Tour de France postponed - Blazin' Saddles: The Tour in September – what this means for everyone

When President Macron spoke to France this week and announced that no major public events would be allowed before mid-July, it finally drew a curtain on the misguided hope that the Tour de France would defy Covid-19 by sticking to its proposed schedule in 2020.

Scheduled to start slightly earlier than usual, on June 27, to accommodate the Tokyo Olympics, the Tour was always going to have to budge. But with the Summer Games put off until 2021, some leeway was introduced. Now, finally, two days after Macron prolonged France's lockdown until May 11, Tour organisers ASO have set their own revised dates for the biggest bike race on the planet.

With either misplaced optimism or dogged determination, ASO announced on Wednesday that, "Le Tour de France will take place on the planned route, with no changes, from Nice to Paris, from Saturday 29th August to Sunday 20th September."

The race will come one week after the national championships (pencilled in for the weekend of August 22-23) and will conclude on the same day that the World Championships in Aigle-Martigny (Switzerland) start. The Giro d'Italia and then the Vuelta a Espana will follow, with the dates for the prestigious Monuments yet to be confirmed.

Let's run through the ins and outs of these key decisions in the sport's efforts to bounce back from the current – and ongoing – coronavirus crisis.

Finally, some clarity. For a long time, ASO's reluctance to formally postpone or cancel the Tour led to widespread criticism. As Christian Prudhomme clung on to the notion that the Tour was an unmoveable, hallowed institution that had only ever been laid low by war, Bernard Hinault called for a reality check, claiming that "life is more important" than the race he won five times.

Last week, France's sports minister Roxana Maracineanu raised the possibility of the Tour taking part behind closed doors – something the organisers were never likely to support given the very nature of a race taking place in the great outdoors and all over the nation.

If coming out and ending the speculation regarding the planned start on June 27 was the correct thing to do, then giving the riders, teams and fans a revised timeline to prepare for should be applauded – even if it would be foolhardy to take the new dates as set in stone. With France currently at the epicentre of Covid-19 in Europe, there is no way of knowing now, in mid-April, what the conditions will be by August 29.

What we do know is that, in the words of ASO, the revised dates came following "constant communication between riders, teams, the organisers as well as other relevant third parties all with the support of the UCI, who are responsible for arranging a new global cycling schedule, in which the Tour de France takes pride of place."

For its part, the UCI said this an announcement: "Holding this event in the best conditions possible is judged essential given its central place in cycling's economy and its exposure, in particular for the teams that benefit on this occasion from unparalleled visibility."

The proposed start would be the latest of any race in Tour history – more than six weeks later than the July 13 start for the 1908 and 1950 Tours.

The dates and programme for the Worlds in Aigle-Martigny are unchanged. They will run September 20-27 which means anyone wishing to participate in the men's elite time trial on September 20 will not be able to ride into Paris with the rest of the Tour peloton on the same day. The revised dates would give Tour riders one week to prepare before the men's road race on September 27 – that's one day more than those riding the Olympic road race would have got on the initial calendar.

In a bit of a pickle, is the short answer.

Given that the Vuelta was meant to start in Utrecht on August 14 – a fortnight before the rescheduled Tour grand depart – you could be forgiven to think that the Spanish race has had the carpet pulled from beneath its feet. But given the exceptional circumstances, a revised end to the season was always going to require compromise from all parties. It helps, of course, that ASO also runs La Vuelta, too.

As things stand, the Giro will take place after the World Championships and will be followed by the Vuelta. While no dates have been given, it has been speculated that the Giro would run October 3-25 and the Vuelta from 30 October till November 22.

On the face of things, that seems very late to be running bike races – but shifting the start of the Vuelta one week would mean an overlap with the Giro and a clear conflict of interests between organisers RCS and ASO.

The Giro's usual running in May often raises the prospect of high-altitude finishes being cancelled owing to snow still covering the summits. But a shift to October only reverses this threat with regards to the possibility of early winter snow. The Colle dell'Agnello, for instance, traditionally closes on the third Monday of October, while the Stelvio – another Alpine peak set to feature in the 2020 race – is usually covered in the white stuff by November.

As for hosting a bike race in Spain in November – while the weather is still often clement that time of year, the sun sets around 5:30pm which would mean stages would have to be brought forward. But unless the race is very unlucky, there should not yet be snow in the Pyrenees in November.

The women's one-day event, which was initially scheduled to take place on July 19 on the Champs-Elysees, will also be postponed. A date has not yet been set but it will take place during the revised Tour period.

One name springs to mind: Chris Froome. The four-time winner has been laid low for the best part of a year following his injury in last year's Dauphine – and judging by his early season form, his comeback was taking longer than expected. But a later start to what would be his season's principal target would give the 34-year-old longer to prepare as he bids to join the illustrious group of five-time Tour winners.

"The news many of us have been waiting for," Froome wrote on Twitter. "Some light at the end of the tunnel."

Then there's the great French hope Thibaut Pinot, who so often wilts in the sun. A switch from sweltering July to the more clement September would give the FDJ rider some hope of returning to the Tour podium after a six-year gap and three consecutive DNFs.

Julian Alaphilippe, who enjoyed a memorable stint in yellow last summer, could also benefit from a prolonged break, the Frenchman looking decidedly burned out in the earlier races this season before the curtailment.

Then there's a rider like Mark Cavendish, who needs four wins to match Hinault's record of 34 stage victories. In a normal year, Cav – a dwindling force – would not be able to do this, especially in a world including the Gronewegens, Vivianis, Ewans, Gavirias and Ackermanns. But throw in a curveball like this, and who knows?

Whatever happens, if the Tour takes place in 2020, it won't be any usual Tour. Form will go out of the window along with the rulebook. This could be just the kind of olive branch Cavendish needs.

But to be fair, everyone benefits from the Tour de France taking place. The race is central to cycling's fragile sponsorship structure, with teams heavily – even overly – reliant upon the television and sponsorship revenue generated from the world's biggest bike race. As this crisis deepens all over the world, with many countries plunging into recession, there has been talk many cycling teams furloughing their staff, with many on the brink of financial collapse.

The safeguarding of the Tour is of primordial importance for the continuation of some of the more volatile teams. This, at the very least, gives these under-pressure teams and their sponsors hope.

Anyone with ambitions to ride all-three Grand Tours this season. It's fair to say that Lotto-Soudal pair Adam Hansen and Thomas De Gendt will have to go back to the drawing board…

With the clashing of the men's elite time trial for the World Championships and the Tour's final stage in Paris, anyone with ambitions of riding in France and picking up a rainbow jersey against the clock will have to reconsider – or accept that they will not make it to the Champs-Elysees in 2020.

That could well mean we don't see Rohan Dennis make the Team Ineos squad for the Tour de France – ditto the likes of Victor Campenaerts (NTT), Tony Martin (Jumbo-Visma) and Remco Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep).

The Giro could be big losers. Widely seen as the most compelling race in recent years, the Italian Grand Tour may find itself overlooked by the big GC riders – such as Tom Dumoulin and Simon Yates – if they only have the prospect of riding one three-week race in 2020.

Ditto, La Vuelta. So often seen as the last chance saloon of Grand Tours – the race riders target when all else fails in Italy and France – the time frame just won't allow for such luxuries as things stand.

The general condensing of all three Grand Tours within a three-month window will test the strength of many squads. Whether regulations will reduce the number of riders per team to, say, six or seven, remains to be seen – ditto the prospect of, perhaps, both the Giro and Vuelta shortening their programme to two weeks.

Perhaps one way of dealing with the challenge would be for every WorldTour outfit to name an entirely different team for each race. Not only would this give invaluable racing experience for many younger riders – riders confined to riding Zwift in their basements for most of the season – it will ensure that we see some fresh legs across the board and don't see riders experiencing the kind of burnout which could hinder their chances when things, hopefully, return to normal in 2021.

Talking of which, it's fair to say that such a hefty schedule will have a trickle-down effect going forward. The Tour Down Under roster, for example, may take a bit of a battering in 2021 if riders are competing right up until December. After all, so far the talk has only concerned the Grand Tours and World Championships; the UCI has also promised to reschedule all five of cycling's most prestigious one-day classics – which would lead to inevitable scheduling clashes and force riders into making some tricky decisions regarding which races they target this autumn.

For all the bullish sounds coming from the UCI and ASO – and note that they have used the future tense, not the conditional, in all their releases – there's still no guarantee that any racing will be able to take part in the projected time frame.

Whether the revised Tour takes place from August 29 to September 20 will ultimately not be a decision made by ASO or the UCI – as badly as they may want, even need, cycling's blue riband event to run.

A multi-day cycling event with its huge entourage and moveable circus of fans will only get the green light if it's deemed safe by the authorities. And with hundreds of people still dying every day in France – and an inevitable second wave of infections still not taken into consideration – we're a long way away from justifying that bike races should even be on the agenda, let alone driving the narrative.

But a revised start in late September at least gives something for everyone to work to. A lot can – and will need to – happen in four months. But the "confirmed" dates have at least given the sport some hope and a contingency plan. The safe money, sadly, remains on the next competitive race coming in 2021.