For them, it’s one of the rare opportunities to bring themselves to racing speed ahead of the Tour de France. “We wanted to do everything possible to organise the Tour, and it required other races, especially the Dauphiné,” says Gouvenou. “It has brought an exceptional field. It’s almost a duplicate of the start-list of the Tour de France.”
"The riders and the staff are going to live inside a small community"
Originally scheduled for June, with eight days of racing set to favour different types of riders, the event has turned into a summer festival of climbing, attending to the peloton’s need for hard racing.
Stage 1 to Saint-Christo-en-Jarez (218.5km) is supposed to be the easiest on paper. It features seven categorised climbs with an uphill finish on the Col de la Gachet (3.3km with an average gradient of 4.6%). Then four summit finishes await the riders in the Alps with a final battle on Sunday 16th set on the slopes leading up to the ski resort of Megève.
Riders, staff and fans will also enjoy the opportunity to familiarise themselves with race organizer ASO’s protocols regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. “That’s the other side of this rehearsal”, Gouvenou acknowledges. “We have set the necessary measures and now we need everyone to own them and to understand the fight against the virus doesn’t begin when we arrive at the start in the morning and it doesn’t end when we leave after the stage. It’s a whole behaviour to isolate the bubble. The riders and the staff are going to live inside this small community.”
“We’ve waited for the UCI’s protocol, we’ve brought ourselves to that level and then we’ve discussed with the teams to establish specific measures on the Dauphiné and the Tour,” he explains. The main idea is to isolate the peloton in order to limit the chances of contamination: “The teams’ parking will be closed to the media and to the public at the start and at the finish. We’ll have a mixed zone with specific rules for the interviews and we will also limit the number of persons allowed to access the area after the finish line. And the podium ceremony follows the same guidelines, with no kiss, no interaction between the partners, the local representatives and the riders…”
Barriers will help maintain distances between the riders and the fans at the start. The feeding zone will also be closed to the public “and we will have more ‘waste zones’ for the riders. We don’t want to see them throwing their bottles at the fans.”
ASO also relies on the support of the public authorities to make sure their event is a success and paves the proper way to the Tour de France. “Christian Prudhomme [ASO’s director of cycling] spoke with the local authorities and we have strong support from the Rhône-Alpes regional council”, Gouvenou explains. “The Prefect will make it mandatory to wear face masks all along the route. Will it be 100% applied? No. But it will encourage people to do it and that’s one more level of protection.”