What seemed increasingly inevitable has been confirmed in recent days. Portsmouth will not host the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in 2019, despite a great desire to play host to the event. 

For several economic and organizational reasons – most notably the fact that Yorkshire will host the World Championships the same year, the candidature of the British city has been in trouble in recent weeks. However, the Portsmouth City Council (PCC) does not give up and delays the aspiration instead ofan cancelling it altogether. 2025 has become a target year in which city officials hope to have organize the famous Grand Départ, like London in 2007 and Yorkshire in 2014. 

“But just because we aren’t going to have it in 2019, it doesn’t mean we won’t have it,” PCC leader Donna Jones told Cyclingweekly. “We are still hoping to do that but it was always going to be between 2019 and 2025; you build a bid that could work any time in that period. We are in dialogue with Tour organisers ASO and it is healthy and ongoing.”

The years 2021 and 2022 would appeal particularly to British Cycling as there will be no Olympics. Moreover, Cyclingweekly indicates that the Portsmouth application could be linked to the French city of Caen. The plan is to have two stages around the British city and one in the Norman town.