Industrious Lannemezan now benefits from lots of green spaces. It’s been the start town for five Tour de France stages, all of them mountainous, the last of them in 2015, when Joaquim “Purito” Rodriguez won at the summit of Plateau de Beille. In this rugby stronghold, where international referee René Hourquet and France’s captain Antoine Dupont, currently the best player in the world, were born, the local club also brought through Pierre Berbizier, a former coach of the French national team. Lannemezan is also the birthplace of two Winter Olympics medallists, Paul-Henri de Le Rue (snowboard) and Marie-Laure Brunet (biathlon).
- Commune in Hautes-Pyrénées (65)
- Population: 5,800 (Lannemezanais and Lannemezanaises), 17,800 within the 57 communes comprising the Plateau de Lannemezan municipality; 230,000 in Hautes-Pyrénées