France, 6-stage Road Race, 639.4km
UCI 2.2
16.05.2013 - reports state that the Tour Languedoc Roussillon has been cancelled.
The news broke one day before the race was due to start, with several teams already there and others en route to the event...
Is this for real?? We're on our way right now!
Wat een schandaal! Lanquedoc organisatie laat op het laatste moment de koers niet door gaan. Alle ploegen zijn er al! UCI doe hier iets aan! (What a scandal! Lanquedoc organisers cancel the race at the last minute. All teams are already there! UCI do something about this!)
...While there has not yet been any official announcement nor reason given, rumours suggest that local police have prevented the race going ahead. There are also suggestions that bad weather may be to blame, with another race at Nice having been shortened for this reason.
With only a month to go before the race was due to start in 2012, organisers of the Tour Languedoc Roussillon, who had hoped their event would develop into a replacement for the defunct women's Grand Tour the Tour de l'Aude, announced that a combination of factors had left them with no option but to cancel the race - but promised to do all they could to bring it back for 2013.
They seem to have been successful in doing so - the race is listed on the UCI calendar as taking place on the above dates, as well appearing on team programmes. However, three days before it was due to get underway, the link on the UCI website was dead and no official website could be found. In these days when the majority of cycling fans, especially women's cycling fans due to the difficulty in finding information on the sport via any other means, rely almost entirely on the Internet to keep us up to date, this may prove to be a serious oversight: if fans can't get info on the race, they don't go to see the race - and if fans don't go to see a race, existing and potential sponsors aren't going to be interested. This race offers one of the most beautiful routes in cycling with rolling hills, mountains and stunning coastline; it'd be a terrible shame of it were to vanish simply because someone decided to save a few Euros by not having a website.
Fortunately, Velofocus has managed to track down some more details and has some interactive maps in addition to stage profiles. Click here to see them.
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