The highly anticipated Tour de France Netflix series went live at midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday and is available in 190 territories as part of a major global release.
The episodes became available at midnight Pacific time or 03:00 EDT (8:00 Thursday morning UK time, 17:00 AEST in Sydney Australia).
Called ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ and ‘Tour de France: Au cœur du peloton' in French, the series consists of eight episodes, all made available for bingeing on Thursday. Each episode focuses on decisive moments of the 2022 Tour de France, capturing the drama, suffering and emotions of the race.
AG2R Citroën Team, Alpecin-Fenix, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ cycling Team, Ineos Grenadiers, Bora-Hansgrohe, Team Jumbo-Visma and Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl all agreed to part of the Netflix series, allowing camera crews onto their team buses and in their hotel rooms last July.
Each episode tells the story of the race and the inside story of the leading riders from the eight teams.
Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates opted not to be involved due to privacy and sponsor concerns but the Slovenian and the rest of the Tour de France peloton are included in the episodes because of the extensive use of television footage and on-bike video images.
Television commentators such as France’s Steve Chainel, Britain’s David Millar and Orla Chennaoui of Eurosport/GCN help explain the unwritten rules of professional cycling and the Tour de France, while the riders, their families and team staff and team managers all feature to complete the narrative of each moment.
A second series is expected to be filmed during this year’s Tour de France.
Tour de France: Unchained was made by Quadbox - a joint venture between Quad and Box to Box Films who created the hugely popular ‘Drive to Survive' Formula 1 Series that helped boost interest in motor racing, especially in the USA. The Tour de France organisers and the team involved hope ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ can create similar interest in professional cycling just a few weeks before this year’s race.
Netflix funded the reported production costs of €8 million to make the series. Tour de France organiser ASO and host broadcaster France Televisions both netted €250,000 each. The eight teams shared the remaining €500,000, giving each team €62,000 ($67,000).
Netflix released the official trailer last week after a teaser video was shown in March.
"The Tour de France is very simple. It is a bike race, every day, over 21 stages," Chainel explained before Groupama-FDJ team manager Marc Madiot added: “If you can go further in suffering and sacrifice, you may have a chance… to win,” as the clock to the start of a stage begins.
The eight episodes start with the emotions of the Grande Depart in Denmark and the contrast in emotions for Yves Lampaert of QuickStep won won the rain-soaked opening time trial and EF Education-EasyPost time trialist Stefan Bissegger who crashed twice. It then tells the story of Fabio Jakobsen's comeback story after his 2020 Tour de Pologne crash and his stage 2 sprint win.
Episode 2 focuses on the cobbles on stage 5 and the drama and panic when Jonas Vingegaard needed multiple bike changes.
“We had discussed what we would do in the event of a flat tyre and a crash. But I never thought about a broken chain. What was I supposed to do then?” Vingegaard admits during the episode.
Other episodes focus on the home nation pressures on Groupama-FDJ and AG2R-Citroën to win stages, the showdown between Vingegaard, Roglic and Pogacar on stage 11 to the Col du Grandon.
Others highlight Tom Pidcock's victory on the Alpe d'Huez stage and his thrilling descent of the Galibier and how Neilson Powless went close to winning a stage for EF Education-EasyPost several times.
The final episodes focus on the final week of racing as Vingegaard defends the yellow jersey and fights off Pogacar, David Gaudu's fight to finish fourth overall and the survival of the sprinters.
Cyclingnews will have a first look and review of all the eight episodes.
