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Nothing, inside or beyond the sport of cycling, can truly compare to the Tour de France. The Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España may also be three-week races but the Tour de France is the biggest annual sporting event on the planet, a vital piece of France's national heritage, and above all, a gruelling, heroic spectacle that captivates hundreds of millions of viewers across the world. Le Tour eclipses them all.
This year the Tour’s main narrative is captivating: former double champion Tadej Pogačar, all-conquering in the first half of the 2023 season until a crash and broken wrist wrecked his final Classics race of this April, will target a third maillot jaune of his career.
Yet last year’s Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Viosma team are a huge rivals for the Slovenian. And having beaten the arch-favourite Pogačar so decisively in the high mountains last July, the Danish rider is determined to do so again.
The Tour never lacks subplots beyond the GC struggle and there are plenty this year, including Mark Cavendish’s last battle to claim a record-breaking 35th stage win.
The greatest sprinter of his generation, possibly of all time, the Briton knows he has only one Tour left to achieve this prior to imminent retirement. But Cavendish faces a host of younger, equally ambitious, sprint rivals, all well aware that even one stage victory at the Tour instantly etches their name in the sport’s most eminent of history books.
This year’s Tour route is daunting and mountainous. It starts with three arduous and hilly stages in the Basque Country. When the Tour arrives in the south of France,, the mountains kick in with a vengeance, beginning with the Pyrenees. The second weekend in the Massif Central includes rare visit to one of the Tour’s most hallowed summit finishes at Puy de Dome, while the second half of the race climbs high in the Alps and Vosges. There is only one time trial, over a hilly 22.4km on stage 17.
The 2023 Tour winner, whoever he is, will have to master a high mountain challenge of almost unprecedented difficulty.
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Present at the Tour de France for a 30th consecutive year, Cyclingnews will again provide unparalleled reporting and round-the-clock analysis of the 21-stage, 3,404-kilometre race. The Tour both demands and deserves nothing less.
Our Tour de France coverage
Five of the Cyclingnews team will be in the Basque Country and France for the Tour de France this year, sharing the workload between them, with vital support from the rest of the Cyclingnews team in Europe, North American and Australia.
The team boast decades of experience on the ground at the race and behind the scenes, capturing the daily news and events of each stage. Cyclingnews will provide full live coverage of every stage, with 24-hour rolling news of everything that happens in France.
Stephen Farrand, Daniel Ostanek, Alasdair Fotheringham, Barry Ryan and contributor Sophie Smith will be on the ground, and reporting at the race in person.
Cyclingnews will also produce regular race analysis features and detailed stage previews, alongside stunning premium image galleries and longread ad-lite premium features.
Philippa York and other expert columnists will provide unique insight and context into the inside of the race to help you understand the dynamics behind the general classification and key jersey battles.
Our tech journalists will also capture the new bike and equipment used at the Tour de France, with tech editor Josh Croxton following the start of the race in person.
We are experts on the #ProTech that the professional teams use and we’ve broken the news on new bikes for 2023, new groupsets and even the tyres which adjust their own pressures during races.
You can enjoy unlimited, complete access to all of our journalism and content by subscribing to Cyclingnews.
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Visit our Tour de France hub page for more information on this year’s race and please join Cyclingnews for the greatest race in the 2023 cycling season.
Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.
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