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2011 Tour De France TV Coverage Update

by John Symon

June 27, 2011 – Canadians will finally have more options this year to watch the upcoming Tour de France on television. The Tour runs from July 2-24 covering 3,430km and starting next Saturday (July 2), there are a number of ways to bring the world’s most prestigious bicycle race into your living room.

The Sports Network (TSN), a Toronto-based sports specialty channel, will be carrying all 21 stages of the TdF daily on its TSN2 channel. This coverage is available across much of Canada either through various satellite, cable or IPTV providers. TSN also announced that “TSN and TSN2’s Tour de France coverage will be available in High Definition – marking the first time the race has been broadcast in HD on Canadian English television.”

The company will only carry select stages on its regular TSN cable channel. Coverage generally begins at 8am in eastern Canada and 5am on the West Coast. Please note that on the linked schedule here ‘ET’ refers to Eastern Time while ‘PT’ is Pacific Time.

For TSN’s Tour de France broadcast schedule and more info click HERE.

Meanwhile, Montreal-based Évasion (formerly Canal Évasion) will also be carrying all 21 stages of the TdF daily in cooperation with Bell Tele and Shaw Direct as satellite service providers and through cable providers such as Videotron/Illico and Rogers/Cogeco. Évasion’s coverage of the event will be narrated in French by Richard Garneau and by Louis Bertrand. Coverage will be daily from 8:30am to 11am.

Évasion viewers can also access the Tour de France page of Evasion’s site to ask questions (presumably only in French) of Garneau, Bertrand and others. There are also many facts, maps, team lists, and statistics available on this page, together with an online poll, and access to a FaceBook page. Évasion is largely owned by Serdy Direct, whose president is none other than Serge Arsenault, organizer of the Grand Prix Cyclistes in Quebec City and Montreal.

For Évasion’s Tour de France broadcast schedule and more info click HERE.

Look for daily coverage at Pedalmag.com including lots of great Tour photos from renowned photographer Cor Vos.





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