Thursday, 2nd July 2020 – The Covid-19 pandemic brought many challenges to our lives but also many innovative solutions. One of those is also digital editions of classic races that were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Our team fully supports such great initiatives and is delighted to join many other WorldTour teams in racing the Virtual Tour de France on the online training and racing platform, Zwift.
The six stages of the Virtual Tour de France will take place across the three weekends during the Tour’s original dates – that is between July 4 – 19. All stages will be around an hour in length, starting in Nice and ending with a virtual Criterium on a 6 km loop in Paris. There will also be one Queen mountain stage in addition to a mix of hilly/sprint, and small mountain stages. Each team will have four riders per Stage but these four riders can change for each stage.
But the technical details are not what this race is about. Solidarity is the keyword of the digital Tour de France, as it is to form a part of the charity initiative Tour de France United and its primary goal is to raise funds for selected charities. At Bahrain McLaren, we are proud to take part in such projects and fully support the organizers in their efforts. We are looking forward to this innovative challenge, especially the riders that will represent our colours in the race. Our line-up for the first stage is Ivan Cortina, Matej Mohorič, Rafa Valls, and Enrico Battaglin.
“To race, the Virtual Tour de France will be a very different experience than racing the real race. From my previous virtual racing experience, I can say that it is very hard for the legs. I am looking forward to measuring myself against the other riders, but even more, I am looking forward to the real races on the roads shortly” commented Matej Mohorič.
The digital edition of the legendary Tour de France is of course not intended to replace the real race. But we believe it is a great way to keep the fans connected with their favourite teams and riders during the lack of the real races and is also a nice build-up to the season starting in August.
