While this year's cycling season has well started already (you can check that out by yourself in the UCI cycling calendar), in Europe, and more precisely in France the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise will start the season. This year that'll be together with the Gran Premio Costa degli Etruschi since the Italian race has returned to its usual place in the calendar (last year it took place in September).

Indeed, this Sunday 2 February 2014 it's time for the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014 and as usual it is the first race of the season in France and even in Europe.

It precedes the Etoile de Bessèges which will start on Wednesday 5 February and "la Marseillaise" is also the first of the 16 (?*) races of the Coupe de France PMU 2014.

In this article you'll find all information about this race with the detailed race route on Google Maps/Google Earth, the time- and route schedule, the profile and the list of participating teams in the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise.

The race to win or not to win?

Usually people say about the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise that it is a race you shouldn't win because it would bring bad luck to its winner and he would thus have a bad season after this win.

2012 was however not the first year which showed that this legend in the peloton is not always true. Indeed, after having won the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2012 and mainly thanks to his 2nd places in the Tour du Finistère, in the Grand Prix de Plumelec-Morbihan and in the Polynormande, Samuel Dumoulin (with Cofidis at that time, now back with AG2R La Mondiale) won the final individual classification of the Coupe de France PMU 2012!

That was not what 2013 reserved for Justin Jules after he had won La Marseillaise. Indeed, his season started quite well since the rider of the La Pomme Marseille team took a 3rd place the next week, in the first week of the Etoile de Bessèges, and also at the end of March in the Route Adélie de Vitré bu ... the rider from the Parisian area broke a rib in a crash in the Grand Prix de Dénain on 11 April!

This Sunday we'll thus see who will succeed to Justin Jules, in this opening race of the season, and thus at the top of the Coupe de France PMU classification!

The race route of the Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise 2014 on Google Maps

The race route changed in 2012 and remained identical in 2013, but for the 35th edition of the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise we go back to the usual race route, which shortens the distance between the first and the second climb of this race and thus the the total distance.

As a result, the race will start a bit later this Sunday, at 12.40PM in front of the Conseil Général des Bouches-du-Rhône (13) in Marseille to get to the kilometer 0, 9 kilometers further in Allauch (Logis Neuf; around 1.00PM). As usual the riders will go north towards the area land-inwards from Marseille up to the north of Châteauneuf-le-Rouge via Gréasque and Fuveau.

They'll then follow the A8 highway towards Rousset where they'll go back south down to Les Michels before they get back in Fuveau. From there, they'll continue their trip south down to Belcodène before they go up again to Peynier and Trets.
Via the Pas de la Couelle, also known as the Petit Galibier (GPM 1; average climb of 4.3% over 7.3 km with a maximum of 7%), they'll get in the Var department and the city Saint-Zacharie. That's where the race route gets back on the one used before 2012 since instead of turning left towards Nans-les-Pins, the riders will again turn right towards Auriol.

They'll thus quicker get to Plan-d'Aups-Sainte Baume - which was the place where the modified race route got back on the usual race route - before the riders get on the Col de l'Espigoulier (GPM 2). With its 723 meters of altitude this is the highest climb with a paved route in the Bouches-du-Rhône. Via Gémenos they'll get on the top of the climb towards Julhan les Bastides (GPM 3).

Via Roquefort-la-Bédoule and Cassis, they'll get back to Marseille where the finish will be between around 4.29PM and 4.40PM, in front of the Stade Velodrome, after 139.7 kilometers in this race (instead of 148.1 with the race route in 2012 and 2013).

Hereunder you'll find the time- and route schedule, the route on Google Maps and the profile of the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014. Click on the images to open them.

The Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014 race route in Google Earth

If you prefer to see the race route of the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014 in Google Earth, for example to do a virtual fly-over of the race route, you can download it in Google Earth by clicking on the link below:
>> Download the race route of the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014 in Google Earth

The list of teams which participate in the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014

The Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise is a class 1.1 in the UCI Europe Tour calendar. This means that it can invite UCI ProTeams for up to 50% of the peloton of the race, continental pro teams, continental teams and national teams.

In this case, the 19 teams listed below (one more than last year) will participate in the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise 2014 (5 UCI ProTeams, 8 Continental Pro teams and 6 Continental teams). We can consider that the participation level is slightly lower than last year since the number of UCI ProTeam goes down from 6 to 5.

• AG2R La Mondiale (UCI ProTeam)
• FDJ.fr (UCI ProTeam)
• Team Europcar (UCI ProTeam)
• Cofidis, solutions crédits (Continental Pro)
• Bretagne-Séché Environnement (Continental Pro)
• Roubaix-Lille Métropole (Continental)
• BigMat-Auber 93 (Continental)
• Team La Pomme Marseille (Continental)
• Lotto-Belisol Team (UCI ProTeam)
• Team Giant-Shimano (UCI ProTeam)
• Verandas Willems (Continental)
• CCC Polsat Polkowice (Continental Pro)
• Wanty-Groupe Gobert (Continental Pro)
• Caja Rural-Seguros RGA (Continental Pro)
• Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise (Continental Pro)
• Colombia (Continental)
• An Post-Chainreaction (Continental)
• IAM Cycling (Continental Pro)
• Wallonie-Bruxelles (Continental)

These teams represent several nationalities, 42% come from France (8 teams), 26% from Belgium (5 teams) and 5.3% from Columbia, Spain, Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland (1 team for each of these countries).

* the Ligue Nationale de Cyclisme hasn't yet updated its website and the list of races of the Coupe de France PMU 2014 are thus not yet online!

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise | Coupe de France | OpenStreetMap/Google Maps/Google Earth

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