Race Organizer ASO Says Tour De France To Start In Normandy In 2016

The 2016 Tour de France "will start at the foot of the spectacular Mont-Saint-Michel monastery in Normandy on the northern coast of France," according to Stephen Farrand of CYCLING NEWS. Race organizer ASO announced that Mont-Saint-Michel and the surrounding Manche department "will host the Grand Départ of the 103rd edition of the Tour de France. The opening stage will be held on July 2. There will be no prologue time trial. The 2016 Tour de France begins with be a 188km road race stage that follows the Normandy coast and finishes on Utah Beach in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, the site of the D-Day landings of World War II. Normandy "has hosted stage finishes of the Tour de France 23 times since 1911 but has never hosted the Grand Départ" (CYCLING NEWS, 12/9). REUTERS' Lucien Libert wrote the second stage will be a 182km ride from St Lo to Cherbourg and the third "will start from Granville and finish at a destination which is yet unknown." The whole route will be unveiled in October (REUTERS, 12/9).