2008 Paris-Tours LIVE

Submitted by admin on Sat, 10/11/2008 - 23:47

Live race coverage

Notes:

- SuperPrestige cyclo-cross live now here. (-Bernie S. Thanks again, Charlie Young).

Coming next Saturday: Giro di Lombardia LIVE

- Frenchman Tony Gallopin just won the U23 Paris-Tours, crossing the line first on the Avenue de Grammont in Tours, according to Eurosport France.

- Paris-Tours live video now playing at Alfa Sport.

- We're now listing Eurosport Paris-Tours live text tickers in English, German, Spanish and French. (Though they seem to be asleep at the UK keyboard.)

- Eurosport live audio playing in English, Deutsch, and Espanol.

- Paris-Tours live now.

- Paris-Tours live streaming video: The race looks to go live after the tennis match or after the soccer match. (Thanks, David, thanks John.) We are monitoring feeds.

Today's Paris-Tours Espoirs (Under-23) race starts in the
beautiful medieval town of Bonneval; the Elite race, which starts
in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines near Paris, passes through Bonneval
after about an hour and a half of racing.
Copyright © Pete Geyer/cyclingfans.com

- Paris-Tours live coverage on Eurosport is scheduled to begin at 15:15 CET (9:15am U.S. Eastern). Live streaming audio should begin at that time. If any video streams go live, we will post the links here.

- Also on today: SuperPrestige cyclo-cross LIVE streaming here. (Thank you, Charlie Young, for this info.)

Paris-Tours Wallpaper in the Wallpapers section
by Pete Geyer/cyclingfans.com

Related books:

Histoire du Paris-Tours

From back cover:

Until 2005, it wasn't easy to find good, detailed information about the history of Paris-Tours. My good friend Charles Guénard took care of that problem by writing this magnificent Histoire du Paris-Tours. As former race director Jean-Marie Leblanc writes in the book's Foreword, Charles Guénard is a passionate cycling fan, historian and collector. It takes such a person to produce a work like this, rich with 320 pages including illustrations.

Paris-Tours for years actually started in Paris. Today the race starts in Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, some 45 minutes outside the French capital. Over the years the race has also been run between Tours and Versailles and Blois and Chaville, to name just two of the varieties of "Paris-Tours".

Once run in the spring, since 1951 Paris-Tours has been held in the fall. In addition to describing the parcours for each edition of the race, the book is filled with anecdotes, reproductions of vintage race-related documents and all the race results (through 2004).

Usually thought of as a sprinter's race, it has been won in recent years by a variety of non-sprinters including Frédéric Guesdon (2006), Erik Dekker (2004), Jakob Piil (2002) and Richard Virenque (2001). So it can be a difficult race to predict.

On the Friday before the 2005 edition of the race, and just days after the book's publication, I stopped by the Paris shop of Charles Guénard for a regular chat to discuss all things cycling. Before leaving, I asked Charles who he thought might win that Sunday's race. His reply, with a wink: "I'll tell you on Sunday."

Alessandro Petacchi won the 2007 edition. No American has ever reached the podium of Paris-Tours. Perhaps Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Chipotle) can be in the mix today.

Histoire de Paris-Tours (French) can be ordered online here.

Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines
Copyright © 2007 Pete Geyer/cyclingfans.com