At the end of November 2008 I published the first version of my article about the rumours of the Paris-Nice 2009 route.

As it has now become usual, together with the help of some of my loyal readers (thanks Franck ! ;-), I regularly updated this article as soon as new rumours were published and in the end ... when the route was finally officially anounced on 29 January it turned out to be 100% correct with all start and finish cities of all 8 stages !

That's why I decided not to update my article with rumours but to focus on the creation of a map with this full route of Paris-Nice 2009 in Google Maps / Google Earth. From now on you can exclusively discover the result at www.velowire.com !

More precise maps

If you're a loyal reader of this blog you might know that I already published the Tour de France 2008 route in Google Earth / Google Maps before. At that time I'd been drawing everything by hand and in addition to the fact that this was very time consuming, the maps were not very precise ...

For the first time I now used a new method to draw the Paris-Nice 2009 route in Google Earth / Google Maps. This method allows to draw the route very precisely including all bends - both big and small - in the road. Below you'll thus be able to discover a very precise map which should completely correspond to the route the riders will follow from 8 till 15 March.

First stage of Paris-Nice 2009 : individual time trial in Amilly - Sunday 8 March 2009 - 9,3 km

Amilly, a city in the Loiret, will organise on Sunday 8 March 2009 for the second year in row the prologue of the 67th edition of Paris-Nice.
It's a 9.3 kilometer individual time trial (the track therefore's not the same as in 2008 because at that time the prologue was 4,6 kilometers long) ... this means it's not really a prologue because according to the definition the total distance should in that case not exceed 8 kilometers.
In 2008 the prologue in Amilly was won by Thor Hushovd.

A hesitating city council in Issy-les-Moulineaux, which apparently didn't answer quickly enough when A.S.O. asked whether they could bring the prologue back to Issy, apparently is the reason why the organisation decided to put this first stage in Amilly again instead of going back to the city in the Hauts-de-Seine where Paris-Nice's organiser, Amaury Sport Organisation, is located (at 253 quai de la Bataille de Stalingrad).

The city Amilly did answer positively on A.S.O.'s question to again become the place where the Race to the Sun would start and the deputy mayor, Jean-Pierre Door, already mentioned A.S.O. showing its gratitude by getting Amilly a stage finish and -start in the Tour de France in 2010.

The second stage : Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire > La Chapelle-Saint-Ursin - Monday 9 March 2009 - 195,5 km

Where in 2008 the first stage should have started in Amilly^footnote, the second stage in 2009 will start in Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire, in the canton of Gien (start city of Paris-Bourges) and well known for its castle, for a stage towards La Chapelle-Saint-Ursin (photo) in the Cher.

La Chapelle-Saint-Ursin already organised a stage start of Paris-Nice in 2004 at the Place de la Mairie. In 2009, the stage should finish close to the football stadium and the city's reception room, with the finish line being crossed twice.

The third stage : Orval > Vichy - Tuesday 10 March 2009 - 178 km

The next day the riders will start from Orval, at about 50 kilometers south from La Chapelle-Saint-Ursin (and next to Saint-Amand-Montrond, where the last time trial of the Tour de France 2008 finished).
This stage will finish in Vichy (photo). The riders will come from Vendat, the 1-kilometer arch will be on the barrage and the finish line will most probably be on the allée des Ailes close to the Crédit Agricole office.

The fourth stage : Vichy > Saint-Etienne - Wednesday 11 March 2009 - 173,5 km

The fictitious start of this stage will be at the round about close to the Darragon stadium in Vichy to finally finish in Saint-Etienne. The real start will be in Cusset.

The fifth stage : Annonay > Vallon-Pont-d'Arc - Thursday 12 March 2009 - 204 km

This year the Ardèche will not only have a Tour de France 2009 stage finish in Aubenas (stage Bourgoin-Jallieu > Aubenas) but also a Paris-Nice 2009 stage.

The stage will be completely in the Ardèche, from the most densely populated municipality in the Ardèche, Annonay to the small tourist city Vallon-Pont-d'Arc (photo) with a symbolic visit to Saint-Félicien, historical home town for the cyclosportive l'Ardéchoise, in between.

The sixth stage : Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux > Montagne de Lure - Friday 13 March 2009 - 182,5 km

This sixth stage will start in the center of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux.
Before the official announcement of the 2009 route, A.S.O. didn't want to tell where this stage would finish since it was apparently the only stage with a completely new route ... indeed the mountain top finish on Montagne de Lure is a first experience on this fabulous site and the highest in the history of Paris-Nice (1600 m). For those not used to the shrewdness of the area, this huge hill is also known as the "Little Sister of the Ventoux". The 13.8 km climb at an average 6.6 % gradient will certainly be one of the big moments of the event.

The seventh stage : Manosque > Fayence - Saturday 14 March 2009 - 191 km

The seventh stage, often very important for the general classification, will start in Manosque in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

The stage will finish in Fayence (photo) on Saturday 14 March 2009.

The riders will come from Seillans, for a first crossing of the finish line before they leave again, direction Mons, Callian and Montauroux, before they get back to the flat part with the finish at the parking in front of la Brèche.

On 5 July 2009, during the Monaco > Brignoles stage, the peloton will also visit Fayence with -according to Var Matin- an intermediate sprint at the station.

The eighth and last stage : Nice > Nice - Sunday 15 March 2009 - 119 km

This last stage will as usually start in the final finish place, Nice. The finish will of course be in Nice as well on the Promenade des Anglais !

The Promenade des Anglais in Nice, © sokole oko

The map of all stages in Google Maps and ... in Google Earth

Based on the details of all stages as announced by A.S.O. I draw a map on Google Maps with the full route of Paris-Nice 2009.

UPDATE 2 March 2009: the file which you can open in Google Earth now also contains all intermediate sprints, mountains and feed zones.

The result in a Google Maps map (without sprints, mountains and feed zones) is shown below.

If you prefer to open this map in Google Earth (for example to do a virtual fly-over), you can click the following link: the Paris-Nice 2009 route in Google Earth.

The file doesn't open? You probably don't have the application installed on your computer: download Google Earth.

The participating teams

20 teams have been invited to participate in the 67th edition of Paris-Nice.

First of all of course 17 of the 18 UCI ProTour teams have been invited. Only the Fuji-Servetto team, born from the rests of the Saunier Duval-Scott team (which was called Scott-American Beef in the mean time), has not been invited by A.S.O. due to its doping history in 2008.
In addition to these UCI ProTour teams, 3 continental pro teams have been invited: Agritubel, Skil-Shimano and Cervélo TestTeam.

The list of participating teams in Paris-Nice is very often the base for the list of participating teams in the Tour de France. In addition to the now usual invitation of the French Agritubel team, there's therefore a big chance that Skil-Shimano (which declared not to be ready for the Tour last year but now announced to the press they're fully ready; the team has already integrated the Tour in its planning) and Cervélo TestTeam will also be invited to participate in the Tour de France 2009.

The full list of teams and most important participating riders is as follows:

GERMANY
- Team Milram (MRM) : Peter Velits, Martin Velits, Niki Terpstra, Martin Müller, Christian Knees, Thomas Fothen, Markus Fothen, Markus Eichler Thomas Rohregger, Matthias Ruß

BELGIUM
- Quick Step (QST) : Maarten Wynants, Jurgen van de Walle, Kevin Seeldrayers, Sébastien Rosseler, Jérôme Pineau, Kevin de Weert, Sylvain Chavanel, Carlos Barredo, Francesco Reda, Kevin Van Impe
- Silence - Lotto (SIL) : Johan van Summeren, Jurgen van den Broeck, Jürgen Roelandts, Matthew Lloyd, Philippe Gilbert, Cadel Evans, Mickaël Delage, Mario Aerts Wilfried Cretskens, Jelle Vanendert

DENMARK
- Team Saxo Bank (SAX) : Jens Voigt, Jurgen van Goolen, Nicki Sörensen, Andy Frank Schleck, Gustav Larsson, Karsten Kroon, Alexandr Kolobnev, Lars Bak, Chris-Anker Sörensen, Jakob Fuglsang

SPAIN
- Caisse d'Epargne (GCE) : Luis Leon Sanchez, Jose Joaquin Rojas, Mathieu Perget, Oscar Pereiro Sio, David Lopez Garcia, José Ivan Gutierrez, Anthony Charteau, Andreï Amador, Imanol Erviti, Dani Moreno
- Euskaltel - Euskadi (EUS) : Gorka Verdugo, Samuel Sanchez, Alan Perez, Juan José Oroz, Inaki Isasi, Markel Irizar, Aitor Hernandez, Javier Aramendia

UNITED STATES
- Garmin - Slipstream (GRM) : Bradley Wiggins, Ricardo van der Velde Christian Vandevelde, Thomas Peterson, Danny Pate, David Millar, Daniel Martin, Trent Lowe, Steven Cozza
- Team Columbia - High Road (THR) : Marcel Sieberg, Vicente Reynes, Mark Renshaw, Marco Pinotti, Maxime Monfort, Tony Martin, Marcus Burghardt, Michaël Barry

FRANCE
- AG2R - La Mondiale (ALM) : Tadej Valjavec, Nicolas Roche, Rinaldo Nocentini, Sébastien Hinault, Stéphane Goubert, Hubert Dupont, Cyril Dessel, Jose Luis Arrieta, Vladimir Efimkin, Christophe Riblon
- BBox Bouygues Telecom (BTL) : Thomas Voeckler, Pierre Rolland, Olivier Bonnaire, Yohann Gène, Alexandre Pichot, Cyril Gauthier, Yuri Trofimov, Sébastien Turgot
- Cofidis le crédit en ligne (COF) : Rein Taaramae, Rémi Pauriol, Damien Monier, David Moncoutié, Amaël Moinard, Samuel Dumoulin, Mickaël Buffaz, Stéphane Augé
- Française des Jeux (FDJ) : Jussi Veikkanen, Benoît Vaugrenard Sébastien Joly, Jérémy Roy, Christophe Le Mével, Matthieu Ladagnous, Mickaël Chérel, Sébastien Chavanel, Sandy Casar
- Agritubel (AGR) : Nicolas Vogondy, Christophe Moreau, Geoffroy Lequatre, David Lelay Yann Huguet, Christophe Laurent, Romain Feillu, Sylvain Calzati, Maxime Bouet

ITALY
- Lampre - N.G.C. (LAM) : Simon Spilak, Simone Ponzi Manuele Mori, Mirco Lorenzetto, David Loosli, Francesco Gavazzi, Pietro Caucchioli, Matteo Bono, Marco Bandiera
- Liquigas (LIQ) : Frederik Willems, Ivan Santaromita, Aleksandr Kuschynski, Roman Kreuziger, Enrico Franzoi, Murilo Antoniobil Fischer, Francesco Chicchi Brian Vandborg, Maciej Bodnar

LUXEMBOURG
- Astana (AST) : Haimar Zubeldia, Yaroslav Popovych, Sergio Paulinho, Benjamin Noval Gonzalez, Dmitriy Muravyev, Levi Leipheimer, Christopher Horner, Alberto Contador, Alexandr Dyachenko, Daniel Navarro, Michael Schär

THE NETHERLANDS
- Rabobank (RAB) : Maarten Tjallingii, Bram Tankink, Joost Posthuma, Nick Nuyens, Sebastian Langeveld, Mathew Hayman, Juan Manuel Garate, Juan Antonio Flecha
- Skil-Shimano (SKS) : Tom Veelers, Albert Timmer, Piet Rooijakkers, Cyril Lemoine, Thierry Hupond, Steve Houanard, Jonathan Hivert, Fumiyuki Beppu Koen de Kort, Theo Eltink, Floris Goesinnen

RUSSIA
- Team Katusha (KAT) : Stijn Vandenbergh, Gert Steegmans, Alexander Serov Vladimir Karpets, Evgeni Petrov, Joan Horrach, Nikita Eskov, Antonio Colom, Alexandre Botcharov

SWITZERLAND
- Cervelo Test Team (CTT) : Hayden Roulston, Serge Pauwels, Jérémy Hunt, Heinrich Haussler, Jose Angel Gomez Marchante, Xavier Florencio, Philip Deignan Daniel Fleeman, Inigo Cuesta

---

^footnoteDue to heavy wind the start of the first stage of Paris-Nice 2008 has been moved to La Chapelotte, in the Cher, thus reducing the stage to only 93,5 kilometres instead of the 184,5 kilometres which were initially planned.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | OpenStreetMap/Google Maps/Google Earth

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