Chaos has been unleashed by European political turmoil, French snap elections and a last-minute L’Etape du Tour date change with huge repercussions for the 15,000 worldwide participants.

On Wednesday organizer A.S.O. emailed all 2024 L’Etape du Tour riders informing them that the event would be held one day earlier, on Saturday 6 July rather than the 7th, due French President Macron calling for new elections.

Participants quickly discovered they were looking at costly changes to flights, lodging and other transportation at the last minute, if even possible, and immediately lit up social media:

Facebook: “What the fuck is this? Three weeks before the event, do you decide to postpone the race by one day? There are people coming from all over Europe [and the world], have booked hotels and flights months earlier… How is this possible?”

Reddit: “This news destroys my plans as I’m flying in on the morning of the 6th. I’d imagine there will be many hundreds in the same situation, unable to reschedule for the day before.”

X-Twitter: “They’re not responding to anything. If you email them you just get a ‘response automatique’, I’ve tweeted them, they haven’t responded. If you go on twitter you can see all the people going ‘What?!’.”

The Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, revealed all the reasons for the change: “Due to the legislative elections that will take place on 30 June and 7 July in France, it is unfortunately impossible to organize the Tour of Amateurs Stage, with 15,000 registered, which was to take place on Sunday 7 July between Nice and the Col de la Couillole. It was proposed to advance the event by one day on an unchanged course. In agreement with ASO, organizer of the race, the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, Hugues Moutouh, we then agreed to advance this event to Saturday 6 July 2024. The Stage of the Tour de France is a major event that brings together many people, which implies heavy logistics and a strong local mobilization throughout the route of the municipalities crossed throughout the day.”

The 32nd edition of the L’Etape du Tour will still ride the same route of the 20th stage of the Tour de France, between Nice and the Col de la Couillole, covering 138km with over 4600m of elevation gain.

This isn’t the first time A.S.O has left participants disappointed – L’Etape du Tour was cancelled in 2020 and 2021.

At press time, A.S.O has not offered refunds or deferments for participants unable to make last-minute travel plan changes to accommodate the new 6 July date.

Photo Credit: stock

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