Tour de France 2013 Route revealed

“The story is writ­ten on mon­u­ments and there are plenty of mon­u­ments to make it a good 100th edition”.

Pierre Rolland can be for­given his hyper­bole when he spoke to L’Equipe at the launch of the Tour de France this week. After all, as the last man to win at Alpe D’Huez, he was under­stand­ably excited at a route that includes two ascents of the myth­i­cal alp. “I imag­ine the world will be there” he said.

The par­cours for the 2013 Tour is every inch the clas­sic that the 100th edi­tion deserves. It is includes some of the most iconic climbs that have played host to epic bat­tles of years past. In a sport that is not con­fined to sta­di­ums or are­nas, the moun­tains them­selves frame the back­drop to one of the world’s great­est races and they pro­vide a truly grand stage.

The Europcar team have been ani­ma­tors of the race for the past two sea­sons and look like they will be able to do the same this year too. Both of their key rid­ers, Pierre Rolland and Thomas Voeckler will rid­ing in their colours again. Between them they have amassed four stage wins, stints in the yel­low and white jer­seys and an epic vic­tory in the moun­tains clas­si­fi­ca­tion in just the last two sea­sons alone.

While we can be con­fi­dent that Thomas will light up the race in some way, per­haps more hope rests on the shoul­ders of Pierre Rolland who’s improve­ment over the years makes him an out­side favourite for the General Classification. We can be sure that he will focus on it as he told L’Equipe this week, “It is full of sum­mit fin­ishes. It inspires me a lot.”