Cycling Ireland hopes for future international events as Tour de France bid unravels

Having hoped to see the Tour de France start in Ireland in the coming years, Cycling Ireland has instead set its sights on helping with other projects following confirmation that the bid had unravelled.

“Cycling Ireland are disappointed that the Irish and Northern Ireland governments’ bid to host a Tour De France Grand Départ in 2026 or 2027 has been withdrawn,” the national federation said on Tuesday, as news emerged that the race would not begin on the island inside the next three years.

“However, we look forward to assisting government officials in the planning and bidding processes for future major cycling events in Ireland such as the Tour De France Grand Départ.”

Cycling Ireland was not directly involved with the abandoned bid, which was a cross-Border government project. However, as the national federation, it would have provided assistance if needed, and would have hoped to derive some benefit from the world’s biggest annual attended sporting event starting on these shores.

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First reported by the Irish Independent on Tuesday, the decision to withdraw the bid was actually made in recent months and confirmed in the Dáil several weeks ago, but had not come to media attention before now.

In written answers to a question put to Minister for Sport Catherine Martin by Fine Gael TD for Kerry Brendan Griffin in mid-December, Minister of State Thomas Byrne said the Northern Irish element of the bid had unravelled.

“The Tour de France is the biggest cycling race in the world and, during 2022, Minister Martin engaged with her counterpart in Northern Ireland, the then-minister for the economy, regarding a potential joint bid to co-host the opening three stages of the race, the Grand Départ,” he wrote.

“Departmental officials engaged with counterparts in Northern Ireland and established a project group to scope out the details of a possible bid.

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“In July 2023 the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland wrote to my department to advise that it had decided to cease work on the potential for a joint bid.

“As any hosting bid was envisaged as a North-South all-island initiative, my department is no longer pursuing a bid, and this has been communicated to the event organisers.”

The Irish bid to host the race for the first time since the 1998 event – a project blighted by the scandals of the Festina Affair – was first announced in October 2022.

Then minister of state for sport Jack Chambers told Newstalk that projected costs were “between €20 million and €30 million, which would be shared North and South”.

The Northern Irish element of the bid may have been complicated by a separate push from Great Britain to host the race in 2026. That push was reportedly boosted by the successful staging of cycling’s world road championships in Scotland last August, although Northern Ireland had already withdrawn by that point.

Rotterdam and The Hague have also indicated they are interested in hosting the start of the race in 2026.

Like Cycling Ireland, Mr Byrne has said that a push to bring the race to Ireland at a later point remains a possibility.

“Should the opportunity arise again to consider a bid to host the Grand Départ, whether jointly or singly, the experience gained in the process outlined above will be of use to any such future consideration,” he said.

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