Blog - Tour de France 2007

Thomas Dekker and Michael Boogerd say goodbye to Rabobank cycling team

Friends for once, friends forever ... that's what one could think after reading that Michael Boogerd announces on August 13th that he will stop working for Rabobank and that Thomas Dekker announces today (August 14th) that his contract with the Rabobank cycling team has been terminated with immediate effect.

The two riders, Michael Boogerd as former captain of the Dutch cycling team and Thomas Dekker as promising future leader, have always been good friends and in 2007 they were never far from each other at the hotel, before the start and after the race and on the road during the race ... They also always shared the same hotel room and were OK to pose together for my picture of Thomas Dekker and Michael Boogerd before the Tour de France 2007 prologue in London.

Thomas Dekker: divergence of views

After London, Gent also publishes its evaluation of the Tour de France 2007 finish ... and would like the Tour to be back in 2012!

After the announcement of the positive results of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2007 in London, now Ghent and the province East-Flanders (Oost-Vlaanderen) announced a positive analysis of the stage finish in Ghent ...
The most important conclusions are that the city was too much prepared for the Tour de France stage finish and that a possible new Tour finish would be more than welcome!

Tour de France 2007: the start in London was a big success, the Tour coming back soon?!

On 7 and 8 July all eyes were on London in the world of cycling ... Transport for London (TfL) today confirmed that the event was a big success for the city and seizes the opportunity to indicate once again that London would love to see the Tour coming back as soon as possible.
A short flashback in numbers and conclusions ...

For the first time in the history of the Tour de France, London was the place to be for a Grand Départ which no one will easily forget ... On 7 July the centre of Londen was exclusively reserved for bikes with the 7,9 km prologue won by the Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara of the CSC Team. The next day the first stage also started in the centre of London to continue its journey to Canterbury.

The Tour has come to London thanks to the hard work of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and of the London public transport organisation, Transport for London (TfL) ... the results exceeded all expectation ...

The results of the decoration contest of the cities and towns of the Tour de France 2007 is now known!

Every year three partners of the Tour de France organise a decoration contest for the cities and towns where the Tour passes. This year the contest was organised by Eco Emballages, Champion and Doublet.
During the Tour de France, for each stage, a stage winner was chosen. Last Wednesday the final winners got their prize during the Salon des Maires in Paris.

The jury of the contest, presided (as for all previous editions) by Bernard Hinault, was in addition to him composed of Agnès Gougeat for A.S.O., Gaëlle Colaert for Doublet, Eric Marchyllie for Champion, Bernard Hérodin for Eco Emballages and 4 national and local journalists. This jury has chosen no less than 7 cities/towns as final winners of the contest.

During the Tour de France 2007 700 cities or towns were 'visited' and 62 of those registered for participation in the decoration contest in order to make the roads of the Tour de France look better (100 according to the Tour site, but on ...

Vogelzang Committee: Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) should never have started in the Tour de France ... [UPDATE]

After Michael Rasmussen's confession last Thursday in Denmark, today the Vogelzang committee published her 48 pages report about his case ...

UPDATE 17 November 2007: added new information on a court case/settlement proposed by Rasmussen, Rasmussen's blood analysis, reaction Erik Breukink and technical gadgets for the cycling team (see here).

What happened before?
Michael Rasmussen was wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France when a Danish TV reporter heard something strange on the Italian TV. Davide Cassani, a former professional cyclist and now consultant for the Italian TV during the Tour, told live on Rai TV that he admired Rasmussen's courage and willingness to win because he saw him training in Italy in June while it was raining.

The Danish TV reporter who heard that thougt that was strange since he knew that Michael Rasmussen dec ...

4 weeks in the life of a Tour de France follower, last part

While Denis Menchov was wearing the 'golden' general ranking leader jersey in the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain) at his arrival in Madrid, I finally write the last blog post about 'my' Tour de France!

As I announced it here some time ago, I worked on the Tour de France during the month of July to create the blog Orange dans le Tour.

On the 'Orange dans le Tour' blog I gave a look behind the scenes of the Tour and that's why I did a lot of different things in the Tour de France 2007: the advertising caravan (Panach', Festina, Skoda), the advertising caravan direction, Mavic, des journées avec deux équipes (AG2R et Caisse d'Epargne), France Télévisions, but of course also some days in one of the Orange 'avant-course' cars.

My experience of 4 weeks in the Tour in 4 blog posts comple ...

4 weeks in the life of a Tour de France follower, part 3

While the riders already rode the second stage of the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain) today (Daniele Benatti [Lampre-Fondital] won the first stage [he already showed his good sprints in the Tour de France and now continues in the Vuelta] while the second place was for Oscar Freire [Rabobank] and the third for Alessandro Petacchi [Milram]; the second stage was for Oscar Freire while Daniele Benatti was mad because he was hindered by a massive fall at 2 km from the finish, which means he lost his first place in the ranking), I'm still talking here about the Tour de France ... while reading this you'll understand why!

As I announced it here some time ago, I worked on the Tour de France during the month of July to create the blog Orange dans le Tour.

On the 'Orange dans le Tour' blog I gave a l ...

4 weeks in the life of a Tour de France follower, part 2

While the riders have already done several criteriums, the Germany Tour, the Tour de l'Ain, etc. and while they're currently in Belgium and The Netherlands for the Enecotour , I'm still talking here about the Tour de France ... while reading this you'll understand why!

As I announced it here some time ago, I worked on the Tour de France during the month of July to create the blog Orange dans le Tour.

On the 'Orange dans le Tour' blog I gave a look behind the scenes of the Tour and that's why I did a lot of different things in the Tour de France 2007: the advertising caravan (Panach', Festina, Skoda), the advertising caravan direction, Mavic, des journées avec deux équipes (AG2R et Caisse d'Epargne), France Télévisions, but of course al ...

4 weeks in the life of a Tour de France follower

As I announced it here some time ago, I worked on the Tour de France during the month of July to create the blog Orange dans le Tour.

On the 'Orange dans le Tour' blog I gave a look behind the scenes of the Tour and that's why I did a lot of different things in the Tour de France 2007: the advertising caravan (Panach', Festina, Skoda), the advertising caravan direction, Mavic, des journées avec deux équipes (AG2R et Caisse d'Epargne), France Télévisions, but of course also some days in one of the Orange 'avant-course' cars.

My experience of 4 weeks in the Tour in 4 blog posts completed with some pictures (soon you'll find many more pictures in the photos section of this website) ...

4 weeks

Scoop: blog Orange in the Tour de France!!

UPDATE 21 June 2007: the press release has now been published
UPDATE 25 June 2007: information about the newsletter has been added

Today Orange announced in a press release all activities it has and all content it proposes around the Tour de France. This year the content offer is richer than ever before ... one of the new things in this offer is a blog named Orange dans le Tour.

The goal of this blog is to allow its visitors to have a look behind the scenes of the Tour de France. Therefore, the subtitle of the blog is les coulisses du Tour vues par Orange (Orange from behind the scenes of the Tour).
The generic slogan Orange uses for sports events where it's present is vous y êtes or 'be a part of it' (as if you were there). The blog is a perfect example which illustrates this slogan because from June 30 and until ...