THE organiser of the Tour de France, Jean-Marie Leblanc, leaves London today after finalising arrangements for the race’s visit to Britain in July next year with Sport for Television, which promotes several televised cycling events here.

At the moment both sides are simply saying that negotiations are under way and an announcement will be made on March 24. But sources close to the organisers have confirmed that Britain will definitely host two stages of the 1994 race, 20 years after the Tour’s only previous trip across the Channel.

In 1974, to publicise the new Plymouth-Roscoff ferry service, the riders and entourage sailed over for a poorly received stage up and down the Plymouth bypass. But the travel arrangements back to France were shambolic and unpopular with the riders, which has since deterred the organisers from including Britain in the Tour’s sallies beyond French borders.

However, the opening of the Channel Tunnel, scheduled for early next year, offers a smoother journey. Last week’s confirmation that the 1994 race will start in Lille, in northern France, indicates that the Tour’s visit will come in the first week of July, perhaps only two days after the start.

Leblanc is a confirmed Anglophile and early last year promised that the race would visit Britain once the tunnel opened. In fact negotiations were already under way, with potential stage destinations contacted by Sport for Television.

Since then various towns in southern England have leaked their Tour hopes. Dover has confirmed that it is bidding to host a stage start from Dover Castle after the caravan has travelled through the tunnel.

That stage’s likely destination is Brighton, whose council has often said it wants to host a finish and the following day’s start. The town has strong cycling links, having hosted the Wincanton Classic World Cup race in 1990 and 1991.

A stage of, say, 140 miles between Dover and Brighton would be anything but direct, and Kent traffic police are understood to be working on a route. If the Tour’s normal three-hour road closure applied it would virtually shut down the county for the 200 riders and the 1,000 race vehicles.

The following day’s stage could end at Portsmouth, whose council has confirmed that it wants the city to be the Tour’s point of departure, with the riders flying back to France and the caravan sailing either to Cherbourg or Caen.

As well as providing the ferry companies with some useful publicity in Channel Tunnel year, that arrangement would have particular resonance in France on the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings. No doubt Leblanc wants to stage his own, somewhat smaller, version of the great event in Normandy.

– Greg LeMond, three times the Tour winner but a notoriously slow starter to the season, has abandoned plans to compete in next week’s Paris-Nice race for his new French team, Gan. The American, who dropped out when well behind in the early stages of the Mediterranean Tour last week, said his preparations had been put back by two weeks because of flu and bronchitis.