Prudhomme rejects calls to move Tour de France from July date amid climate crisis

This year’s race has been taking place amid a severe heatwave in France, and yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar has expressed his preference for a radical overhaul of the cycling calendar that would see the peloton avoid racing in extreme temperatures in July and August.

In an appearance on France TV’s post-stage analysis show Vélo Club on Thursday, Prudhomme insisted that the Tour was wedded to its traditional July date. He was also resistant to the idea of holding stages in the morning rather than the afternoon in a bid to avoid the highest temperatures of the day.

“Of course, there are things that will need to be changed, and no doubt there are things that need improving, but as far as changing the July date is concerned, it’s a categoric no,” said Prudhomme.

“The Tour de France has been born three times in the month of July. First, when it was founded in 1903, a second time in 1910 with the invention of high-mountain stages in the Pyrenees, and a third time in 1936 with the introduction of paid holidays, when people set off on their bikes along the Tour’s routes – that’s what made the Tour so popular. Climate change is very real, so perhaps one day… But it’s not on the agenda at the moment.”

Speaking at the weekend, Pogačar called for a discussion on reforming the calendar due to the climate crisis.

“If I could have the power to change it all, I would change all the calendar,” he said. “I would not race in July and August in the hot places and do a completely different calendar, but that’s something that you need to think through very well. It’s not something I can do, and maybe the next step will be to start earlier the stages.”

Start and finish times of Tour stages have shifted gradually later since the 1980s due to the demands of the race’s broadcast partners, but Prudhomme claimed that there were also logistical reasons for the timing.

“[Earlier starts] would mean that all the riders would need to be able to stay within the start area,” he said. “That’s rarely the case, so it would mean that the start would always have to be in a very large city. The Tour de France features very large cities, medium-sized towns and smaller villages. That’s the very essence of the Tour.”

Less relevantly, Prudhomme cited the spring Classics, where the women’s races start later than the men’s events, as justification for the late start times on the Tour. As of this year, there is no overlap between the men’s Tour and the Tour de France Femmes. 

“We felt the female champions’ requests to have later starts for races such as Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège were entirely legitimate, and now we’re being asked to have the men start at a time when the women legitimately no longer wanted to start,” Prudhomme said. “These are the kinds of issues that can’t be resolved in the heat of the moment.”

Prudhomme also defended ASO against criticism of the route of this year’s Tour in the wake of Pogačar’s early dominance. Although ASO billed the route as guaranteeing suspense until the final weekend, Pogačar already holds a lead of 3:36 over Jonas Vingegaard after crushing wins at Gavarnie-Gèdre and Le Lioran.

“He was the clear favourite and, naturally, he is even more so now,” Prudhomme said. “In a Tour that’s been designed to build up to a crescendo – I’m laughing at myself here – you’re absolutely right to say what you’re saying. 

“But I’ll say again that there are still nine stages left, including high-mountain stages. I can confirm that the penultimate stage of the Tour de France is set to be the toughest in history at that point of the race, and it could change everything. Perhaps Pogačar will dominate the Tour even more – that’s possible – but it could just as easily go the other way.”