GALA TOUR DE FRANCE
2005
10th edition of the
cycling criterium «Gala Tour de France» :
« L’ambiance du Tour » in
Luxemburg-town on Sunday, August 14, 2005
For the tenth time, the cycling
club ACC Contern will organize his international criterium « Gala Tour de France - Grand Prix de la Ville de Luxembourg ». It will take place on Sunday, August 14,
For
this anniversary edition, the event for professional riders will be divided in
two parts: An individual time-trial of 1 lap (
Since
the first edition of the Gala Tour de France in 1996, some famous riders have
joined the palmares, with victories of Bjarne Riis (1996), Johann Museeuw
(1997), Marco Pantani (1998), Richard Virenque (1999), Viatcheslaw Ekimov
(2001), Laurent Jalabert (2000/2002), Alexander Vinokourov in 2003 and Kim
Kirchen in 2004.
Ivan
BASSO, the big star of the Gala Tour de France 2005 !
The
big star of the Gala Tour de France 2005 will be without doubt Italian rider Ivan
Basso, since two years leader of the CSC squad of former Tour de France
winner Bjarne Riis !
Ivan
Basso has just finished his 5th Tour de France as runner-up of seven
times winner Lance Armstrong after having been 3rd already in 2004,
with a prestigious stage win that year in front of Lance Armstrong in the
Pyrénées between Castelsarrasin and la Mongie, halfway up the Col du Tourmalet.
Earlier on, in the Italian team Fassa-Bortolo, Ivan Basso had already shown his
potential for the Grand Tour races by finishing 7th in 2003 and 11th
in 2002 with the white jersey of best young rider that same year. Favourite of
this year’s Giro d’Italia, Basso has dominated all his rivals in the first
mountain stages in the Dolomites, before loosing all his chances for the
overall win in just one day due to a stomach-ache. But he went on and was
rewarded with two beautiful stage wins later on in the
Team
CSC with strong line-up !
Absent
of last-year’s Gala Tour de France Team CSC will be present with a strong
line-up this time because Ivan Basso will bring along some of his team-mates
like the Schleck brothers, but also Lars BAK, the actual Danish
National road-race champion or Lars Michaelson, 5th of
Paris-Robaix and winner of the Tour of Qatar 2005 as well as winner of
Gent-Wevelgem already 10 years ago. Other riders form the red and white team
will be Kurt-Asle Arvesen, three times Norvegian National champion,
winner of the Tour of Denmark 2004 and 2nd behind Paolo Savoldelli
at the Tour de France stage between Pau and Revel this year and finally Allan
Johansen.
All the Luxemburgish professional cyclists will be at
the start !
For
the first time in 10 years, the Gala Tour de France will see all the
Luxemburgish professional cyclists line up with Kim
Kirchen, last year’s winner, Benoît Joachim, 2nd
in 2000, and the two brothers Andy and Frank
Schleck, Luxemburgish National champions in the
time-trial respectively in the road-race.
Kim
Kirchen has had a tremendous begin of the season with
victories in the Trofeo Laiguelgia and in the Grand Prix Città di Chiasso,
followed by a stage win at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali and a second place at
the Fleche Wallonne. But after that, he had known the biggest disillusion of
his career so far because he had to abandon the Tour de France, the most
important race of the season. Kirchen has resumed racing in a very convincing
manner at the Hamburg Cyclassics, but had a severe crash in the Benelux-tour.
After a few days of rest, he wants to come back to Luxemburg to defend his
title of last year and the same time take a little revenge for the National
Championships on Frank Schleck, who will wear his tri-coloured National jersey for the first time on
Luxemburgish soil at the Gala Tour de France 2005. These last days, he has
acted as team-mate of overall winner Bobby Julich at the Benelux-tour and will
certainly be in very good form, so that he can confirm in front of the
Luxemburgish public his excellent 4th place of the last Tour de
Suisse.
Benoît
Joachim who is currently preparing the Vuelta of
Spain, remembering those two days last year where he wore the Amarillo leader’s
jersey as first ever Luxemburgish rider will be present as well as Andy Schleck, the
younger of the Schleck brothers who showed his talents and offensive skills
once more recently at the Tour de
Rik Verbrugghe, Markus
Ljungqvist, Philippe Gilbert and more…..
Some
other riders well-known in Luxembourg will also line-up in the avenue de la
Liberté on August 14 like from Sweden Markus
Ljungqvist of the Italian Liquigas team, winner of the
Tour de Luxembourg in 2002 or talented Belgian rider Philippe Gilbert , 3rd
of the Cyclo-cross in Pétange on January 1st, 2005. Since then, Philippe Gilbert (La
Française des Jeux) has realized some nice performances mainly on French roads
where he is the actual leader of the Coupe de France. Gilbert has won this year
at the Tour du Haut Var and the Trophée des Grimpeurs after a victory early in
the season at the 2nd stage of the Tour Méditerranéen in front of …
Frank Schleck and Kim Kirchen !!!
From
the Belgian riders, the most renown will be without doubt Rik Verbrugghe,
who has been in the spotlight for several days recently as leader of the
Benelux-tour. After having won the prologue, the rider from the region of Liège
has lost the overall victory to Bobby Julich only in the finishing time-trial.
The best year of Rik Verbrugghe is certainly 2001, where he won the Flèche
Wallonne, the prologue in the Giro d’Italia and stage nr 15 of the Tour de
France between
Numerous
other international riders like the Scandinavians Stefan Adamsson and René
Joergensen (Barloworld), the Germans Klaus Mutschler, Andreas Schulze and Erik
Weisspfennig, the Belgian riders Christophe Detilloux (Française des Jeux),
Thierry Marichal (Cofidis) and Christophe Brandt (Davitamon Lotto) will
complete the line-up of the Gala Tour de France – Grand Prix de la Ville de
Luxembourg 2005. The participation of some of the Best Luxemburgish Amateur
riders will also be possible this year.
More
events on that day:
Like in the years before, the
organizers ACC Contern and the
The circuit of the Gala Tour
de France (av. de la Liberté / bd. de la Pétrusse) will be open during the
morning between 10.00 and 12.00 o’clock to all the fans of « Inline
Skating » and « Rollerblades », an
event supported by the campaign SPORT POUR TOUS of the municipality of
Luxembourg.
From 12.00 to 13.15 o’clock,
we will have the « 3rd City on Wheels » Inline-skate
race and just after that, young cyclists from 6 to 10 years will have the
possibility to participate in a series of 5 races in the categories Bambi an
Benjamin on the closed circuit.
At 14.45, the official
presentation of the riders of the Gala Tour de France 2005 – Grand Prix
de la Ville de Luxembourg will take place, followed by the race itself
on 15.15 o’clock.
Please remind that the
spectators can follow all these events FOR FREE, on August 14 in the town of
Released by ACC Contern on
August 10, 2005
