Tour de la Provence organizers insisted on holding the race from February 9-12, even though it was not originally included in the 2023 UCI calendar.

Concerns about the financial viability of the event were further heightened earlier this month when Marion Luce resigned as co-race director, a position she had held since 2019.

Organizer Pierre-Maurice Courtauld told AFP on Tuesday (open in new tab) that the Tour de la Provence will be held after receiving a "favorable verdict from the French cycling federation (FFC) appeals committee."

However, AFP reported that the go-ahead from the FFC is still contingent on certain conditions being met in the first half of January. According to the news agency, the Tour de la Provence must pay the outstanding €16,000 to the Ligue Nationale de Cyclisme by January 15, and "a maximum of €139,996.83, payable in 2021 and 2022, to the police and gendarmerie . must present "a schedule validated and signed by ... the police and the gendarmerie.

The Ligue Nationale de Cyclisme questioned the finances of the event in the fall, but the Tour de la Provence subsequently defended itself to the French National Olympic and Sports Committee and the French Cycling Federation.

The Tour de la Provence must now meet UCI standards, and Courtrade insisted that the pro series event be officially added to the calendar in the first half of January. The Frenchman described the events of the past few weeks as a "Dallas soap opera" and noted that the Tour de la Provence itself is not operating at a loss.

"There are other events that have run at a huge deficit," said Courtauld of Live for Events, which took over organizing the Tour de la Provence in 2020. Live for Events also organizes the Tour de Savoie Mont-Blanc and Petanque events.

Nairo Quintana won the 2022 Tour de la Provence ahead of Julien Alaphilippe. The race has been held since 2016 and is part of a series of events held in the south of France in February along with the Etoile de Besseges and the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes et du Haut Var.