La Course 2021 will not finish atop the Mûr de Bretagne due to change of date
The one-day race was meant to take place a day later but has had to be moved due to French local elections
La Course 2021 has had to be moved forward a day in the schedule due to the second round of the departmental and regional elections in France. The race was originally going to finish on the Mûr de Bretagne climb.
The original course for the race was set to be from Saint-Brieuc before tackling the famous Brittany climb of the Mûr-de-Bretagne. Unfortunately due to the change of date, this is no longer possible meaning the riders will take on a 107.4km route from Brest to Landerneau.
It is going to be taking place on the same day as the opening stage of the men's Tour de France between the same two towns but the women's peloton takes on a much shorter route with the men racing 187km.
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The route is going to take in the usually hilly Bretagne terrain with a finishing circuit around Landerneau to try and have a similar outcome to the original route to Mûr de Bretagne.
The finishing circuit is 14km long and will be covered three times. It takes in the short steep climb of the Côte de la Fosse aux Loups which is 3km long at an average gradient of 5.7 per cent.
The highest gradients come right at the bottom with the slopes kicking up to 14 per cent, a real launchpad for attacks for the likes of last year's winner, Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo).
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All-in-all the race takes on 1800 metres of elevation, so an up and down race profile is expected. The official route profile is not yet available.
The race organiser ASO sent out a press release saying: "The eighth edition of La Course by le Tour de France avec FDJ, welcoming every year the elite of the UCI Women’s WorldTour on the route of a stage of the Tour de France, was initially set to be raced between Saint-Brieuc and Mûr-de-Bretagne on Sunday, June 27.
"Following a change of date for the second round of the French departmental and regional elections, the organisers adapt the schedule of the race in order to affect as little as possible the access to the polling stations for the citizens living in the area.
"La Course by le Tour de France avec FDJ has thus been moved to Saturday, June 26 and the women will battle it out between Brest and Landerneau, like the male’s peloton, but on a 107.4km route.
"The new course offers similar characteristics to the previous one, with a 14-km hilly finish circuit to be covered three times before the finish atop the côte de la Fosse aux Loups.
"With a total elevation of 1,800m, the challenges of the day should favour the punchiest riders, like the finish at Mûr-de-Bretagne would have."
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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