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Stage by stage
stage 9 - Arc-et-Senans 
Besançon
41.5 km
Monday 9 July
Besançon
41.5 km
Monday 9 July
Individual time-trial - A sporting perspective
Christian Prudhomme’s Analysis
It was natural to choose the «the City of time» to host a time-trail of which the 38 km could carry a lot of weight at the end of the race. Besançon and its majestic citadel are linked to Arc-et-Senans, which is also a listed Unesco World Heritage site. The peloton’s best flat racers will try to minimize their time in a prestigious setting.
Arc-et-Senans
• Stage town on 1 previous occasion
• 1,500 inhabitants
• commune of Doubs (25)
Arc-et-Senans was chosen by Louis XV to house the Royal Saltworks in 1771, but it waited until 1996 to see the Tour’s peloton. It was during a stage which set off from there, in Doubs, which finished in Aix-les-Bains. A novice called Michael Boogerd was the winner and this was the first of two victories in the Tour de France for the Dutch rider.
• www.salineroyale.com
• www.doubs.fr
• www.ot-arcetsenans.fr
• www.arc-et-senans.com
• www.franche-comte.fr
• www.originalefranchecomte.fr
• www.doubs.travel
Besançon
• Stage town on 18 previous occasions
• 123,000 inhabitants
• Prefecture of Doubs (25)
The prefecture city of Doubs was already on the 1905 Tour map, which makes it the oldest city associated with the race, after Paris, on the 2012 route. The first finish in Besançon is one of the race’s historical stages as the riders, who had set off from Nancy, went over the Ballon of Alsace, a difficulty which symbolized the future ascents in the mountains, for the first time. In 2009, Russia’s Sergei Ivanov was the winner there, by shaking off the other breakaway riders not long before the citadel came into sight. And on the subject of time-trials, Lance Armstrong won the last one organised in Besançon in 2004.
• www.besancon.fr
• www.besancon-tourisme.com
• www.grandbesancon.fr
• www.doubs.fr
• www.franche-comte.fr
• www.originalefranchecomte.fr