In 2023, on the Tour de France, there were bicycles and motorcycles (despite themselves) in the front row. The race may have been (briefly) disrupted. Reminder. Two motorcycles (photographer and TV) blocked an attack by Tadej Pogacar who was trying to get rid of Jonas Vingegaard in the last kilometer of the Col de Joux Plane during the 14th stage (Annemasse-Morzine). And during the 17th stage (Saint-Gervais-Mont-Blanc-Courchevel), a France Télévisions motorcycle, blocked by a mechanical incident in the terrible percentages of the Col de la Loze, slowed down several riders, including Jonas Vingegaard, the jersey YELLOW.
Two episodes which fueled the organizers’ debriefing. “The lessons of the 2023 Tour are one: the phenomenal fervor. There have always been people on the passes and it was great but this was the first day, the second day, in the Puy-de-Dôme stage, in the Grand Colombier, in the Vosges… finally everywhere. We have been doing everything for years to defend the Tour and its future. The public is younger, there were more than a quarter of the people who came to the Tour roads for the first time last year and a majority of women. According to the Kantar survey, 27% of people came for the first time and 54% of women. But these young groups also come largely to share a moment of happiness. They are full of enthusiasm, it’s magnificent but a little less disciplined…”
And to recall: “When we put the Col de Péguère on the Tour route in 2012, there was a crowd… Two walls of spectators, it was premonitory: the live TV motorcycle, the pool photo motorcycle and no runners who can attack. That is to say the negation of the slopes that we put on the route. And what’s more, we had a dingo who threw nails… The next time, in 2017, we returned there and there we had banned 3 km of climbing and it is thanks to these slopes that Barguil and Quintana time, return to the race lead and Barguil wins the stage. The 100 km 100% Ariège, July 14. This is an important element but we are not aiming to ban the public everywhere.”
Aware of the sporting, image and safety issues, the Tour director confides: “We are going to increase the number of ropes. But people will need to stay to ensure that they are still in place when the runners pass. We have a few months to work on all this, particularly with the communities. We will not have more state services. We won’t have any more of the 28,000 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters. This could be volunteers, people from clubs, people from home or private security. But when I say private security, what bothers me is that it’s not about forcing people, it’s just about explaining to them the importance of security. Sometimes at 9 a.m., they all understand. They’re just nice people but at noon they understand a little less well and at 5 p.m. they no longer understand at all…” He adds: “More ropes, it will only work if there is a lot of communication and if the people join. The smoke bombs, for example, amazed me. I cannot understand why we leave smoke bombs when we know very well that when an athlete is in full effort, he is no longer able to breathe and then finds himself confronted with a wall with an opaque cloud without no visibility. The smoke bomb cannot be at the side of the road, it is not possible. Let them move away. The party must stay at the party. What we want is for people to continue to be happy on the Tour route. And for that, you need a minimum of discipline.”
As for the particular case of motorcycles which sometimes, like in 2023, slow down the race, Christian Prudhomme assures: “We have to set up a super pool at some point. This means that there is a moment in the most delicate situations, there is only the motorbike on live TV. This seems absolutely obvious to me. Starting next year? We’re not going to have fun waiting. What you have to see is that in almost all other sports, the cameras once they are installed, they are positioned well or poorly but they are installed. The know-how of the directors means that they are well posed. For us, it can be perfect at a given moment and 30 seconds later they are exactly where they shouldn’t be. It’s very complex. With the addition of the increase in speed in the peloton mainly due to the equipment which makes it more and more complicated…”