2010 Tour de France to start in Rotterdam

-- The 2010 Tour de France will start from the Dutch port city of Rotterdam -- race organizers organisers ASO confirmed on Thursday.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme confirms that the 2010 edition of the race will start in Rotterdam.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme confirms that the 2010 edition of the race will start in Rotterdam.

The Tour's 97th edition will start on July 3 and the route for the stage will be unveiled in Rotterdam on December 11.

Rotterdam won the nod ahead of fellow-Dutch city Utrecht while German city Dusseldorf had also expressed an interest.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said: "Rotterdam is a great metropolis and (as the start venue) it is sure to be a big success -- it does all it can to enable poeople to get around by bike."

Prudhomme said it was in that spirit that the port, whose slogan was "a new energy" for the Tour, had been chosen.

The Tour has previously started from the Netherlands on four occasions. Amsterdam, which in 1954 became the first non-French starting point, Scheveningen (1973), Leiden (1978) and 's-Hertogenbosch (1996). source>>>

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