FRANCE: CYCLING/CYCLE RACING: Paris prepares for arrival of final stage of Tour de France

Record ID: 449717

  • Title: FRANCE: CYCLING/CYCLE RACING: Paris prepares for arrival of final stage of Tour de France
  • Date: 29th July 2007
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (JULY 28, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF FINISH LINE PREPARATIONS AT CHAMPS ELYSEE GUILLAUME PREBOIS OPENING A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE AT THE CHAMPS ELYSEES (SOUNDBITE) (French) GUILLAUME PREBOIS SAYING: "My objective was to show that a normal person who eats ,sleeps, drinks, leads a healthy life can complete a Tour de France without consequences on his organism. I did not lose a kilogram, my level of red corpuscles is exactly the same today as it was when I started." GUILLAUME PREBOIS TALKING TO JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (French) GUILLAUME PREBOIS SAYING: "Today if you compare the time of yesterday's champions with those of the today's one you realize that a champion like Bernard Hinault would not be able to follow Contador or Rasmussen. This puzzled me. As long as I won't see the time average of the Tour de France decreasing, that has not been the case for the last 10 years. The last 10 years we had a lot of doping scandals, Festina, and more. In 10 years the time average has increased. As long as this time average won't decrease I will think that everybody is cheating in the Tour de France, not only the leaders, but everybody." VARIOUS OF BRITISH CYCLISTS AT THE CHAMPS ELYSEES. (SOUNDBITE) ( English) MIKE BIRRATT SAYING: "We are on the run from London to Paris, 310 Miles we've done. It's a long tiring journey. Up hills, down valleys through the lovely rolling country side of France. Absolutely beautiful, hard work but worth it in the end. Coming down the Champs Elysees see all those people there, just bring tears to your eyes. The support we got from the crowd is absolutely wonderful, could not ask for more." CYCLIST RIDING OFF
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA37P1QOMMIPBE5FEJEX0R5RQTH
  • Story Text: The final stage of the world's biggest cycling race arrives in Paris on Sunday (July 29) , and organisers have been preparing the final metres of the route since the early hours.
    Guillaume Prebois, a French journalist from the newspaper Le Monde, arrived in Paris after completing his own Tour De France.
    Starting 24 hours before the official race Prebois decided to complete the Tour de France route to prove that it's possible to complete the course just drinking water.
    Prebois told Reuters: "My objective was to show that a normal person who eats ,sleeps, drinks, leads a healthy life can complete a Tour de France without consequences on his organism. I did not lose a kilogram, my level of red corpuscles is exactly the same today as it was when I started."
    "If you compare the time of yesterday's champions with those of the today's one you realize that a champion like Bernard Hinault would not be able to follow Contador or Rasmussen," said Prebois. "The last 10 years we had a lot of doping scandals, Festina, and more. In 10 years the time average has increased. As long as this time average won't decrease I will think that everybody is cheating in the Tour de France, not only the leaders, but everybody."
    In the 2007 edition of Tour De France there has been a feeling that the atmosphere of the Tour had been marred by the series of doping scandals that have hit the event in the past week.
    Two teams pulled out of the race within 24 hours after Alexander Vinokourov of Astana and Cristian Moreni of Cofidis both tested positive for doping. Just hours later an even bigger blow was struck as the Tour leader Michael Rasmussen quit and was suspended by his team Rabobank amid allegations of lying to anti-doping officials.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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