The highly anticipated Tour de France Netflix series will be released at midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday and will be available in 190 territories as part of a major global release.
It will air at midnight PT on the US west coast, which is 8:00 Thursday morning UK time, 17:00 AEST in Sydney Australia and 03:00 EDT on the US east coast,
Called ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ and ‘Tour de France: Au cœur du peloton’ in French, the series consists of eight episodes that will be released at the same time on Thursday. Each episode focuses on a different team in the 2022 Tour de France, capturing the drama, suffering and emotions of their race.
AG2R Citroën Team, Alpecin-Fenix, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ cycling Team, Ineos Grenadiers, BORA-hansgrohe, Team Jumbo-Visma and Team Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl all agreed to part of the Netflix series, allowing camera crews onto their team buses and in their hotel rooms last July.
Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates opted not to be involved due to privacy and sponsor concerns but the Slovenian and the rest of the Tour de France peloton are included in the episodes because of the extensive use of television footage and on-bike video images.
Television commentators such as France’s Steve Chainel, Britain’s David Millar and Orla Chennaoui of Eurosport/GCN help explain the unwritten rules of professional cycling and the Tour de France, while the riders, their families and team staff and managers all feature. A second series is expected to be filmed during this year’s Tour de France.
Tour de France: Unchained was made by Quadbox – a joint venture between Quad and Box to Box Films who created the hugely popular ‘Drive to Survive’ Formula 1 Series that helped boost interest in motor racing, especially in the USA. The Tour de France organisers and the team involved hope ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ can create similar interest in professional cycling just a few weeks before this year’s race.
Netflix funded the reported production costs of €8 million to make the series. Tour de France organiser ASO and host broadcaster France Televisions both netted €250,000 each. The eight teams shared the remaining €500,000, giving each team €62,000 ($67,000).
“Through a narrative approach, which is additive to the competition itself, the public will be able to discover how the Tour de France represents the ultimate challenge for the competitors; in particular in terms of suffering, pushing their limits and team spirit,” ASO managing director Yann Le Moënner said.
Netflix released the official trailer last week after a teaser video was shown in March.
“The Tour de France is very simple. It is a bike race, every day, over 21 stages,” Chainel explained before Groupama-FDJ team manager Marc Madiot added: “If you can go further in suffering and sacrifice, you may have a chance… to win,” as the clock to the start of a stage begins.
A preview of the first three episodes seen by Wielerflits suggests that the Jumbo-Visma episode will focus on Jonas Vingegaard defeating Pogacar to win the Tour de France with help from Wout Van Aert and his teammates but also the drama he and Jumbo-Visma faced on the cobbles on stage 5 when he made multiple bike changes.
“We had discussed what we would do in the event of a flat tyre and a crash. But I never thought about a broken chain. What was I supposed to do then?” Vingegaard admits during the episode.
The Ineos Grenadiers’ episode focuses on Geraint Thomas’ fight to finish third overall and Tom Pidcock‘s victory on the Alpe d’Huez stage and his thrilling descent of the Galibier.
Others focus on Fabio Jakobsen’s emotional return from his 2020 Tour de Pologne crash and his sprint victory at the Tour de France.
Neilson Powless went close to winning a stage for EF Education-EasyPost several times and said in the trailer: “I had to leave my home, my family. Winning a stage would make all the sacrifice worth it.”
The Groupama-FDJ episode follows Thibaut Pinot as he tries to win a stage, and David Gaudu as he fights to finish fourth overall.
“They really put in enormous resources,” Gaudu explained of the work involved in shooting the Groupama-FDJ episode.
“They came to see me on an internship in Tenerife, in the south of France, in the Dauphiné and at home in Brittany. All that even before the Tour.”
