The announcement that the 2017 Tour de France will start in Düsseldorf has been welcomed by the Dutch Limburg province. The German city is within biking distance of his province, Deputy Ger Koopmans stressed in an interview Telesport. "It certainly gives us the opportunity to again have a stage in Limburg."

The Tour would be welcome in Limburg in 2017 and the politician has made that clear to Tour boss Christian Prudhomme announced. "It is now up to him to see if Limburg fits in the route schedule. But I know he is very fond of our province and that the last visit of the Tour in Limburg had an extremely positive impact. We have been lobbying for this for several years so the Tour also know how serious we are.”

Limburg hopes that the conflict between ASO and the National Federation will not play a negative role. After the Tour start in Utrecht, the Dutch Cycling Federation sent a bill of 140,000 euros to France. Prudhomme has refused to pay told Koopmans that he didn’t plan a quick return to the Netherlands.

While the Netherlands is still in the waiting room for a possible visit of the Tour caravan in 2017, Germany has secured its first Grand Départ for thirty years. This has been welcomed by German riders.

“Germany is back in the game,” John Degenkolb tweeted while Simon Geschke added “Big news” @letour will be back in Germany in 2017! Looking forward already to the Grand Depart in Düsseldorf.” Fabian Wegmann described is as “a dream come true” while Johannes Fröhlinger stated that it was “awesome news.”