THE ROUTE this September’s Tour of Britain will take through the city has been unveiled.
The gruelling 182.5 kilometre stage four of the cycling event will start from The Hive at 10.30am on Wednesday, September 10.
From there the 18 teams will travel down The Butts, City Walls Road, Deansway and New Road before leaving the city via St John’s.
Once the cyclists are out of Worcester they will move through Rushwick, Great Malvern, tackling the climb of Wyche Cutting before descending via Little Malvern and heading east to Upton upon Severn.
Heading through Pershore, the stage will then join the A44 east towards Twyford, turning south on the B4624 into Evesham and then onto Broadway, where The Tour of Britain will race through the High Street before climbing towards Snowshill and disappearing over the border to Gloucestershire and its final destination of Bristol.
The tour is coming to the county for the first time in six years thanks to the efforts of the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership.
Executive chairman, Peter Pawsey, said it would have a tremendous impact on the county’s economy.
“The Tour of Britain is the UK’s biggest free to attend live sporting event,” he said.
“It attracts wide-spread media attention and as such is the perfect opportunity to raise the profile of Worcestershire as a tourist destination.
“Research has shown that hosting a stage start will bring at least a seven fold return on investment to Worcestershire in terms of economic impact of the race.”
Worcester has twice before hosted the modern Tour of Britain, in 2007 and 2008, when stages of the race started from the city before heading to Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mark Leyland, technical manager at Sweetspot which is organising The Tour of Britain, added: “We are delighted to return to Worcestershire for the first time in six years and have selected a route that will showcase Worcester, as well as the county’s towns and districts.
“As in previous years the early climb of the Malvern Hills will attract a lot of spectators, as will the city centre start, which will enable fans to see the world’s top teams and riders preparing for the stage.”
