There will be no Tour de France this summer.
the World’s toughest cycling must – just like the OLYMPICS and the european football championship – in the end capitulate to coronavirussen.
in any case It is Jørgen Leths best bet right now.
“It’s crazy sad if it ends like that. It makes me very sad, if we lose more races. The great classics are already taken out of the calendar, and there are indications that the Tour de France also disappears. It is terrible for those of us who love the sport,” says Jørgen Leth, who for many danes is the very personification of the Tour de France.
“But it suggests it in. I doubt as much that it can be implemented, such as things develop. Also if you think about the last messages from the authorities, which is quite pessimistic about how long it lasts.”
“It is very hard and difficult to say goodbye to the Tour de France – but, of course, also a whole season, as much could indicate. But we have to. The circumstances we can’t control. It is a completely uncontrollable situation we find ourselves in with this virus,” continues Jørgen Leth.
The popular film director and writer sitting himself trapped in a house in The Dominican Republic because of coronavirussen.
Here is he isolated, along with his son, Asger, and the two danes do not know when they can come home, because the skies over the caribbean island is closed.
Jørgen Leth says that he spends most of his waking time in the isolation of to read news – first and foremost, on the corona-the epidemic, but also about the sport.
Therefore, he has also seen that both the French authorities and the various actors in the sport have opened in order to run the Tour de France without spectators.
If it therefore means that you can thus avoid having to cancel it legendary cycling race.
But it is not an idea, Jørgen Leth care about.
“It is an appalling thought. I can’t say that the spectators to get out on the roads and becoming infected. However, it is a mareridtsscenarie to run the Tour de France without spectators. It is the zombieagtigt. It is a zombie-the Tour de France. It can’t be… It can’t,” he says.
Should the Tour – against Jørgen Leths expectations – to be settled, he has a hope that he can cover it in one degree or another.
He stopped last year on TV 2 and reported from the Tour de France in a cooperation with Citroën. And anything similar will the longtime Tour commentator would like to make in the year.
“I could well imagine that this year we again had found a different way to do it. It was the plan. We have talked much about. But I can’t see that happening right now. There are many, many things that need to fall into place. First and foremost, I am also away from here,” says Jørgen Leth.
In the short term, it is uncertain what the future holds for both Jørgen Leth and the sport. Safely and certain it is, however, that coronakrisen already has left its economic mark on the sport, with several big teams have already cut into the riders ‘ salary.
But Jørgen Leth only think that we have seen the tip of the iceberg so far.
“There will be teams lose their sponsors and parents. It is then distressing. I would rather have that the sport is doing well, and all live from it. It is clear. But the sport survives the. Also, such a crisis here. It has been seen before.”
“It will be the structural changes that happen – the riders will still be there. One may think that the time is turned back for a second time. But there was also a good cycling in a different time, so it is not the end of the world,” says Jørgen Leth.
