High winds have forced the Tour de France organisers to cut short the ascent of Mont Ventoux on Thursday for safety reasons. Shortly after the stage 11 finish on Wednesday the race’s head, Christian Prudhomme, told French television that the stage to the Giant of Provence will end at the Chalet Reynard, six kilometres shy of the scheduled finish at the observatory on the 1,910m summit.
“We can’t play a game of double or quit,” Prudhomme said. “We had a windy stage today and the forecast is for winds of over 100kph and cold weather. The safety of riders and spectators will be guaranteed.”
By finishing at Chalet Reynard, the race will avoid the exposed upper slopes of the mountain, where the highest recorded wind speed is 320kph.
The decision was welcomed by the race leader, Chris Froome, who was the last rider to win on top of the Ventoux when the race finished there in 2013. “I was looking forward to doing the Ventoux; it’s the most iconic climb on this year’s route. Everyone wants to see a good race, a good spectacle, but safety is paramount. I’d like to thank the organisers for putting safety first.”
The mountain has held a particular significance for British fans since the death of the former world champion Tom Simpson on its slopes in 1967.
Froome said he did not think the race will be greatly affected by the truncation. “I don’t think it will change much. The climb to Chalet Reynard is very hard and there is a 200km stage beforehand, a lot of wind is predicted and the race could be split to pieces beforehand. It will make the racing even more intense because, when we hit [the Ventoux], the climb will be shorter.”
In 2000, when Marco Pantani won the stage atop the Ventoux from Lance Armstrong, the wind was strong enough to force the organisers to take down any race infrastructure that might have been blown away, such as the finish banners and the podium.
The wind forecast for Thursday is stronger than that but it is not unusual on a mountain that some claim derives its name from the strong winds that blow there, and where there have been incidents in which people have been killed by windblown rocks.
The Tour is no stranger to last-minute route changes to accommodate changing weather. In 2014 the stage across the cobbles of northern France was amended on race morning after heavy rain, while in 1996 snow forced the cancellation of the two biggest Alpine climbs on the stage to Sestriere.
