2014 Tour de France to start in Yorkshire
The 2014 Tour de France will start in the English county of Yorkshire. It will start in the county town, Leeds, and go on to London, home town of 2012 winner, Bradley Wiggins.
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This will be only the second time the world-famous cycle race has started in Britain - the previous time was in 2007, when it started in London, attracting TV coverage and enthusiastic crowds along the route.
"We didn't expect to come back so soon," Tour director Christian Prudhomme told the AFP news agency. "But the extraordinary popular success of this summer [Wiggins's Tour win and the London Olympics] led us to make this decision."
The Tour is arriving two years earlier than local officials had hoped when they drew up a proposition in 2011.
The Yorkshire bid beat Florence in Italy, the birth place of legendary winner Gino Bartali in 1914, and the Scottish capital, Edinbourgh, which roped Wales into its bid.
Yorkshire is a very beautiful region, said Prudhomme, with hilly and flat terrain for the different stages of the race.
"To top it all, the quality of places to stay for the contestants is exceptional," he added.
Next year's race starts on another island - the French Mediterranean region of Corsica.
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