1. Institutions allocate EUR million

According to data from El Salto at the end of February, Basque public institutions will allocate €14.2 million to the Tour de France. The Basque Government and the City of Bilbao will invest EUR 3.2 million and the Provincial Council of Bizkaia 2.4 million. The other deputies and capitals of the CAPV will also contribute their share: the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa 1.1 million, the City Council of San Sebastián 850.000 euros and the Provincial Council of Álava and the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz 525,000 euros each.

2. Excessive prices, especially in Bilbao

The Tour de France starting from Bilbao will be a tourism show for the whole of the Basque Country, especially for the Basque capital. Bilbao has become a visitor attraction center and the influence the event can have has generated concern. EH Bildu has recorded a motion to debate at the Bilbao City Council Plenary in March, to establish “the necessary mechanisms” to “control the legality” of tourist homes and to avoid a “indiscriminate” price hike.

According to the news, Jone Goirizelaia and Asier González, a member of the coalition, have explained that the eve of the Tour in Bilbao must pay excessive prices: “In November 2022 apartments were rented for 6,200 euros per night, and in February of this year many tourist apartments were offered at prices above 4,000 euros, reaching some 8,251 euros”.

On the Trivago platform, which manages hotel search, you can see that spending the night at the Hotel Bed4U in Bilbao costs 3,072 euros on the first day of the tour. For example, this Saturday, March 25, the room is offered for a maximum price of 140 euros.

3. Free volunteering

“It is not acceptable to ask 1,000 volunteers to work for free,” said Julia Liberal, president of the Alavesa Cycling Federation, in the newspaper El Correo, on March 6. In fact, the Tour de France has called the federations of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa to “seek” a total of 3,000 volunteers. But the call does not refer to any “payment” and federations complain about it. They explain that they do not ask for 3,000 volunteers to receive money, but provide material or other resources for basic sport. “A few years later we would like to see the Tour left a legacy for our cyclists,” said the President of the Guipuzkoan Federation, Santo Osoro, according to the Basque Journal.

ASO, the organising company of the Tour de France, won almost €60 million in 2020. As Imanol Magro, a journalist for the newspaper Berria, says in a tweet, "when you do not pay for the job, it is normal that you earn 59.5 million euros".

4th. At the base, increasing gaps

Mentioning basic sport, the waters are proud in Gipuzkoa. On March 2, the suspension of the Classic Aiztondo was known due, among other things, to the situation of the muters who perform liaison tasks during the race. This work is not approved, nor regulated, so, along with the beginning of the season, as a pressure, the races were cut, as explained by journalist Jon Ander Ubeda in the publication Aiurri. Faced with the difficulties of the Ertzaintza to face racing, the federation works with volunteers who make motorized connections. However, they require insurance. As the demands to achieve this have not borne fruit, the Gipuzkoan Federation of Cyclists has decided to suspend races.

"The problems are not the ones that fall to us, but those that suffer from elementary cycling in general and we cannot overcome all the obstacles that exist," said the Executive Committee of the Classic Aiztondo. The Gipuzkoan Federation also published the note: "Racing on the Gipuzkoa road is suspended as long as the organizers do not achieve this minimum safety. Nor should we forget that many of these professional cyclists that we will have the opportunity to see on the Tour de France have had their beginnings in cycling schools, cadets, junior and racing under 23 years. In other words, where we now have difficulty organising ourselves! ".

After a week they announced that with a "patch" you could start the season, but the theme of the riders has raised more bronzes about the situation of basic cycling, as the Federation has emphasized: not touching the N1, not organizing races during the week, not having enough ertzaines...

On February 28, Arritxu Iribar wrote a meticulous bird: "GRAVE. The Cycling Tour to the Basque Country will end in Eibar and on Sunday the youth cycling race will not be possible in Eibar. The Tour will have two stages in Gipuzkoa and in Gipuzkoa we cannot do male, junior, sub23 and elite cadet races.

5. Unlike the Tour and Tour, the Tour will not pass through Iparralde

We have brought words in Iribarren, not only because they refer to suspended races, but also to the Tour and the trajectory of the Return to the Basque Country.

And that has to do, in part, with the mantra that major sporting events are "showcase" and cities are "on the map." Jon Torner wrote about it two years ago on the blog:

"We should take into account the specific map on which we want to locate Bilbao or whatever. Because in vain we are attracting the Tour to Bilbao (in fact, to me, it seems good, as I am passionate about cycling), when the races in the area are very much to survive, when the quarry instead of an impulse, Bilbao does not have an adequate infrastructure for cycling and Bizkaia has a velódromo covered, as Eneko Garate highlighted, this map of the Basque Country… ".

There is a curious fact about this, as the journalist Mikel Irastorza pointed out:

This year’s Tour goes through Xiberoa, the Tour de France, as well as Lapurdi. On the contrary, the Return to the Basque Country will not enter the Northern Basque Country. Significant #euskalherria

— Mikel Irastorza (@mikel _irastorza) January 10, 2023