Paris Tours LIVE STREAMING
Part of the UCI Europe Tour, Paris-Tours is one of France’s most important one-day Classics
It is predominately flat, starting near Paris and finishing in the cathedral city of Tours. This year’s edition takes place on Saturday October 9th and will cover 252.5km
First held in 1895, its first winner was Eugene Prevost of France. Last year’s winner was Italy’s Matteo Trentin (Etixx-QuickStep), who clocked the fastest ever average speed for a Classic, at 49.641kmh.
Belgians Gustave Danneels and Guido Reybroeck, France’s Paul Maye and Germany’s Erik Zabel jointly hold the record for victories, with three wins each. Paris-Tours is one of the very few Classics never won by Eddy Merckx.
On 9th October, the Paris-Tours pack will set off from Dreux for a 252.5 kilometre journey on which the best sprinters' teams are unlikely to let the scenario of a bunched finish slip through their grasp. Spectators can look forward to one hell of a battle along Avenue de Grammont.
The Course
The Favorites
Former winner John Degenkolb will skip this year's Paris-Tours and instead Giant-Alpecin will be led by sprinters Max Walscheid and Zico Waeytens.
Labelled ‘The Sprinters Classic’, the 252.5km route has recently favoured the breakaways. The weather usually plays a crucial role as does the narrow routes and sharp climbs that encourage attacks in the finale.
Normally, the perspective of Paris-Tours gives rise to talk of which race scenarios will lead to the crowning of one of the last big winners of the season. On recent editions, a rider who managed to take advantage of side-winds breaking up the pack, Matteo Trentin, succeeded another morning breakaway rider, Jelle Wallays, whilst in 2013 a bunch sprint witnessed the victory of John Degenkolb for his first triumph on a major classic.
Over the last fifteen years, the titles have been more or less equally split between the speedy specialists of the Avenue de Grammont finish and the breakaway fighters better over longer distances, such as the current Olympic Champion, Greg van Avermaet, who also enjoyed his first major success in Tours in 2011. This year, however, it is very unlikely that the winner's bouquet will not end up in the hands of a sprinter. Indeed, many of the speedsters' teams will be in attendance to test their explosiveness. The proximity of the World Championships in Doha will add extra spice to the race, bearing in mind that the psychological blow of a victory weighs heavily in the battle between the fast men.
A majority of the favourites for the race in Qatar will also be the leading pretenders to the crown on the 110th edition of Paris-Tours.
Though he dominated the sprints on the Tour de France, Mark Cavendish did not win in Tours on his only participation so far, which, coincidentally enough, was his first race with the rainbow jersey in 2011. The British rider perhaps has the opportunity to strike a major blow, but he will be up against the cream of the cream… and not only Sam Bennett who he beat several days ago on the finish of stage 2 on the Tour of Tuscany.
André Greipel, who won the final Tour de France stage on the Champs-Elysées, “Cav's” favourite playground, also has his sights on triumph on Paris-Tours, just like Frenchmen Arnaud Démare, Nacer Bouhanni and Bryan Coquard, Australians Caleb Ewan and Michael Matthews, Belgian Tom Boonen or Italian Elia Viviani. Accompanied by their lead-out men, also in the midst of fine-tuning before Doha, the sprinters will most likely not give a chance to Marco Marcato, Sylvain Chavanel and Warren Barguil, for example.
2016 Paris Tours Start List
24 teams will take part in the 110th edition of Paris-Tours on Sunday, October 9th.
12 UCI World Teams
AG2R LA MONDIALE (France)
ASTANA PRO TEAM (Kazakhstan)
BMC RACING TEAM (USA)
TEAM DIMENSION DATA (Republic of South Africa)
ETIXX - QUICK STEP (Belgium)
FDJ (France)
IAM CYCLING (Switzerland)
KATUSHA (Russia)
LOTTO SOUDAL (Belgium)
ORICA-BIKEEXCHANGE (Australia)
TEAM GIANT – ALPECIN (Germany)
TEAM LOTTO NL – JUMBO (Netherlands)
TEAM SKY (Great-Britain)
8 UCI Professional Continental Teams
BORA-ARGON 18 (Germany)
COFIDIS, SOLUTIONS CREDITS (France)
DELKO MARSEILLE PROVENCE KTM (France)
DIRECT ENERGIE (France)
FORTUNEO - VITAL CONCEPT (France)
ROOMPOT - ORANJE PELOTON (Netherlands)
TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN – BALOISE (Belgium)
WANTY - GROUPE GOBERT (Belgium)
3 UCI Continental Teams
ARMEE DE TERRE (France)
HP-BTP AUBER 93 (France)
ROUBAIX METROPOLE EUROPEENNE DE LILLE (France)
LIVE STREAM REPLAY FINAL KILOMETRES
Live stream will appear here Sunday, October 9th.
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TODAYS LIVE STREAMING should get underway at: 07:00 AM US Pacific Time (PST), 10:00 AM US Eastern Time (EST), 15:00 PM UK Time (GMT), 16:00 PM Central European Time, (CET), 24:00 PM Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST)
