Originally
run as an event for individual riders today's tour is a team event
where every member of the team works to help the star rider. Each team
consists of nine riders containing specialist sprinters, climbers and
‘domestiques'. The 2005 tour de France contains 21 teams all with a
massive retinue of assistants covering things like mechanics, doctors,
trainers, physios, managers and PR people. Hotel accommodation in
France anywhere near the tour becomes fully booked as soon as the route
is released a year before the event.
The tour de France 2005
consists of 21 stages totalling some 3,600 kilometres, starting with a
19Km time trial on Saturday 2nd July from Fromentine to
Noirmoutier-en-L'ile. The early stages are relatively flat and will be
the province of the sprinters but as the tour unfolds and moves into
the mountains the sprinters will try to hang on while the specialist
climbers get a chance to show their prowess. The spectacle of the
‘peleton' thundering along en-masse at speeds of 40 to 50 Km per hour
is an amazing, never to be forgotten spectacle.
Surprisingly,
during its one hundred years or so of existence and taking into
consideration the speeds that the riders reach travelling down twisting
mountain roads, there have been only three deaths among the riders.
On
July 18th, 1995, during stage 15 of the Tour de France, Fabio
Casartelli crashed while descending the Col de Portet d'Aspet and was
tragically killed. Shortly after his crash, the Motorola team and the
Societe du Tour de France placed a memorial stone dedicated to Fabio at
the spot where he crashed on the Col de Portet d'Aspet. In 1997, the
Tour de France revisited this climb and all the riders stopped for a
brief moment to honor Fabio's memory.
During
the 1967 Tour de France, English rider Tom Simpson collapsed with heat
exhaustion and died on the ascent of Mount Ventoux while challenging
for the yellow jersey. He officially died of heart failure but Tour
officials found amphetamines in his jersey and an autopsy revealed
traces in his body. His death led the sport to begin a drug testing
program. On the way up the climb, there is a marble memorial for
Simpson.
The third victim was Francesco Cepeda a Spanish rider
who died after plunging down a ravine on the Col du Galabier in the
French Alps during the 1935 Tour de France.
Two other deaths in
the Tour De France occurred in the 1957 Tour de France, radio reporter
Alex Virot and his motorcyclist driver, Rene Wagner, fell into a ravine
and died during the Barcelona-Ax-les-Thermes stage.
