Tour de France Postponed Due to Coronavirus Pandemic, No New Dates Set

The 2020 Tour de France was set to begin on June 27 in Nice

Published on April 14, 2020 03:04 PM

The Tour de France has become the latest major sporting event to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The three-week cycling race was originally scheduled to begin on June 27 in the Riviera city of Nice, with last year’s winner Egan Bernal from Columbia returning to defend his title.

French President Emmanuel Macron effectively made the decision to postpone the race when he announced Monday that all public events with large crowds would be canceled until at least July 11 in the country.

According to USA Today, race organizers said Tuesday they “are consulting with the [International Cycling Union] to try and find new dates.”

The last time the Tour de France was not held was in 1946, as the nation was just emerging from World War II. It was also canceled during World War I.

The women’s Tour de France had already been postponed, according to The Guardian, while the men’s Giro d’Italia and the Monument one-day races — Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix — have additonally all been called off.

Nearly every major sporting event worldwide has been delayed or canceled amid COVID-19, most notably the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which was postponed an entire year to July 23 through August 8, 2021.

Also pushed back was the 2020 French Open, while in England, both the 2020 Invictus games and the 2020 Wimbledon tennis championships have been canceled.

In the U.S., the NBA and NHL have suspended their respective seasons, and the MLB delayed the start of theirs.

The Boston Marathon was postponed until Sept. 14, while the 146th Kentucky Derby has been postponed until September 5, 2020.

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