Tour de France postponed: with the crisis, the small world of cycling is afraid

In Champagnole, where the runners' parade was to stop off this Friday, the entire city of 8,000 inhabitants covered its public buildings and the storefronts with yellow. The commune of Jura has not seen the Tour stop in its streets since 1964. It will have to wait another two months. The pandemic has put cycling on a saddle-free diet. The resumption of the races is authorized but the 113,000 licensees of the French federation, distributed in its 2479 clubs, had trouble relaunching the machine.

In Champagnole as everywhere else, this year 2020 has a funny taste. The confinement coincided with the start of the amateur road season. As a result, the grand prize for the black pudding fair never took place: “We have already drawn a line under the 2020 season. It is over. We canceled half a dozen races that we normally organize. It's over, we have to move on, ”regrets Sandrine Jacques, president of AC Champagnole.

The green jersey of AC Champagnole, here Sébastien Petit, has too rarely had the opportunity to come out in 2020./DR/Facebook/Ac Champagnol  

AC Champagnole is a photograph of French amateur clubs: 56 licensees when the national average is 45. Here no champions, but friends who like to find themselves in training in competition without having anything to gain: “We are a family club and totally amateur, recognizes the president. This is what saved us: we had no employees to pay, no expenses for nothing to pay during this crisis. We even managed to save some money without funding travel or registration for the races. For the moment, we are doing well. But the clubs that have to pay employees all have huge concerns. "

"The hard part is yet to come"

This does not mean, however, that Champagnole will emerge unscathed from this unprecedented crisis: "The hard part is yet to come," laments Sandrine Jacques, also elected to the Federal Council of the FFC. Our sport is mainly funded by private partners, businesses around our home. They are our friends, our family, our acquaintances. They too are in trouble: "They are not going to spend the little that they have left in a bicycle club," thinks the president. I don't see myself going to ask them for help. So, how will we do at the end of the year when we have to look for sponsors, relaunch those who are loyal to us? I do not know. "

Worried, the president of the departmental committee of the Jura, Roger Chevalier abounds: "The volunteers give up, many will not return," he regrets. They are the essence of our sport. Municipalities have also changed mayors. The new ones don't necessarily like cycling: who tells us that they will still accept our races? Times were already hard for cycling before the crisis. It will get worse and worse. "