Ypres 2

Like many other Belgian cities, Ypres, hosting the Tour for the first time, holds its own cycling race, the Kattenkoers, inspired by the local tradition of hunting cats, considered as a threat to the city of cloth. Greg Van Avermaet scored his first major pro win in the Kattenkoers in 2006. In 1951, the race winner was a local rider, Andre Noyelle, who remains to this day the only Belgian winner of the Olympic road race. The solid rider won his gold medal in 1952 in Helsinki on a day when the whole Belgian team shone, Robert Grondelaers taking silver while Lucien Victor came fourth, handing his country the team title. Turned pro, Noyelle made a career in his native country and in the North of France, winning the Grand Prix de Fourmies or the Grand Prix Pino Cerami. But 1952, which also saw him take the amateur world championship silver medal, was the great year of a man who only rode one Grand Tour, the 1956 Vuelta before running a cycle shop in his native Ypres. A local Grand Prix is named after him.