Cycling: 2015 Tour de France to start in Dutch city of Utrecht
The 2015 Tour de France will start in the historic Dutch city of Utrecht, the city said on Friday.
"The 2015 Tour de France will start in Utrecht, the Tour's organisers made known today (Friday)," the central Dutch city said in a press release.
"More details for 2015 are to be revealed on November 28 in Paris and Utrecht," the statement added.
It is the sixth time the Tour will start in the Netherlands, the last time being in 2010 when it kicked off in Europe's largest harbour port of Rotterdam.
"We have been angling for a long time to get the Tour to start in Utrecht, a city which historically has a close connection with cycling," city spokesman Erik Suik told AFP.
The city is home to Dutch bank Rabobank, which sponsored cycling for 17 years until it announced in October last year it was severing ties with the sport as a result of a number of high-profile doping scandals.
Utrecht however has an estimated 160,000 cycles, with more than half of the population owning a bicycle and has a huge sporting culture and therefore was a natural choice, Suik said.
"The 2015 start of the Tour in Utrecht is good for the Netherlands, good for the city and region and good for international sport," Utrecht mayor Aleid Wolfsen said.
"We are looking forward to the arrival of the Grand Depart," as the official start of the Tour is known, said Wolfsen.
The 2014 Tour de France is set to start in Leeds in Britain on July 5 next year.
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