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London wins Grand Depart of 2017 Tour de France - then TfL withdraws bid at 11th hour

Race owners ASO said to be angry at decision taken on eve of contracts being signed

London won the right to host the Grand Départ of the Tour de France, it has emerged – but Transport for London decided at the eleventh hour to withdraw its bid on the eve of signing a contract with race owners ASO, citing funding issues.

And in a further blow for fans of cycling in the UK, among the bids beaten off by the British capital were proposals from Edinburgh and Manchester, with the race looking likely to begin in Germany the year after next, reports BBC Sport’s Matt Slater.

The city hosted the finish of Stage 3 of last year’s race, which began in Cambridge following a hugely successful opening two days in Yorkshire, the first two stages alone boosting the local economy by more than £100 million, according to estimates.

Last year’s visit to the UK cost £27 million, of which HM Treasury provided £10 million and TfL £6 million.

The  2007 Grand Départ, which had a Prologue in London and a road stage from the capital to Canterbury, cost a similar amount and brought in spectator spend of £65.6 million in London alone, according to a report commissioned by TfL.

However, TfL – which has said it will finance the controversial Garden Bridge Project to the tune of £30 million – and the Greater London Authority decided to pull out of plans to host the race for the third time in 11 years, in part because of the prospect of further cuts to public spending in the government’s forthcoming spending review.

Leon Daniels, TfL’s director of surface transport, told BBC Sport: "To ensure value for money we must make difficult choices.

"We have always said that the return of the Tour was subject to funding."

Although not officially cited as a reason, there is also a mayoral election next May to choose Boris Johnson’s successor.

And there has also been a change at the top of TfL itself - just last week, London Underground boss Mike Brown was named successor as commissioner with immediate effect to Sir Peter Hendy, who left in July to run Network Rail.

After last year’s opening days of cycling's biggest race, Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme, who forged an excellent working relationship with Welcome to Yorkshire’s Sir Gary Verity, said he was keen for the race to return to the UK as soon as possible.

- Three UK cities in running to host Tour de France 2017 Grand Départ

But with the route of next year’s Tour de France due to be announced in Paris next month, around now is when ASO would usually expect to reveal the location of the following edition’s Grand Départ.

The organisation is said to be angry at the late u-turn by TfL, and what remains to be seen is the damage it may do to any future bid from London – or indeed any other city or region in the UK.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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41 comments

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Leviathan replied to Batchy | 9 years ago
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Batchy wrote:

Why are ASOS pissing about with the south of England where the scenery and cycling and attitudes are all wrong.

ASOS t-shirts and jeans are cheap and trendy, leave them out of this.

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earth replied to Batchy | 9 years ago
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Batchy wrote:
pamplemoose wrote:

Give it to Yorkshire again. We'll sort it out.

Not half ! They should have TdF in God's Own County every other year and alternate with Tour de Yorkshire every other year.
Why are ASOS pissing about with the south of England where the scenery and cycling and attitudes are all wrong.

That's an idea. Then the profit from hosting the TdF can make up for the losses made by TdY.

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GarethWyn replied to Batchy | 9 years ago
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Batchy wrote:

...pissing about with the south of England where the scenery and cycling and attitudes are all wrong.

South East maybe, where they have no idea what a climb is, but leave the South West out of this fella!

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gb901 replied to pamplemoose | 9 years ago
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pamplemoose wrote:

Give it to Yorkshire again. We'll sort it out.

And make even greater financial loss?

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pamplemoose replied to gb901 | 9 years ago
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WTY might well have made a loss, but given that the economic benefit to the Yorkshire region of hosting the event was estimated to be over £100m I don't think ordering in a few too many unsold t-shirts is all that bad.

Source: https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/tour-de-france-three-inspira...

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domats replied to pamplemoose | 9 years ago
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Except Yorkshire can't. Welcome to Yorkshire struggled to pay licence fees to ASO and had to ask North Yorkshire County Council to bail them out with £200,000 plus an emergency loan of £500,000 despite NYCC already paying them membership fees of £80,000 a year. The TdF combined with the TdY has generated a loss for them of over £1million. Apparently they have £ 700,000 worth of unsold merchandise. Although everything looked glossy and nice on the outside, financially it's in a mess. The major problem organisers in the UK have is attracting local and national sponsorship from private companies, something the continent has no problem in doing. it's the same old story.

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ciderman_100 | 9 years ago
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Southern wankers. They should give it to Edinburgh

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Simmo72 replied to ciderman_100 | 9 years ago
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Don't lump the majority of southerners with London. I'm as annoyed as you. London has ruined it for everyone else. Plenty of better locations to hold 2-2 days of the tour.

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freespirit1 | 9 years ago
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TfL already have a contract to hold RideLondon, maybe they decided that it was untenable closing the roads for 2 cycling events within a month.

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Simon_MacMichael replied to freespirit1 | 9 years ago
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freespirit1 wrote:

TfL already have a contract to hold RideLondon, maybe they decided that it was untenable closing the roads for 2 cycling events within a month.

That would have been addressed ahead of any formal bid being made, though.

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crikey | 9 years ago
0 likes

Well done chaps.
Thanks for pissing about, and thanks for making sure the Tour won't be here again for quite a few years.

Get in the sea you muppets.

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