tuesday 27 January 2015 at 22h50
Many of you are looking for information about the race route of Paris-Nice 2015. As usual, Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.) announces the race route quite late, more precisely 33 days before the start (like last year), on 3 February.
Anyone who does some basic research however manages to get together the different bits of information to get to know the race route and that's what did Le blog de l'Ardoisier. If you find an article dedicated to the Paris-Nice 2015 race route today there must be a reason ... Indeed, it's simply because as of today, the information can be confirmed .. based on a 100% sure source!
What has been officially announced
The information about the start of the 73rd edition of the Race to the sun, the nickname of Paris-Nice, has been announced on 2 December last year, in a press release with the title Yvelines, Act VI.Once more, this press release confirmed the information we already knew (see Paris-Nice will start in the Yvelines department until 2017): Paris-Nice will start in the Yvelines department and this will be the 6th start from this department since 2010.
This time that'll be on Sunday 8 March 2015 with a prologue of 6.7 kilometers in the streets of the city of Maurepas, followed the next day, Monday 9 March 2015, by a start of the first stage from Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse.
On 15 December last year, a delegation from Amaury Sport Organisation went to visit Saint-Etienne to officially announce the finish of the 4th stage on Thursday 12 March 2015 on top of the Croix de Chaubouret climb and the stage start the next day, Friday 13 March 2015, of the 5th stage from Saint-Etienne.
The official document which confirms the stage cities of all stages .. except one!
You might have noticed that I didn't write an article dedicated to the Paris-Nice 2015 race route rumours, first of all because Le blog de l'Ardoisier already did this quite well but also because the informations come in spread over such an amount of time that the article wouldn't have been very interesting in the beginning and there wouldn't have been much to discuss over that period of time after the first publication ... Pretty naturally, some of you thus gathered together on the page dedicated to Paris-Nice 2015 in the interactive UCI cycling calendar.Last week however, someone drew my attention to an official document which confirms all stage cities of all stages .. except for the last one. It would thus be hard for me to keep hiding this from you right now and that's why I share some bits taken from that document in this article. First of all, the list of stages, in a presentation which might seem a bit surprising: per department corresponding to the start or finish city or a department in between on the race route:
Here are the stages which are annnounced in this table:
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Sunday 8 March 2015 - prologue - Maurepas > Maurepas - 6.7 km
This information had already been announced: Paris-Nice 2015 will start with a prologue of 6.7 kilometers in the streets of Maurepas, south-west of Paris.As usual, the Yvelines department will set up several animations and events under the name "Tous cyclistes en Yvelines", with the animations Village in Maurepas, cyclotourist trips with 6 different routes of 20, 48, 66, 80, 90 and 100 km and 2 mountain bike tracks of 20 and 55 km. This will all be free to access of course!
Monday 9 March 2015 - 1/ Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse > Contres
The first stage will also start from the Yvelines department, more precisely from the city of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse and its destination will be Contres in the Eure-et-Loir department.According to La Nouvelle République this finish in Contres would be due to the sponsoring of the Tour de France (also organised by A.S.O.) by the madeleines of St Michel, a company based in Contres. At the same time, "la NR" indicates that Contres would also like to receive the Tour de France in 2016 or 2017.
Tuesday 10 March 2015 - 2/ Zoo Parc de Beauval > Saint-Amand-Montrond
The Zoo Parc de Beauval will receive the start of this 2nd stage of Paris-Nice 2015. This zoo is located on the territory of Saint-Aignan, a small city in the Loir-et-Cher department which is just north of this park.On 27 June 2014 already, Le Berry announced a possible stage finish for this stage in Saint-Amand-Montrond (in the Indre department), and they confirmed this information on the 7th of October last year.
Very recently, Le Berry again discussed this stage finish, this time adding even more information about the race route. Indeed, they explained that a final circuit will allow the riders to cross the city for the first time around 2.30PM, followed by the stage finish around 3.48PM. Concerning the race route itself, the newspaper indicates that the race will finish on avenue Jean-Giraudoux, after a circuit via Le Pondy, Thaumiers, Verneuil, Meillant, Bruère-Allichamps. This finish will thus be at about 2 kilometers from the stage finish of Tours > Saint-Amand-Montrond in the Tour de France 2013 (which was close to the Cité de l'Or; personally I won't bother not seeing that black pyramid that day ;-)).
Wednesday 11 March 2015 - 3/ Saint-Amand-Montrond > Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule
The next morning, around 11.25AM according to Le Berry, the start will also be given in Saint-Amand-Montrond, in front of the Saint-Vic museum, in the cours Manuel, while the kilometer zero of this stage will be reached at 11.32AM on the route de Coust, in Colombiers.Following the spirit of the Tour de France 2013, this stage will finish in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, where the stage the day after the finish in Saint-Amand-Montrond started in the Tour 2013. According to La Montagne the finish line will be drawn in the Faubourg National.
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Thursday 12 March 2015 - 4/ Varennes-sur-Allier > Saint-Etienne Croix de Chaubouret
The 4th stage will start in Varennes-sur-Allier (Allier). After this start, the stage should - according to La Montagne - visit Cusset, south of the start and close to Vichy.As explained in the introduction of this article, this stage will finish on top of the Croix de Chaubouret climb as announced by the organisor of the race on 15 December last year:
Etape 4 - arrivée inédite au sommet de la Croix de Chaubouret / Stage 4 - New arrival: on top of the Croix de Chaubouret.
— Paris-Nice (@ParisNice) December 15, 2014That same day, the 150 kilometers of the stage which will take place in the Loire department have been presented in detail and on the Saint-Etienne Métropole website one can find the time- and route schedule, in detail, including a map of these 150 last kilometers.
We thus know that after having visited Cusset, the stage will go on south-east towards the Col du Beaulouis, Pommiers and the Côte Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules (3rd category), the Côte de Saint-Héand (3rd category), the Côte de La Gimond (2nd category), the Col de la Gachet (2nd category), the Côte de la Croix Blanche (3rd category), Saint-Chamond where the riders will battle in an intermediate sprint and for the souvenir Andreï Kivilev honouring the Kazakh rider who died at the hospital of Saint-Chamond following a crash in Paris-Nice 12 years earlier (on 12 March 2003) and whose accident was the reason why wearing a helmet became obligatory in all UCI races.
From Saint-Chamond, the riders will go straight south towards the completely new mountain top finish on top of the Croix de Chaubouret (1st category).
Friday 13 March 2015 - 5/ Saint-Etienne > Rasteau - 192 km
The start of the 5th stage in Saint-Etienne will be at 11.20AM and the riders will go off south-east and climb the Col de la République (1st category). They'll continue on the D1082 before they leave the Loire department and arrive in the Ardèche. As in 2006, when Tom Boonen won the stage between Saint-Etienne and Rasteau, the stage will finish in Rasteau, in the Vaucluse department, 192 kilometers further. The race will thus cross the wineyards and this will be the occasion to taste the local wine!Hereunder you'll find the complete map of the race route of this stage:
>> check out the complete time- and route schedule of this stage
Saturday 14 March 2015 - 6/ Vence > Nice
As indicated by Nice Matin and the official website of the city of Vence itself, the start of this 6th stage of Paris-Nice 2015 will be a first for the city of Vence and this will be the last stage in line of this 73th edition of the race.It will finish in Nice, of course the usual destination of Paris-Nice.
Sunday 15 March 2015 - 7/ Nice > Col d'Eze ?
Even though the city of Vence makes a mistake by saying that the start on Saturday 14 March in that city is the start of the last stage of the 73rd edition of the Paris-Nice cycling race, they probably wanted to say it's the start of the last stage in line.Indeed, in the table you clearly see one stage is missing and that'll be this 7th stage which will start in Nice and will be a time trial. Thinking of time trials in Nice and its surroundings in A.S.O. cycling races there's of course two references:
- the team time trial in Nice during the Tour de France 2013, on a race route of 25 kilometers
- the time trial Nice > Col d'Eze which made its comeback in Paris-Nice in 2012 (its race route is available here) but which hasn't been part of the race in 2014 when the last stage was a stage in line starting and finishing in Nice (there was no time trial in the race route of the Race to the sun at all, while in 2015 this would mean that there will be two time trials!)
All this information will be confirmed at the press conference on Tuesday 3 February in Versailles. door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2015
by Dany45 over
Merci Thomas pour ces infos
juste une petite rectification assez anecdotique : Saint Aignan et le désormais célèbre parc de Beauval ( les fameux Pandas.. ) se trouvent dans le département de Loir et Cher (41) et non du Cher (18).
@OLIVIER : bien vu ! Je me suis fait avoir par les départements traversés par les étapes et sans doute de la fatigue ;-). Ça m'apprendra à vouloir donner toutes les infos, on risque de faire plus d'erreurs !
Merci Thomas pour le clin d'oeil :)
Pour ma part, concernant la dernière étape, je penche pour le CLM individuel dans les rues de Nice sur le même parcours que le TDF 2013. Ce serait un moyen de promouvoir la nouvelle cyclo d'ASO "Explore Nice" qui reprend ce tracé.
De son coté, le maire de Nice pourrait avoir envie de faire de la pub pour le nouveau Musée du Sport, qui proposera d'ailleurs ce jour là une animation spéciale.
Comble du hasard, le parcours du CLM de 2013 passe justement devant le musée ;-)
Mauvaise nouvelle , on va encore avoir droit à un parcours " très light " , On risque d'avoir 4 arrivées qui se dispute au sprint , déçu de cette arrivé à Rasteau , il y avait mieux a faire dans le coin , il y avait moyen de faire un final bien vallonné , il ne faut pas s'étonner si les gros leaders partent sur Tirreno , enfin espérons qu'il y aura une grosse étape le samedi , la veille de l'arrivé .
L'étape de Vence sera sans doute une étape assez accidentée, oui.
accidenté, c'est certain, mais ressemblera t'elle à l'étape de Nice de 2014 avec un parcours mièvre sans gde difficulté ou sera t'elle plus musclée ?
Accidenté oui , c'est le moins qu'ils puissent faire après les étapes proposé avant cette dernière , il vont encore nous mettre la Turbie et le col d'Eze comme d'habitude , mais j'attends toujours une vrai étape de moyenne montagne , avec de vrai cols comme Braus , La Madone ou Turini .
Comme on pouvait le craindre, cette étape niçoise est très "light" dans le final.
Cependant, on peut quand même avoir une bonne surprise, si 2 ou 3 équipes mettent le feu au départ comme sur la dernière étape du Dauphiné.
Le parcours est tout de même usant et difficilement contrôlable par une équipe, il sera important pour l'intérêt de la course d'avoir un leader avec une équipe faible au matin de cette avt dernière étape.
pas de Musée du Sport au programme de la dernière étape mais le traditionnel chrono du Col d'Eze.