A moment in time The first foreign Grand Départ

More than 50 years after its inaugural edition, the Tour de France staged the Grand Départ on foreign roads for the first time ever

- GILES BELBIN

It’s the day before the start of the 1954 Tour de France and Amsterdam is in party mode. The Tour circus is in town. Funfairs have sprung up all over the city and thousands of people are on the streets. Squares are full of market stalls and organ music. Cars displaying the exotic names of French newspapers, television and radio stations are on the roads. The city’s youth are crowded around the advertising trucks of large French companies.

In the words of the Dutch daily Het Vrije Volk, today Amsterdam has ‘a somewhat Latin atmosphere’. Tonight the shops and bars and cafes will do a roaring trade as they stay open until the small hours.

‘We haven’t seen Amsterdam like this since the coronation days of 1948,’ the newspaper will report. ‘Even at midnight it wasn’t possible to get a seat on the cafe terraces of Leidseplein, Rembrandtplein and Damrak.’

Outside of Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium a large crowd has gathered. It is from here that tomorrow the Tour’s peloton will be sent on its way. Riders are arriving to complete the prerace formalities and locals want to catch sight of cycling’s biggest stars off the bike. They line the road outside the stadium, five or six deep, waiting to see who they can glimpse.