Cycling: The Tour de France is the highlight of every cycling season. The fans, drivers and teams were already looking forward to the 2020 event. But because of the corona virus, some are now worried. Can the Tour de France even take place in July?
Will the corona virus also stop the Tour de France?
The Tour de France has already been held 106 times. This was the case for the first time in 1903. Since then, the organizers have only had to cancel the most important cycling race in the world eleven times. The world wars raged between 1915 and 1918 and between 1940 and 1946. In the year 2020 it could happen again. Luckily, no world war will be responsible for this this time. But the corona virus is also currently managing to restrict public life in many countries. The economy is at a standstill in many areas. Nobody knows how long this situation will last. Since meanwhile the start of the Tour of Italy - actually planned for the beginning of May - has been postponed to a date that is still uncertain, we slowly but surely have to worry about the 107th Tour de France.
Patrick Lefevere fears a total disaster
Patrick Lefevere has been active in cycling for decades. As the boss of the Deceuninck – Quick-Step team, the Belgian has seen almost everything. In his column for the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad he lets the readers share his thoughts. These range from the positive prospect of being able to ride again in June to the cancellation of the entire season and thus also the Tour de France: "And then we speak of a total catastrophe."
Patrick Lefevere:
“My maxim is to always start from a best case and a worst case. In the first case we will go again in June. In the worst case, the season is over. I may be a pessimist, but who would have dared predict three weeks ago that half of Europe would suddenly be under house arrest? Tour organizer ASO can take it, but the teams can't. If there is no Tour de France, the whole cycling model can collapse.”
Ralph Denk: "The tour can also take place in September"
Ralph Denk looks a little more positively into the future. The team boss from Bora – hansgrohe spoke to each other in an interview cycling-news.com namely expressed rather optimistically. He doesn't know when it will start again. But Ralph Denk could well imagine that the Tour de France will be postponed and that the professionals will still be able to compete in the most important cycling race in the world.
Ralph Denk:
“I hope that we can do the Tour de France. Then we would get away with a black eye. You can still do the tour in September. With the climate in southern Europe, this is still possible this late in the year. I think the season could last until December.”
The teams could simply run out of money
It's no secret that professional cycling hasn't exactly been in its heyday for years. After many scandals in the past decades, the scene is still recovering. But there are always financial problems in this industry. Races had to be canceled and teams disbanded because those affected simply could not raise enough sponsorship money.
Even if many important races were to be rescheduled this year, the teams and organizers in particular are likely to suffer greatly from the consequences of the corona virus. Because even without a virus, the team bosses often have to work for months to guarantee the sponsorship income for the next season. The sponsors will not be happy with the cancellation of so many races and the associated significantly lower media impact. We can only hope that they will then commit themselves to cycling again for the coming season. Because most companies themselves will sooner or later feel the consequences of the corona pandemic.