Every year during the Tour de France a decoration contest is organised for the cities and towns where the Tour passes. This year this contest was organised by Doublet who created the contest 7 years ago, in collaboration with A.S.O..
During the Tour de France and for each of the stage one city or town was chosen as the stage winner. On Wednesday 26 November the final winners will get their prize during the Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales in Paris.

The contest's jury, presided (like for all previous editions) by Bernard Hinault, was composed of Agnès Gougeat for A.S.O., Gaëlle Colaert for Doublet, Benoît Petit for the French press agency AFP, Jean-Louis Filc for the RMC radio station, Jérôme Le Gall who represented the French local press (in France they call it PQR, for Presse Quotidienne Régionale) and Bernard Thévenet.

This jury was represented in the Tour in the advertising caravan by a car decorated with the address of the contest web site and they took pictures of the different decorations.

The theme of the decorations this year was the same as the Tour's theme: le Tour toujours which forms a heart.
The jury judged the decorations based on five criteria: originality, differentiation in decorations, visibility, the link with cycling and especially the Tour de France, contribution of the population (associations, shop owners, residents). Furthermore, the jury took into account the size of the town or city.

The prize money for this contest was € 10.000, to be used to buy material provided by Doublet.

The Breton journal Le Télégramme today announced the winners with a special mention for the third place which goes to a city in Brittany.

The first place - € 3000 - Ainay-le-Château (Allier)

The last city which participated in the contest (the cities on the track of the last stage between Etampes and Paris were not allowed to participate) gets the first prize: Ainay-le-Château at about 20 kilometers from the finish of the decisive time trial of the Tour de France 2008 between Cérilly and Saint-Amand-Montrond.
Martin Elmiger (AG2R La Mondiale) in Ainay-le-Château

The second place - € 2500 - Aigurande (Indre)

The start city of the sixth stage between Aigurande and Super-Besse made some very good efforts to decorate the city for the Tour de France.
I already realised that when I was there as you can see in my pictures of that stage
Decorations in Aigurande

The third place - € 2000 - Saint-Jean-Brévelay (Morbihan)

The city which finishes third was on the track of the very first stage, between Brest en Plumelec, close to the finish: Saint-Jean-Brévelay.

The fourth up to the tenth place - (4th - € 1500, 5th - € 1000)

On the fourth place we find a city which was part of the same stage as the second place, Aigurande > Super-Besse: Saint-Julien-Puy-Lavèze (Puy-de-Dôme) (pictures of this stage).
The fifth place was awarded to Escala (Hautes-Pyrénées) which is just outside Lannemezan and which was thus visited during the Lannemezan > Foix stage (pictures of this stage).
The sixth place goes to Embrun which organised the start of both the stage to Prato Nevoso (pictures of this stage) as the one to Alpe d'Huez (pictures of this stage) (due to the problem with the stage which was initially planned between Digne-les-Bains and Prato Nevoso), while the seventh place is awarded to the start city of the stage between Roanne and Montluçon (pictures of this stage).
The eighth and nineth place also go to start cities, more precisely those of the Brioude > Aurillac (pictures of this stage) and Lavelanet > Narbonne (pictures of this stage) stages.
The tenth and last place is for Digne-les-Bains, which should have organised both a stage finish and start but which finally only got the finish of the Nîmes > Digne-les-Bains stage (pictures of this stage).
Decorations in Lavelanet
Strangely, just like last year, the contest web site has not (yet) been updated with the overview of the winners and 2008 pictures.

source: Le Télégramme, © photos: Thomas Vergouwen (check out all my Tour de France 2008 pictures)

> Check the result of this contest during the Tour de France 2007

door Thomas Vergouwen
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