The tour de France 2007 kicked off first in London, England - the 94th year of the Tour de France. Quite an occasion for London as it was one of the largest Sporting Events London plays host to ahead of the Olympic Games in 2012. England’s last opportunity to host to the Tour de France was 12 years earlier back in 1994 in Southern England, Dover to Brighton, and then to Portsmouth.
Prologue - Central London
The Tour de France 2007 - Le Grand Depart - took place on the weekend of the 7th of July 2007. First up on Saturday the 7th was the prologue, where each individual competing cyclist took in a very fast paced sightseeing tour around central London! Of course the riders had much little time to take in the sights, with each rider hitting on average speeds of over 50km/h over the time trial course.
The Prologue started at Whitehall then passing some of London’s greatest landmarks including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Albert Hall, then back over to Buckingham Palace again before finishing down the Mall. The route totalling 7.9km was quite a long prologue course for the Tour de France. 189 riders took part in the race, and it was Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara repeating his 2004 success, and won the prologue with a time 8’50”740, breaking the nine minute mark and taking the first yellow jersey of the 2007 race. Check below for more on the route...
Stage 1 - from London to Canterbury
Second day into the Tour, Sunday the 8th saw the first of the Tour de France stages, Stage 1, starting in London going southeastwards of the country ending in Canterbury totalling a distance of 203.0km. With just 23km to go there was a big crash and the Australian Robbie McEwen who was caught up in the crash managed to give an incredible sprint finish to win the race and concluding the Tour's visit to England the next stage of the race crossed the channel over to Dunkirk, France.
More on the Prologue Route in London
Take a tour round London, see the sites, and explore what the riders would have seen on the Prologue of 2007's Tour de France below, (minus the traffic of course!)
Video Guide from letour.com
Great video guide by letourguide.com and narrated by the the Editor of roadcyclinguk.com, taking you round the London route. Enjoy!
Virtual Map of London's Prologue route
Re-live the route for yourself with letourguide.com's virtual map! You'll need Google Earth downloaded to your computer to view, but go along to letourguide.com and everything is there for you... Visit & download the Prologue route
More Tour de France History
Tour de France History - The Early Beginnings
The very first Tour de France back was back in 1903 - This first race became the creation of the greatest cycling race in the world we know today. Read on to find out about the tour de France's early beginnings...
