It is the turn of tributes.
From Chauvigny (Vienne) to Sarran (Corrèze), the 12th stage of the Tour de France (218 km), the longest of the 2020 edition, passes this Thursday through the village of Raymond Poulidor, Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in Haute-Vienne, and arrived in the stronghold of the former President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac.
A route determined before the death of the two men at the end of 2019.
Bumps for backpackers
The day before the arrival at the top of Puy Mary, in Cantal, it would be surprising for the leaders to launch the big battle, but the sprinters will not be at the party either.
The hilly stage seems rather promised to backpackers.
Especially since the peloton will have to climb a mini-pass, the Suc au May (Corrèze), 3.8 kilometers long (7.7%), 25.5 kilometers from the finish.
Poupou in all heads
Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, 4,670 inhabitants, at kilometer 114.5.
Halfway between Limoges and Lake Vassivière, the town of Raymond Poulidor, who died on November 13, will pay him homage again, forty years after his last Tour de France and nearly sixty after his first.
On the land of Jacques Chirac
Sarran (275 inhabitants), which has housed President Chirac's museum since 2000, has already hosted the Grande Boucle.
In 2001, the German Jens Voigt won the stage arriving in the small town of Corrèze nestled in the Massif des Monédières.
It was also at the Château de Bity, residence of the Chiracs, that the former President of the Republic, who died on September 26, 2019, had welcomed Jean-Marie Leblanc, then director of the Tour de France, in the midst of the Festina affair, in July 1998 .