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Scotsman
a day ago
- Sport
- Scotsman
Readers' Letters: Edinburgh's Tour de France ‘Grand Depart' could be a 'Grande Débâcle'
A reader fears for Tour de France riders forced to cope with Edinburgh's pot-holed roads at 2027's Grand Depart Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... With the Tour de France finishing this Sunday, it would be interesting to find out what Edinburgh councillors intend to do about the state of the city's roads for Le Grand Depart in 2027 otherwise there will be a lot of buckled wheels, or worse, due to the all-prevailing potholes. Never mind road bikes or time trial bikes – they'll all be boneshakers! Will it be La Grande Débâcle? Cars can sometimes avoid the potholes if careful, but not always, such is the state of the roads. Travelling by bus is another matter. I like to read when on the bus but there are stretches of road where this is nigh on impossible due to the shaking. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There seems to be money for a multitude of cycle lanes but not for roads. And aren't bus lanes for cyclists too? Riders' cycles cast shadows on the road as they tackled yesterday's 16th stage of this year's Tour de France, 171.5km between Montpellier and Mont Ventoux in southern France (Picture: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty) James D Paterson, Edinburgh Training collars Scotland faces a choice: uphold evidence-led animal welfare, or surrender to ideology. The delay in banning so-called 'electric shock collars' is not a 'farce' as it has been described – it is restraint in the face of immense political pressure and lobby-driven pseudoscience. The Association of Responsible Dog Owners represents thousands of dog owners and professionals across the UK. We categorically reject the misrepresentation of electronic training collars (ETCs) as abusive. Our position is grounded in data, law, and lived experience. In more than 2,500 reports submitted through our five-year user survey 98.6 per cent of users reported no negative effects from ETC use, and 93 per cent stated that the inclusion of the tool helped resolve their dog's problem behaviour. This is not conjecture. It is the lived experience of real, animal-loving people. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Contrast this with the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC), whose 2023 recommendation to ban ETCs fails to declare conflicts of interest: seven of its 11 members are directly linked to organisations already lobbying against these tools. ETCs are not quick-fix substitutes for considered and effective training. They are often the only effective means of interrupting deeply ingrained behaviours like predation, aggression, and compulsions. The welfare calculus is simple: how many dogs have been harmed by a responsibly used e-collar in Scotland in the past seven years, versus how many livestock animals have been mauled, maimed, or killed by out-of-control dogs? In a formal submission to the government, both the Kennel Club and the British Veterinary Association admitted to having no evidence of abuse or harm caused to a single dog in Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Policymakers must not ignore the weight of international research—including studies showing that e-collars used in accordance with best practices cause no significant distress and are often more effective than treat-only methods for high-stakes behaviourslike recall when chasing and livestock avoidance. The world is crying out for non-lethal, evidence-based solutions to dog predation. Scottish ministers hold one in the palm of their hands. To discard it for the sake of optics or ideology would be a profound betrayal – not only of the responsible people who rely on these tools, but of the very animals this debate claims to protect. James Penrith, Association of Responsible Dog Owners Pension minefield Once again, the Westminster Labour Government is going after Pensioners with the announcement of a review of the State Pension Age. The last State Pension age review took place in 2023 and is scheduled to take place every six years, which would mean a further review in 2029, yet the Government are in a hurry once again. The current state of affairs regarding state pension age currently stands at age 66, with an increase to 67 planned for the next two years with further increases to follow to 68 in the next 20 years. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Continuing to raise the state pension age is all very well for those who have been fortunate enough to work in dry and heated environment where the heaviest load lifted is a pen. However, for those working and keeping the infrastructure of the country operating in our harsh winters or very hot sunny days (more to follow), lifting heavy loads, then having to work till 68 and above is an outrage. Pensions are a minefield and the introduction in 2012 of auto-enrolment certainly brought the future of the State Pension as we know it, into question, begging the question, has the State Pension got a future. And while we are on the issue of State Pensions and just in case the Labour Government are in any doubt, WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women are still waiting for the justice, which incidentally the Parliamentary Ombudsman recommended. Catriona C Clark, Banknock, Falkirk Joking apart The long-running 'Funniest Joke of the Fringe' award is to be scrapped this year. Is this because no matter what the joke, someone will be offended? Or could it be that the best joke of the lot is our current Labour government so no other contenders can come close, except for our very own SNP government? Gerald Edwards, Glasgow Tariffs trap The latest meeting of the 'Coalition of the Willing' was notable for the first-time attendance of President Donald Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, and Senators Richard Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham. The involvement of these politicians is concerning because it suggests that Washington's primary objective is not to discuss further aid to Kyiv, but rather to advance US economic interests. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Recently, Lindsey Graham introduced a bill in Congress that would impose tariffs of up to 500 per cent on goods imported from countries that have a strong trade relationship with Russia. There is a risk that, under the pretext of discussing the future of Ukraine, Graham was trying to draw the coalition members into a tariff war. However, it's important to remember that Donald Trump hasn't made any decisions about the bill yet. It's possible that Graham could just be luring European countries into a trap only to abandon them later in this tariff war. This scenario is dangerous because it could further strain relations between Europe, India, and China. The participation of London and Brussels in the tariff war will make them implacable enemies of Beijing and New Delhi. This leaves Europe without alternative economic allies and makes it dependent on Washington. Henry Byers, Glasgow Trump must act Your editorial (22 July) is highly critical of Israel and rightly so. Benjamin Netanyahu and his gang are responsible for war crimes. Professor Nick Maynard, an Oxford surgeon currently working at the Nasser hospital in Gaza, has described the most awful scenes he encounters there daily. Civilians including children are being brought in, the victim of Israeli snipers as they scramble for food at the American-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's food distribution centres, where they are corralled through tall wire fences. He and other surgeons have noticed a pattern which makes this even more reprehensible: on different days the snipers target different parts of the body. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Prof Maynard also describes the horrendous malnutrition affecting Palestinians because of Israel's restriction on supplies entering Gaza. 'The malnutrition I have seen here is indescribably bad,' he says. UNICEF reports that in May 2025 more than 5,000 children were treated for acute malnutrition,making the total number in that category between January and May over 16,000. Separately the BBC has carried out a thorough and detailed survey of the controlled demolition of thousands of buildings throughout Gaza by Israel, supplying photographs showing bulldozers clearing the rubble after the explosions and levelling once thriving neighbourhoods. They have released before and after satellite images which shows exactly the crimes against international law the Netanyahu regime is committing. And just as the US supplies planes, bombs and missiles for air attacks on Gaza so it supplies bulldozers to demolish not only damaged buildings but perfectly intact ones as well. The BBC reports that last week America supplied 'dozens' of Caterpillar D9 bulldozers for that purpose. Without American support Netanyahu's regime would collapse. Preseident Trump must act. William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders Enemy's friends It's about time Israel's assistance to Argentina during the Falklands War was made more widely known. Via Peru, Israel supplied aircraft, missiles and other lethal weapons to the Argentinians. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Israeli Prime Minister at the time was Menachim Begin, a former Irgun terrorist and no friend of Britain. Now Benjamin Netanyahu is constantly grovelling and wheedling to Donald Trump for more fiscal and military assistance. In the Falklands War, 255 British military personnel died. Seven Royal and Merchant Navy ships were sunk. Should we be assisting Israel in any way now? Doug Morrison, Tenterden Kent Careful now As Israel sends tanks and snipers to attack civilians queueing for food, David Lammy warns that Israel is 'tarnishing' its reputation. Careful, David, don't overdo it. Graham M McLeod, Kinross, Perth & Kinross Vested interests Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Eric Knight, chief executive of the Knight Vinke Energy Transition Fund, a long-term shareholder of SSE plc, is somewhat out of touch, urging readers 'Don't listen to Donald Trump' (Scotsman, 21 July). In fact, the Scottish Government's wind farm fiasco is so despised most Scots actually agree with Donald Trump. Let's have no more nonsense from the vested interests of the wind industry! George Herraghty, Lhanbryde, Moray Write to The Scotsman
BBC News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Queensbury Tunnel cycleway plan too costly, say government
Campaigners hoping to convert a former railway tunnel into a cycle-way have been told the passage is to be made "permanently inaccessible" after the proposal was deemed too a letter to the Queensbury Tunnel Society, transport minister Lilian Greenwood said work to transform the tunnel, which is maintained by National Highways, did not offer "best value for the public purse" in a "challenging fiscal environment".She said, as a result, she was in favour of work to "stabilise the tunnel shafts", which campaigners say would bring an end to their hopes of transforming it into a walking and cycling route linking Bradford, Halifax and McWilliam, leader of the Queensbury Tunnel Society, said: "The government is making an investment in destruction to satisfy the needs of a roads body that only cares about its own narrow interests." National Highways inherited the 1.4mile (2.2km) long tunnel after the privatisation of British Rail and abandonment would reduce its of the tunnel as a greenway was first proposed as a Tour de France legacy scheme in 2014 after the Grand Depart of the world-famous cycle race was held in 2018 and 2021 National Highways spent £7.2m on strengthening the tunnel, saying the work would "prevent further uncontrolled collapses, ensuring that any future plans for the re-use of the structure can be realised".Campaigners say work to complete the project would cost in the region of £16m.A feasibility study, published by cycle charity Sustrans earlier this year, found that the route would improve local connectivity and generate £3 in social, economic and tourism benefits for every £1 spent on McWilliam said: "Why are National Highways managing structures like Queensbury Tunnel, why are the government not shifting responsibility for the tunnel and other historic infrastructure to a department who really understand the public benefits of greenways and how to repurpose heritage structures?" A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: "Given the continued deterioration of the Queensbury Tunnel, and in the absence of local funding to develop it as a transport link, National Highways has been instructed to carry out works to maintain public safety."This has been a difficult decision but ultimately, we have a responsibility to safety and delivering value for the taxpayer".West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin, who previously campaigned for the tunnel to be reopened said while she shared the disappointment of campaigners she understood the government's said: "The Government had to act quickly to secure the site, and the realities of public finances meant a difficult decision needed to be made."In 2024 Bradford Council said that while it was "supportive of restoring the tunnel in principle" it was unlikely to be able to fund further and would instead focus on other active travel are due to meet with Greenwood in London later this month to discuss her decision. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Daily Mirror
16-07-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Mind games, sacrifice and 'big cojones' - what it takes to win Tour de France
The Tour de France resumes on Wednesday at stage 11 with still close to a fortnight left of racing to come and the competition finely poised ahead of the big climbs in the mountains Over 3,338 kilometres. 21 stages. 23 days. One yellow jersey. Few events in the sporting calendar - if any - are as gruelling, as brutal, as unforgiving, as the Tour de France. 184 riders lined up at the start of this year's race - the Grand Depart in Lille. But only one can be crowned king of the mountain. And while the fortunes of each and every cyclist will be laid bare out on the road and on our TV screens, there is just as much drama, emotion, pressure and bravado brimming off the tarmac behind the scenes as there is on it - with complex mind games, heart-wrenching sacrifices, and a festering friction between cyclists who are prepared to stare death in the face and risk everything for their ultimate shot at glory. One person who has bore close witness to the carnage - from in front of the camera as one of the faces of cycling broadcasting, to the raw and uncut scenes away from it - is TNT presenter Orla Chennaoui, who even as a keen cyclist herself, admits she'd never do it "in a million years". "It really is survival of the fittest," Chennaoui told Mirror Sport. "It is a test of the absolute best in the world. For anyone who's not used to watching bike racing it's hard to fathom just how dangerous it is, how difficult it is to hold your nerve in the middle of a bike race of 184 riders where everyone is within a whispering distance of each other, one slight touch of the wheel and that is it, game over, race over." Chennaoui has been at the forefront of elite cycling for over a decade - first as a correspondent for Sky Sports, before her switch to Eurosport (now TNT) as lead presenter in 2019. Aside from the small matter of two Olympic Games and one Commonwealth Games, she has covered every gear change from the Tour de France to the Giro d'Italia, multiple times over. Put simply: she has seen it all. So what are her thoughts on the "world cup" of bike racing? "It's funny," she says. "It looks really simple, like a load of cyclists riding from A to B every day but there are so many subplots and that's what makes the sport so fascinating. As soon as you scratch the surface and realise how many different narratives there are. That's why I fell in love with it. "The bit that I find the most interesting is all of the work that is done behind the scenes. All the months of sacrifice, all the work from their teams, all the weeks spent at altitude away from their families, the weighing of food portions coming into Tour de France so they can accurately calculate what start weight they will be. "When a rider wins we get to hear about those sacrifices, the wives and partners left at home, the babies who have been born in their absence. But that's the same for every rider, for them to even get to the start line it takes that sacrifice, never mind to finish or win a stage. Its phenomenal." After 10 stages of this year's Tour thus far, the race is currently led by Ireland's Ben Healy, marginally ahead of favourite and defending champion Tadej Pogacar, while Britain's Simon Yates claimed the last stage win in Puy de Sancy. To keep things cosy, Yates is on the same team as Jonas Vingegaard, the main rival to Pogacar, who is team-mates with Yates's brother Adam. But life on the road is not all happy families. "Professional cycling has become such a polite sport where everyone looks like they're really good friends but as soon as there's any kind of sledging or mind games, we all jump on it and we're trying just trying to work out how much of it is at the tip of the iceberg," Chennaoui explains. "We had a professional rider in at the start of this race, Michael Matthews, and we were saying, 'all the riders are such good friends', and he said, 'don't believe that for a second. They're really not.'" In a sport where every second matters, it's easy to understand why. But Chennoui insists ego is not the overriding characteristic. "It takes an awful lot of confidence and self belief," she says. "Even more than ego necessarily. One stage the first hour of racing was 50km per hour. With no padding, no protective clothing. It's like jumping out of your car in your underwear." Speeds can hit 100km/h down the descents and around 70km/h on a sprint finish when rubbing shoulder to shoulder with rivals to the line. "You're really on a knife edge. They have to believe in themselves so much to not question themselves or have doubts because that itself can bring you off your bike. It's terrifying. Cyclists need big cojones." For every cyclist pushing themselves to the limit, there is a team behind the team, while the methods used in pursuit of marginal gains continue to get more creative. "The amount of testing and tech which goes into it now - scientification is 10 times what it was before," Chennaoui said. "There is one team who have access to an old railway tunnel and that's where they do their wind tunnel testing. So they're riding under this old disused tunnel underground and measuring the wind flow, the aerodynamics of the skin suit, of the bike, of the body position. "They'll spend hours doing this, and hours in a lab, as well, working out the exact scientific proportion of everything. If you look at any random stage, certainly a time trial, you will see the most ridiculous helmets that look like they were designed as a joke and they all look different, but that's all because of the aerodynamics and all the money that goes into it." It's not uncommon for leading cyclists to try their best to avoid wearing the Tour-supplied yellow jersey on early stages during the race, purely because it would mean they wouldn't be able to wear their own specially designed skinsuit. "It's a really pure sport because it's just athlete and bike, but actually there's an awful lot of science that goes into it as well when it comes to nutrition, rest and recovery… every element has been thought of." This year's race is perfectly poised as the riders prepare to set off on stage 11 on Wednesday after the first of only two rest days throughout the event. The action will then build towards a "showdown in the mountains" on stages 18 and 19 where the Tour truly separates the best from the rest. "We have 10,000 metres of climbing within two days which is disgusting. That comes at the very back end of the race when most normal humans are on their knees anyway. The riders are racing for four or five hours every single day, they get two days off in the 23 days, they've got 21 stages to race and so by stages 18 and 19, they've travelled thousands of kilometres, they've had umpteen nights of broken sleep and bad recovery, anyone who has crashed at that stage and had an injury or an illness they're on the limit of their immune system because their levels have become so lean and on a knife-edge with their health that any little infection can really send them off course." The hilly stages of the course then come to an end in time for the finale - a flat run of 132.3km from Mantes-La-Ville into Paris and the finish line on the Champs-Elysee. It could well be a sprint to the line for those still in contention, but Chennaoui expects whoever reigns coming over the mountain will likely be the man to beat on July 27. "You can only survive those stages anyway if you are an exceptional athlete but to be able to win in those stages, then we're talking your Tour de France winners." So who does Chennaoui fancy to take the coveted yellow jersey in less than a fortnights' time? "Still the smart money is on Tadej. But everyone is unbeatable until they're not. We don't know when that moment is going to come. "The punchy terrain suits Tadej, but Jonas has been right up there with him apart from the time trial and he usually excels in the higher mountains that come later in the race. They have created the greatest rivalry in the 112-year history of the Tour de France. So it's perfectly poised for a showdown in the mountains - and entire races can just flip on their head in one moment. "A lot of people are rooting for Jonas because they want the tightest possible race until the last moment and even though I say stages 18 and 19 are where this race will be won, we ride into Paris on the last day. If Tadej Pogacar is within a couple of seconds of the lead, I foresee that he'll be racing for general classification all the way to the line in Paris. So this race could literally go right to the wire which hasn't happened very much." And while the rest of us will be gripped to our seats watching the action unfold, Chennaoui and the TNT team have the tricky task of translating what happens out on the road to all the viewers watching on TV. "For us in the studio, we know that the majority of UK fans are coming to the Tour de France as their only bike race all year so it's our job to make it as entertaining and exciting as possible. So much of sport is taken so seriously and it is serious business for those involved. But if it's not fun to watch, then we're all missing a trick."
Reuters
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Crowds gather in Lille as Tour de France kicks off
Cycling fans turned out in numbers in the northern French city of Lille on Saturday (July 5) as star cyclists from around the world kicked off the Tour de France at the Grand Depart.
Newsweek
05-07-2025
- Sport
- Newsweek
How to Watch Tour de France 2025 Stage 1: Live Stream Cycling, TV Channel
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The 2025 Tour de France is about to kick off! This year's Grand Depart returns to France after a trio of foreign starts, with the peloton rolling out from Lille on July 5 for a 185 km anticlockwise loop that's very flat, giving a big advantage to the sprinters. XDS Astana Team's Italian rider Davide Ballerini (C) and UAE Team Emirate - XRG team's Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar (R) cycle with the pack of riders (peloton) during the 1st stage of the 112th edition... XDS Astana Team's Italian rider Davide Ballerini (C) and UAE Team Emirate - XRG team's Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar (R) cycle with the pack of riders (peloton) during the 1st stage of the 112th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, 184.9 km starting and finishing in Lille Metropole, northern France, on July 5, 2025. More Photo by ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images How to Watch Tour de France 2025 Stage 1 When: Saturday, July 5, 2025 Time: 8:30 PM ET Where: Lille, France TV Channel: NBC Live Stream: Fubo (Get a free trial!) This stage won't include the traditional climbing, as it is classified as flat, with just under 1,200 meters of elevation gain and three category four climbs sprinkled along the way: Côte de Notre-Dame-de-Lorette (1 km at 7.6%), Mont Cassel (1.9 km at 3.6%), and Mont Noir (1.3 km at 6.4%). These bumps in the road will give breakaway hopefuls a chance to snag the first polka dot jersey, but the real action is likely to come in the final kilometers, where the sprinters' teams will be working overtime to reel everyone back in. The finish line on Boulevard Vauban in Lille is as straight as they come, setting the stage for a high-speed bunch sprint. With 50 green jersey points up for grabs at the finish, expect top sprinters like Jasper Philipsen and Biniam Girmay to be right in the mix. Girmay, in particular, is chasing history—he could become the first Black African rider to wear the yellow jersey if he nabs the win. Live stream Tour de France 2025 Stage 1 on Fubo: Watch the event now! Regional restrictions may apply. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation.
