Every year three partners of the Tour de France organise a decoration contest for the cities and towns where the Tour passes. This year the contest was organised by Eco Emballages, Champion and Doublet.
During the Tour de France, for each stage, a stage winner was chosen. Last Wednesday the final winners got their prize during the Salon des Maires in Paris.
The jury of the contest, presided (as for all previous editions) by Bernard Hinault, was in addition to him composed of Agnès Gougeat for A.S.O., Gaëlle Colaert for Doublet, Eric Marchyllie for Champion, Bernard Hérodin for Eco Emballages and 4 national and local journalists. This jury has chosen no less than 7 cities/towns as final winners of the contest.
During the Tour de France 2007 700 cities or towns were 'visited' and 62 of those registered for participation in the decoration contest in order to make the roads of the Tour de France look better (100 according to the Tour site, but on the list of contest participants only 62 are listed). From those 62 cities and towns, 17 were chosen as stage winners of 16 stages (two stages had two winners and one stage - the one from Marseille to Montpellier with Marseille and Mauguio-Carnon as participants - didn't have a winner): check the list of winners on the contest's website with for each winner some pictures.
Usually this contest has 6 final winners, but this year the jury chose 7:
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First prize - the yellow jersey - Copponex
Copponex, in the Haute-Savoie and on the track of the Bourg-en-Bresse > Le Grand-Bornand stage on 14 July, is a town with 692 inhabitants and where 4 associations have worked together on a project in which all children from Copponex formed a huge human bike in addition to a polka dot jersey arch, the town's coat of arms above the road, cows dressed up in the colours of the Tour's jerseys and a bike made of straw.
Second prize - the polka dot jersey - Poperinge
Poperinge in Belgium was the stage winner for the Duinkerken > Ghent stage on 9 July. In addition to a giant wearing a yellow jersey the city was also decorated with a pile of bikes with a cyclist and the Flanders flag on top of it, fresco's, decorated façades and yellow banners.Third prize - the green jersey - Nitry
In Nitry (in the Yonne) the 376 inhabitants have been working from January till July to get all decoration ready. On 12 July it was the big day and the jury's comment 'Everyone who followed this stage's track must have seen the result of this work and the enthusiasm of the people living in Nitry!' is definitely true: we even slowed down to take a few pictures!
Fourth prize - ex aequo - Fontaine-au-Bois and Château-l'Eveque
Fontaine-au-Bois in the Nord department is the town where Jean-Marie Leblanc, the former Tour de France director, lives did a lot of work to look good for the big day of the Tour ...
The town, on the track of the Waregem to Compiègne stage on Tuesday 10 July, was decorated with pictures of the 30 cyclists from the Nord department who participated in the Tour de France, kilometre markers with the name and picture of the 18 most recent Tour winners, with straw decorations, with a car in the colours of the Tour jerseys and with flower decorations on municipal buildings.
Château-l'Eveque in the Dordogne was the winner of the Cahors > Angoulême stage on 27 July. The town welcomed the Tour with a double row made of sunflowers, huge bikes made of wood or straw, a chain of cyclist jerseys, bikes made of flowers and a nicely decorated castle.CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS ADVERTISEMENT
Sixth prize - Mazamet
The start city of the 14th stage on 22 July and also the city where the cycling brothers Nicolas and Laurent Jalabert were born, Mazamet (Mazamet > Plateau-de-Beille stage), showed its best side with metal works of art, an arch counting down the days to the start of the Tour stage, many flags and a colourful flower decoration. While I walked in the city to the Festina advertising caravan which I followed that day I met the artist who created this huge cock and who said she didn't like it she hadn't been involved more in the project ... This picture is thus also shown to comfort her a little bit ...
Special environment prize - Villeveyrac
With Eco Emballages as co-organisor of the contest, the jury created a special prize for the city or town which creates its decorations in an environment friendly way. This year the prize went to Villeveyrac who used colourful plastic bottles to create its decorations. The most important decoration in this city was a big sign made of recycled material and on which they wrote the word Véloveyrac, a word joke with the name of the city which in this way showed its love for cycling!
The other cities and towns which were chosen as stage winners during the Tour de France 2007 are: Villiers-Louis and Thorigny-sur-Oreuse (stage 4 - Villers-Cotterêts > Joigny), Lichères-Près-Aigremont (stage 5 - Chablis > Autun), Chenôves (stage 6 - Semur-en-Auxois > Bourg-en-Bresse), Le Grand-Bornand (stage 8 - Le Grand-Bornand > Tignes), Tallard (stage 10 - Tallard > Marseill), Anglès (stage 12 - Montpellier > Castres), Mauléon-Barousse (stage 15 - Foix > Loudenvielle-le-Louron), Eaux-Bonnes-Gourette (stage 16 - Orthez > Gourette - Col d'Aubisque), Solomiac (stage 17 - Pau > Castelsarrasin) and Boutiers-Saint-Trojan (stage 19 - Cognac > Angoulême).
Strangely the contest's website has not (yet) been updated with the list of final winners and the presentation of the prizes.
source: www.letour.fr, © photos : Thomas Vergouwen (check out all my Tour de France 2007 photos) door Thomas Vergouwen
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2 comments | 7424 views
this publication is published in: Tour de France | Tour de France 2007
by Dany45 over
Dat heb je ze toch wel even laten weten dat je uptodater (gek woord) BENT DAN ZIJ
Nee, want de site van de Tour (www.letour.fr, Franse versie) is wel bijgewerkt ...