The virtual tour of France is led by the organizer of the ASO event and the virtual cycling platform Zwift. In the virtual event, professional cyclists compete against each other, riding exercise bikes connected to the technology that measures their performance. Virtual Tour de France and Virtual L'Etape du Tour de France are part of the Tour de France United, a large campaign to raise funds for a small group of charities focused on cycling. Like other sports, real-world races closed in March when the coronavirus hit seriously and has not yet returned.
The planned restart of professional cycling is at the end of July, with a rescheduled Tour in September. Next week, the fledgling discipline will have its biggest exhibition at a virtual Tour de France on Zwift, the most important player in the growing world of online racing. Tour de France winners Egan Bernal, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas will participate in the Ineos team, while Anna van der Breggen of Boels Dolmans and current world time trial champion Chloe Dygert Owen of TWENTY20 Pro Cycling also compete. Over the past three weekends, men's and women's professional cyclists competed in France's first Virtual Tour.
What really made the Virtual Tour possible, says Min, was May's Tour for All competition, a five-day Zwift racing series for top men's and women's teams that aired on Eurosport's cable channel. But Zwift and ASO also wanted the stages to take place on virtual versions of the race's real-world circuits, including the iconic Champs Elysées finish. USA's Lauren Stephens of TIBCO-SVB took the win here for the women's stage, which was her second stage win for the Virtual Tour. A wildcard on the Tour is more in demand than one of Robin Carpenter's sourdough breads on the streets of San Diego.
In the context of a completely unprecedented health crisis in which most cycling events have been canceled or postponed, Zwift and Amaury Sport Organisation have decided to do something useful together and create the first virtual Tour de France. The sixth and final stage took the competitors to the virtual Champs Elysées for six laps of a circuit with a total of 42.8K. The race was created as part of the ASO Tour de France United project, with the main objective of the event being to raise funds for a group of charities whose campaigns involve bicycles, in France and internationally. Israel Start-Up Nation says that Froome did not enter the Tour at 100 percent, but will improve by week three, and hopefully it will be the “real Chris Frome” at this year's Vuelta a España.
The streaming strategy is also far more ambitious than the Tour for All, with images to be shown in more than 130 countries, including on NBC Sports in the US. UU. The Virtual Tour de France will be a celebration of the event with the stars of the men's and women's professional platoons, all in aid of five major causes. New routes have been created especially for the event, with a circuit in Nice and the cobbled circuit of the Champs Elysées appearing on the virtual platform.
Stage 5 took cyclists to a virtual Mont Ventoux, a famous climb that regularly appears on the Tour with a sprint point from the start.
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