Tour de France
Tour snapshot: Keeping his eyes on the road

By Mark Akins
Seattle Times staff

Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc signals the start of Stage 3.

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It's easy to spot Jean-Marie Leblanc, director of the Tour de France. That's his head protruding from the sun roof of the officials' car at the head of the peloton, alternately watching the road ahead and riders behind.

Leblanc always has one eye on the present and one on the future. While keeping track of this year's race, he's already working on potential routes for 2005 and 2006.

There are beaucoup suitors for his attention. According to tourdefrancenews.com, about 100 cities each year ask to host the arrival or departure of a stage. Waiting lists can be five years long.

And they're willing to pay.

It can cost French communities as much as $75,000 to host the start or finish of a stage.

Four years ago, officials in the Vienne, a rural region in west-central France, paid almost $1 million to host the first 2½ days of the Tour, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"The return on investment is inestimable," Jerome Neuveux, a spokesman for the area, told the L.A. Times. "Try to calculate what it would cost to put a commercial about the Vienne on television in 169 countries, which is how many have TV coverage of the Tour."

Like a day in the yellow jersey, that kind of exposure is priceless.

Mark Akins: 206-464-8994 or makins@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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