Tour de France to start from Passage du Gois in 2018
By Andy Charles
Last Updated: 01/03/17 6:56pm
Tour de France organisers have confirmed the 2018 race will start on the causeway at Passage du Gois.
Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) had already confirmed the race would start in the Vendee region and published the first four stage profiles on Tuesday.
Passage du Gois, last used on the 2011 Tour, links the island of Noirmoutier to the mainland and is covered by Atlantic Ocean tides twice a day.
In 1999, a handful of Tour favourites had their victory hopes ended in a massive crash on the Gois, which was still wet and slippery.
The crash caused the peloton to split into three and cost the likes of Alex Zulle, who lost more than six minutes of the eventual 7:37 he finished behind Lance Armstrong.
Next year's opening stage will finish in Fontenay-le-Comte and sprinters will also most likely dominate stage two between Mouilleron-Saint-Germain and La Roche-sur-Yon.
Stage three will be a team time-trial over 35km starting and finishing in Cholet, before the peloton heads north on stage four, which concludes in the upmarket Brittany seaside resort of La Baule.
The remainder of the route will be announced in October.
