GP d'Ouverture - La Marseillaise (1.1)

Winners, podium, distance, average speed

Les Woodland's book Tour of Flanders: The Inside Story - The rocky roads of the Ronde van Vlaanderen is available as an audiobook here. For the print and Kindle eBook versions, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

The race:

GP d'Ouverture - La Marseillaise is a single-day race, held around the southern French city of Marseille.

It's the first race on the continental European race calender, generally coming in the first week of February. The next day is the Étoile de Bessèges stage race, also held in southern France. Until 1991, the race was simply named La Marseillaise.

There is a legend among racers that winning this race brings bad luck. Tell that to Bernard Hinault, who won in 1982 and then went on the win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in that same year.

Close on its heels is the Italian GP Costa degli Etruschi, also usually held in the first week of February.

Currently (2020) the race starts and ends in Marseilles and is part of the UCI Europe Tour.

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