2010 Tour de France to start in Rotterdam

PARIS (Reuters) - The 2010 Tour de France will start in Rotterdam, organizers said Thursday.

The port city was preferred to fellow Dutch town Utrecht.

"We have chosen Rotterdam for two main reasons: first, because after London (in 2007) Rotterdam as a big city shows our will to use the Tour to promote the bicycle as an urban mode of transport," Tour organizers, Amaury Sport Organization, said in a statement.

"Then because its location fits in perfectly well with the route we're planning in 2010," they added.

The Tour de France last started from the Netherlands in 1996 in s'Hertogenbosch.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot, writing by Bertrand Boucey, editing by Miles Evans)