Wednesday 19 December 2007 at 21h13
After the announcement of the positive results of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2007 in London, now Ghent and the province East-Flanders (Oost-Vlaanderen) announced a positive analysis of the stage finish in Ghent ...
The most important conclusions are that the city was too much prepared for the Tour de France stage finish and that a possible new Tour finish would be more than welcome!
After a massive fall at two kilometers before the finish (which blocked most of the riders), Tom Boonen was the number one favourite at the finish line of the second stage which started on July 9th in Dunkirk in the north of France. Tom Boonen was however unable to jump over Gert Steegmans, his "train" to speed him up for the sprint. That day he said: "For me it was impossible to jump over him today, but this was something which should have happened anyway. When someone gives everything for you during the whole year and you can give him such a gift, it's not worth it to jump over him."
The province of East-Flanders and the city of Ghent have presented their analysis of this stage finish in a short movie called Een straffe Tour, produced by Conception and a brochure with the same name.
Some points which are put forward in this analysis are that the Tour de France stage finish was prepared in a pretty short timeframe but was actually "over-prepared". There have for example only been 50 people who parked their bike on one of the 2,000 specifically for the occasion created bike parkings. The 12,000 places park-and-ride places for cars haven't been used that much either ... only 812 cars have been parked there during the day.The communication towards the people living in Ghent and its surroundings has been analysed quite positively as well, especially concerning the recommendation to come to Ghent using public transports. However, only 23,300 people took the train to come to Ghent, 20,000 less than initially estimated.
Concerning the organisation of the security on the finish line, the analysis was quite positive as well since no single incident occurred and police and security services have been very well organised.Ghent would like to see the Tour come back in 2012
André Denys, East-Flanders' governor declared that the Tour's stage finish has given a very positive image to the city of Ghent and to the province, both in the country and abroad.
Like the mayor of Ghent, Daniël Termont, and like Christophe Peeters, responsible for sports in the city of Ghent, he showed a big interest in getting the Tour de France back to Ghent and East-Flanders in 2012 for both a stage finish and start. From 2009/2010 they can thus start lobbying again and since 2012 is the year of the elections and his last year as a governor, this event could have a positive effect both on the city of Ghent and on André Denys ...
A.S.O., the Tour de France organiser, has given some very positive feedback about the organisation of this stage finish in Ghent (the thirs after two finishes in the 50s) and from their side there might thus as well be a good chance they might want to have a comeback for the Tour in Ghent.
However, a Grand Départ from the province of East-Flanders will probably not be possible since that would financially be quite difficult for the province ... door Thomas Vergouwen
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