German public broadcaster ARD will make a decision about a possible live coverage of the 2015 Tour de France at the end of the year. ARD Chairman Lutz Marmor made the announcement in Hannover today after the a meeting of the directors.

In 2012, the two public broadcasters ARD and ZDF decided to end the live coverage of the largest annual sporting event in the world after several doping cases. Since then, they have only reported from the race in their sports news. Since them, Eurosport has been the only channel to broadcast the race live. ZDF have already announced that they won't broadcast the race in 2015 due to a lack of financial and human resources.

ARD program director Volker Herres admitted that the Tour has done a lot in the fight against doping in recent years. If the TV channel decides to go back to their live coverage of the event, they will have a critical approach.

"But we will not act as judges over the different sports and cycling is still an attractive sport," Herres added.