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Where are the riders of the Tour de France in 2019?

Europe dominated the Tour de France: France is the strongest nation, not surprisingly, is the biggest Cycling race in the world. Surprisingly, it is: The Tour is less international than in previous years.

The Tour de France is a French race through France. Clearly, there is a long startup or stages abroad, but the majority of the route runs through the Grande Nation. This is one of those every year, and has not changed in the course of time. What has changed more is the field of riders. A glance at the history of the race shows that the Initial event in 1903, 80 riders, including six Swiss, five Belgians, two Germans, an Italian, and all the others were French started. A purely European matter.

This is different today. Cycling is an international Sport with drivers, Teams and races in all parts of the world. The UCI world tour, the piano Nobile of Cycling, is played in 15 countries and on four continents. With new sponsors and new markets in the Radindustrie new nationalities were added in the past few years. Also, the Tour de France is so as the figurehead of the Cycling becoming more and more international?

The number of Nations decreases

Surprisingly no way. The number of participating Nations increased in the recent time: from 2016 35 nationalities, and 2017 is still 32, so it is 2019, exactly as in 2018, only 30. The reason for this could also be a Reform of the rules, which forced some Teams to rethink their approach. Since 2018, only eight riders per team are allowed in the Grand Tours (Tour de France, Giro d’italia and Vuelta a España), bringing the total number of Starters is reduced, for example, in the case of the Tour from 198 to 176. The race should be more exciting and less easy to control.

The nationalities of the Starter 106. Tour de France

But this also has an impact on the starting positions for drivers who do not come from the traditional Cycling Nations. While the number of Starter castles, such as France (35) Belgium (21) Italy (15) remained high and more or less constant, lost smaller Nations to the ground. Thus, the Region of Asia and Oceania had in the previous two years, the 18 runners, but this year there are only 13 professionals. For African athletes, the Tour de France less and less space, and laments Interview with Natnael Berhane in the DW. Of the six starters in 2015, five in 2016 and 2017, as well as four in the previous year to the current three at this year’s edition. The number of riders from the Americas remained with twelve starters constant. Europe, since time immemorial, the Basis of professional Cycling, with 148 participants, the absolute majority of the peloton.


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