<div><p>The 2011 Tour de France will start in the Atlantic coast department of the Vendee, race director Christian Prudhomme announced here on Tuesday.</p><p>The first stage will get underway on Saturday July 2 close to the approaches to the island of Noirmoutier and will end at the Mont des Alouettes next to the town of Les Herbiers.</p><p>The following day will see a 23-kilometres team time-trial around the town of Essarts with the third stage leaving from the Vendee coastal town of Olonne-sur-Mer.</p><p>It will be the fourth time in the last 20 years that world's greatest cycle race has started in the Vendee after 1993, 1999 and 2005.</p><p>Tour organisers underlined the fact the 2011 edition will not start with any kind of time trial.</p><p>Instead, the race to the uphill finish at Mont des Alouettes will closely resemble the finish to the first stage of the Tour in 2008 when Spaniard Alejandro Valverde claimed a memorable victory at Plumelec in Brittany.</p><p>In 2010 the race will begin in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67811961&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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