Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280075
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For two years, the Roanoke Valley made an impact on the Tour DuPont with its arduous mountain time trial. Too great an impact, as it turns out.
The Roanoke Valley will still be on the 1996 Tour DuPont course, which was announced Thursday during a news conference in Atlanta, but it won't be hosting a time trial. Roanoke will serve as the finish line for Stage 5 on May5 and Salem will host the start of Stage 6, which winds through Craig and Giles Counties before finishing on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.
Blacksburg, which has become one of the more popular stops on the Tour, will be on the course for the fourth straight year. Salem has hosted the start of both mountain time trials, which ended on the Roanoke City Market.
The problem with the Roanoke Valley time trial, organizers said, was the race was virtually decided once the time trial ended. That was fine for local fans, who watched Viatcheslav Ekimov win the 1994 time trial and Lance Armstrong take it this year. Both riders built such substantial overall leads, they were able to cruise to individual championships.
For two years, the stages that remained after the Roanoke Valley time trial were anticlimactic, with the overall leaders being able to maintain their lead even while staying back in the pack.
The Roanoke time trial ``set too much of the tone for the rest of the race,'' said Mike Plant, executive director of the Tour DuPont. ``We wanted the road races [in the early and middle stages of the Tour] to set the tone.''
Since Tour organizers wanted to end next year's race near Atlanta, the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics, the course required changes from the past two races. The 1996 Tour DuPont will cover approximately 1,200 miles in 12 days and will end just outside of Atlanta on the Kennesaw State College campus in Marietta, Ga.
Stage 5 begins in Mount Airy, N.C., and rolls 110 miles north to Roanoke. While the Roanoke Valley time trial proved to be an important stage of the Tour DuPont, local organizers feel that hosting a finish, with a pack of riders hurtling toward the finish line, will be more exciting for spectators.
``The time trials have provided us with two exciting years, but it was time to see if we could do something different,'' said Roanoke City Councilman Mac McCadden, the chairman of Roanoke's organizing committee.
Pete Lampman, the public relations director for Cycling Roanoke Valley Inc., said the Stage 5 finish line has not yet been determined but will most likely be downtown.
Other Virginia stops on the 1996 Tour DuPont include Richmond, Fredericksburg, Emporia, Wytheville, Bristol and Blacksburg, where an estimated 35,000 spectators watched Lance Armstrong take the overall lead for good this year.
``The fan support in Blacksburg has been great,'' Plant said. ``Virginia Tech has been a great venue. Plus, that's a solid mountain stage that works well geographically for us.''
The Tour DuPont has migrated southward since beginning in 1989 as the Tour de Trump. The first race concluded in Atlantic City, N.J., and the 1990 race finished in Boston. This year, the Tour makes its first forays into Tennessee and Georgia.
On its path to Georgia, the '96 Tour will skip some of its more popular stops of past years such as Lynchburg, Winston-Salem, N.C., and Asheville, N.C.
The 1996 Tour DuPont begins on May1 with a 50-mile circuit race around Wilmington, Del., where DuPont is headquartered. The race will not begin with a Prologue, the short time trial that has kicked off every Tour since 1989.Following that stage, riders will transfer by car from Wilmington to Fredericksburg, Va., for a 92-mile stage to Richmond.
May3 features the first double-stage in Tour history. Following a 90-mile ride from Emporia, Va., to Raleigh, N.C., a 10-mile time trial will take place in Raleigh that night.
After the Roanoke Valley and Blacksburg stages, the Tour resumes with a 110-mile ride from Wytheville to Bristol on May7. Stage 8 runs from Bristol to Beech Mountain, N.C.; Stage 9 goes from Blowing Rock, N.C., to Charlotte, N.C.; Stage 10 goes from Fort Mill, S.C., to Greenville, S.C.; Stage 11 runs from Clemson, S.C., to Marietta, Ga.; then the race concludes with a 20-mile time trial in the Marietta area.
``Geographically, there is a lot of mileage to cover from Delaware to Georgia,'' Plant said. ``What we arrived at for the 1996 Tour DuPont is a unique blend of shorter, more flat stages with back-to-back mountain stages. Overall, we have the most enthusiastic host cities to date and a competitive course.''
by CNB