Stages of the Tour de France 2024. Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from Blue Marble: Next Generation, bike route data from the Amaury Sport Organisation, and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The eyes of the sporting world have turned towards France, and we thought it was a good opportunity to look at some venues from space. Last weekend saw the conclusion of the Tour de France with a stunning victory for Tadej PogaÄŤar on the streets of Nice, and of course, this Friday sees the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games that are being held in Paris. We thought it would be interesting to look from satellite at these events.
Tour de France
The NASA Earth Observatory released two images last week to celebrate the Tour de France. The first, at the top of the blog, shows the route of the 21 stages the cyclists took from 29th June to the 21st July – including two rest days – which covered an incredible 3,498 kilometres, or 2,174 miles.
This is a Blue Marble: Next Generation image for July which is composite of observations acquired by NASA’s MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument onboard the Terra satellite.
Around the centre of the image is a black number 5, this indicates stage 5 which took place on Wednesday, 3 July between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Saint-Vulbas covering a distance of 177.4km. This was the famous final win for the Mark Cavendish, known as the Manx Missile, that set a record of most stage wins in the Tour de France by a single rider as this was his 35th win. His longevity is demonstrated by the fact that the first of these wins was in 2008.
The Tour had many successes this year, including the first stage victory for a Black African as Biniam Girmay, from Eritrea, won stage 3 in Turin – as the Tour began in Italy this year. Biniam wasn’t finished there either as he also won stages 8 and 12, together with the overall Green Jersey for the points classification.
Routes of Stages 19 & 20 of the Tour de France 2024. Images courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from Blue Marble: Next Generation, bike route data from the Amaury Sport Organisation, and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The overall Yellow Jersey winner was Slovenian, Tadej Pogačar, who won six stages including the final three! The last stage was a time-trial in Nice, but the previous two days, Stages 19 & 20, were finishes on top of mountains in the French Maritime Alps where the riders climbed over 32,800 feet or 10,000 metres in these two days. These stages are shown in the image on the left acquired by Landsat 9 on the 11th July which shows the route of these two stages overlaid on digital elevation data from the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission). Both of the Tour de France images are NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from Blue Marble: Next Generation, bike route data from the Amaury Sport Organisation, and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Cycling is popular sport at Pixalytics, and in 2012 we were in Paris for the final stage to see Mark Cavenish win on the Champs-Elysees, the same year the race was won by Bradley Wiggins. It’s great to see the Tour from space!
Paris 2024 Olympics
Sentinel-2 Image of Paris, France. Image acquired on 16th December 2023. Image courtesy of ESA/Copernicus Data Hub.
Although we said we went to Paris, this is the first year that the Tour has not finished in the French capital, and this is because the Olympics begin on Friday. In a previous blog we’ve looked at Rio from space, and the image to the right is of the French capital where the majority of the events are taking place. This image is a Sentinel-2 image of Paris acquired on the 16th December 2023.
At the top of the image, in the centre, the Stade de France is clearly visible and it is here where the athletics events and the rugby sevens will take place. While in the bottom left hand corner of the image you can see the Eiffel Tower, and the area around that landmark will see events for Judo, Wrestling, Beach Volleyball, Archery, and parts of the Marathon and Cycling Road Races. The river Seine itself should, hopefully, host the open water swimming and part of the Triathlon. Finally, to the north-west of the Eiffel Tower, just along from the Arc de Triumph, is the Paris La Defense Arena that’s one of the aquatic venues for the games, which will see swimming and water polo.
There are many other venues around Paris for the Olympics, but a lot of them can be found in this image! See how many you can find as we go through the games!
Remember that it is possible to see sport from space!
