Successful Glasgow World Championships boost hopes of Scottish Tour de France Grand Depart: “Why wouldn’t organisers want to bring events to the UK on the back of everything we’ve seen?”

Among over a million ardent cycling fans that flocked to the roadside in Glasgow for the 2023 World Championships was the Tour de France race director, Christian Prudhomme. According to British Cycling chief executive Jon Dutton, a possible Scottish Grand Depart could be on the cards in the coming years.

Whilst officials have maintained that Prudhomme was not on any work-related business, instead visiting the race as merely a fan, Dutton did get the chance to talk to him and believes positive vibes were sent Prudhomme's way. “Why wouldn’t organisers want to bring events to the UK on the back of everything we’ve seen?” said Dutton to The Scotsman. "We know ASO have huge respect for our ability to deliver major races."

"I think the UK wants to have more moments like this and the Tour and other events would be on that trajectory," continues Dutton, who worked closely on the bid for the Yorkshire, Tour de France Grand Depart back in 2014. "The Tour is the biggest commercial road race in cycling so it would be great at a point in the future to bring that back and I think any event organiser looking at this event would certainly want to come back to the UK.”

“We’ve got communities that have not ever been part of a major event before, they’ve really celebrated that civic pride of having a global broadcast," he concludes, naming the possible locations where it could be held. "In Stirling or Dumfries we were something big, something for the first time, part of history essentially. I’d like to think we have given some future hosts of some cycling events good consideration of how you can do things and maybe do things maybe slightly differently.”