Tourmalet time trial set for 2010 Tour de France route

Cycling Weekly

understands that a mountain time trial will be held on the Col du Tourmalet during the 2010 Tour de France.

Sources close to ASO say that a time trial will be held on the 16-kilometre Pyrenean climb. The Tour is set to mark the centenary of the race's first visit to the Pyrenees in style.

The Pyrenees were first used in the Tour de France in 1910, when a mammoth 325-kilometre stage from Luchon to Bayonne took the riders over the Col de Peyresourde, Col d'Aspin, Col du Tourmalet, Col du Soulor, the Col d'Aubisque and the Col d'Osquich.

To mark the anniversary, the 2010 Tour is set to have a stage from Luchon to the Col d'Aubisque, via the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Soulor.

The Tour de France route will be officially unveiled in Paris on October 14. The 2010 race will start on Saturday, July 3 with a prologue time trial in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Sunday's opening road stage will head into Belgium.

A return to Alpe d'Huez looks on the cards. The famous climb was last used in the 2008 Tour, when Carlos Sastre won. It has not been absent from two consecutive Tours since the mid-1970s.