when was the tour de france not held
Tour de France No teams from Italy, Germany or Spain rode in 1939 because of tensions preceding the Second World War (after German assistance to Franco in the Spanish Civil War it was widely expected Spain would join Germany in a European war, though this did not come to pass). Henri Desgrange planned a Tour for 1940, after war had started but before France had been invaded. The route, approved by military authorities, included a route along the Maginot Line.[114] Teams would have been drawn from military units in France, including the British, who would have been organised by a journalist, Bill Mills.[114] Then the Germans invaded and the race was not held again until 1947 (see Tour de France during the Second World War). The first German team after the war was in 1960, although individual Germans had ridden in mixed teams. The Tour has since started in Germany four times: in Cologne in 1965, in Frankfurt in 1980, in West Berlin on the city's 750th anniversary in 1987 and in DÃ¼sseldorf in 2017. Plans to enter East Germany in 1987 were abandoned.