Video: We’ll make ours the grandest Départ in history

The 18-month countdown to the 2014 Tour’s Grand Départ in Leeds started yesterday at the British Embassy in Paris, when the two opening stages of the world’s biggest annual sporting event were unveiled.

Stage One will take a 190km (118m) route from Leeds city centre, through the Yorkshire Dales, and end in Harrogate. The second stage will begin in York and loop down for 200km (124m) through West Yorkshire to end in Sheffield. It will then go south for a third Cambridge-to-London stage, before returning to the continent.

Civic leaders, MPs and communities hailed Yorkshire’s capture of the opening stage of the Tour de France as a “huge coup”, as Britain revels in its Olympic cycling success after Bradley (now Sir Bradley) Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour.

The Grand Départ is expected to cost the region about £10m to stage, but organisers expect it to pump more than £100m into Yorkshire’s economy, as well as buying it priceless global publicity and leaving a “lasting legacy”.

There will also be a 100-day arts festival, plus the promise of investment in cycling infrastructure.

“For those people who think it’s just about a bike ride, they’re going to have an amazing surprise,” said Coun Keith Wakefield, leader of Leeds Council and a keen cyclist.

“This is a dream of a lifetime to hold the biggest annual sporting event on your doorstep. It’s going to lift the mood of the country as well as the region. We have the passion and the commitment to deliver the best Grand Départ in the history of the Tour.”

He was one of a number of council leaders and chief executives who travelled to Paris for the route launch and later jetted back to Leeds on a specially-liveried plane.

Last night they welcomed a host of sporting heroes and celebrities to a dinner at Leeds Town Hall – including Britain’s first ever winner of a Tour de France stage, Yorkshireman Brian Robinson.

Attracting the Grand Départ was the culmination of two-and-a-half years’ planning and courtship of race organisers Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) by tourism body Welcome to Yorkshire. Yorkshire’s Back Le Bid campaign beat rival bids from Scotland, Florence, Barcelona, Berlin and Venice.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “We want to put Yorkshire on the map of international cycling.” He said, based on Scotland’s estimate the cost was expected to be “less than £10m”. “We are going to get 10 times that return as an immediate impact,” he added. “But much more than that, it’s the legacy in hearts and minds.”

The new Leeds Arena will host the presentation of the teams on July 3, 2014, before the first stage begins on July 5. It will pass Harewood House, carve through Otley, Ilkley and Skipton and head north to the outer limits of the Yorkshire Dales before returning south east via Ripon to finish in Harrogate. Stage Two begins in York, passes west through Harrogate, then heading south past Keighley, Huddersfield, Holmfirth, ending in Sheffield.

Tom Riordan, chief executive of Leeds Council, said: “I think this will open up doors for us... I was in the City of London yesterday talking to an investment bank – they want to come up to Leeds when the Tour is on. It’s free – everybody who wants to see this will be able to get to the side of the road.”

The route does not pass through East Yorkshire, but Mr Verity said Welcome to Yorkshire was talking to the county about the possibility of it staging another race in the future.

He said 98 per cent of Yorkshire’s population would be about an hour away.

However, Bradford West MP George Galloway criticised organisers for “bodyswerving” Bradford with the route, and pledged to bring up its omission in Parliament.