Copenhagen - after the previous two years' events were curtailed by the pandemic.

The 2022 Tour de France will start in Denmark
The 2022 Tour de France will start in Denmark. Photo: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP

The race will begin in Copenhagen and spend several days in Denmark crossing islands before riders will be transferred back to France for the race to continue from the north east of the country.

The French portion of the route begins in Dunkirk and then travels down the eastern side of the country, taking in the Alps before looping across southern France to the Pyrenees for more mountain racing.

It will finish as usual in Paris, with riders cycling up the Champs-Elysées on Sunday, July 24th.

The Tour usually includes at least one stage outside France, but Covid travel restrictions meant the 2021 race was held entirely in France, apart from a brief trip into the neighbouring micro-state of Andorra.

Copenhagen was originally scheduled to host the 2021 Grand Départ.

The race usually starts on a Saturday, but next year will begin on Friday, July 1st, in order to allow time for the rest days and transfer of all teams back from Denmark to France.

The full route is;

 Stage 1 – July 1st
   Copenhagen – Copenhagen – 13km (time trial)

   Stage 2 – July 2nd
   Roskilde – Nyborg – 199km

   Stage 3 – July 3rd
   Vejle – Sonderborg – 182km

   Stage 4 – July 5th
   Dunkirk – Calais – 172km

   Stage 5 – July 6th
   Lille – Arenberg Porte du Hainaut – 155km

   Stage 6 – July 7th
   Binche (Belgium) – Longwy – 220km

   Stage 7 – July 8th
   Tomblaine – La Super Planche des Belles Filles – 176km

   Stage 8 – July 9th
   Dole – Lausanne (Switzerland) – 184km

   Stage 9 – July 10th
   Aigle (Switzerland) – Chatel – 183km

   Stage 10 – July 11th
   Morzine – Megeve – 148km

   Rest day – July 12th

   Stage 11 – July 13th
   Albertville – Col du Granon – 149km

   Stage 12 – July 14th
   Briancon – Alpe d’Huez – 166km

   Stage 13 – July 15th
   Bourg d’Oisans – Saint-Etienne – 193km

   Stage 14 – July 16th
   Saint Etienne – Mende – 195km

   Stage 15 – July 17th
   Rodez – Carcassonne – 200km

   Rest Day – July 18th

   Stage 16 – July 19th
   Carcassonne – Foix – 179km

   Stage 17 – July 20th
   Saint-Gaudens – Peyragudes – 130km

   Stage 18 – July 21st
   Lourdes – Huatacam – 143km

   Stage 19 – July 22nd
   Castelnau-Magnoac – Cahors – 189km

   Stage 20 – July 23rd
   Lacapelle-Marival – Rocamadour – 40km (time trial)

   Stage 21 – July 24th
   Paris – Paris – 112km

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

The Olympic flame set sail on Saturday on its voyage to France on board the Belem, the Torch Relay reaching its climax at the revolutionary Paris Games opening ceremony along the river Seine on July 26.

Olympic torch sets sail at start of its voyage to France

“The feelings are so exceptional. It’s such an emotion for me”, Tony Estanguet, Paris Olympics chief organiser, told reporters before the departure of the ship from Piraeus.

He hailed the “great coincidence” how the Belem was launched just weeks after the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.

“These games mean a lot. It’s been a centenary since the last time we organised the Olympic games in our country,” he added.

The 19th-century three-masted boat set sail on a calm sea but under cloudy skies.

It was accompanied off the port of Piraeus by the trireme Olympias of the Greek Navy and 25 sailing boats while dozens of people watched behind railings for security reasons.

“We came here so that the children understand that the Olympic ideal was born in Greece. I’m really moved,” Giorgos Kontopoulos, who watched the ship starting its voyage with his two children, told AFP.

On Sunday, the ship will pass from the Corinth Canal — a feat of 19th century engineering constructed with the contribution of French banks and engineers.

‘More responsible Games’ 

The Belem is set to reach Marseille — where a Greek colony was founded in around 600 BCE — on May 8.

Over 1,000 vessels will accompany its approach to the harbour, local officials have said.

French swimmer Florent Manaudou will be the first torch bearer in Marseille. His sister Laure was the second torch bearer in ancient Olympia, where the flame was lit on April 16.

Ten thousand torchbearers will then carry the flame across 64 French territories.

It will travel through more than 450 towns and cities, and dozens of tourist attractions during its 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey through mainland France and overseas French territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

It will then reach Paris and be the centre piece of the hugely imaginative and new approach to the Games opening ceremony.

Instead of the traditional approach of parading through the athletics stadium at the start of the Games, teams are set to sail down the Seine on a flotilla of boats in front of up to 500,000 spectators, including people watching from nearby buildings.

The torch harks back to the ancient Olympics when a sacred flame burned throughout the Games. The tradition was revived in 1936 for the Berlin Games.

Greece on Friday had handed over the Olympic flame of the 2024 Games, at a ceremony, to Estanguet.

Hellenic Olympic Committee chairman Spyros Capralos handed the torch to Estanguet at the Panathenaic Stadium, where the Olympics were held in 1896.

Estanguet said the goal for Paris was to organise “spectacular but also more responsible Games, which will contribute towards a more inclusive society.”

Organisers want to ensure “the biggest event in the world plays an accelerating role in addressing the crucial questions of our time,” said Estanguet, a member of France’s Athens 2004 Olympics team who won gold in the slalom canoe event.

A duo of French champions, Beijing 2022 ice dance gold medallist Gabriella Papadakis and former swimmer Beatrice Hess, one of the most successful Paralympians in history, carried the flame during the final relay leg into the Panathenaic Stadium.

Nana Mouskouri, the 89-year-old Greek singer with a worldwide following, sang the French and Greek anthems at the ceremony.

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