(Relaxnews)The Tour de France, the Ironman European Championship, the Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge, the World Games in Taiwan and the Graveyard Call skate championship,  are among the international sports highlights for July 2009.

Tour de France
July 4-26
The most renowned cycling race in the world, the 96th edition of the Tour de France covers a distance of 3,500 kilometers and will visit a total of six countries.
The annual bicycle race is broken down into 21 day-long segments, called stages. The times for riders to complete each stage are totaled to determine the final winner of the race. The rider with the least elapsed time each day bears the famed yellow jersey.
The course of the race, which changes every year, always finishes in Paris. This year, it starts off in Monte-Carlo/Monaco with a time trial on Saturday, July 4 followed by the first stage on Sunday when the tour enters into France.

Ironman European Championship
July 5

The Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt is one of the major events on the German sporting calendar and one of the largest iron-man triathlons in the world.
The contest consists of a 3.8km swim on the Langener Waldsee, a 180km bicycle race through the city and its environs, and culminates in a 42.2km marathon along the banks of the Main River. In the run-up to the challenge, a number of other sporting competitions and gastronomic and cultural events are planned around the city.

Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009
July 8 - August 16
The Tall Ships Atlantic Challenge 2009 follows the historical trading routes of sailing ships of a by-gone era that circled the North Atlantic. After setting sail from Charleston, South Carolina at the end of June, the ships will head to Boston (July 8-13), and then proceed to Halifax (July 16-20) for celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Canadian city’s Naval Port. The final race begins on July 20 and will take the vessels 2,350 nautical miles across the Atlantic to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the series’ grand finale celebrations

The World Games
July 16-26
Under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee, the Word Games holds competitions in sports that don’t make the cut for the Olympics. Competitions in over 30 types of sports are featured, including billiards, tug-of-war, sumo, squash, water skiing, life-saving, petanque, dragon-boating, artistic roller skating to name a few.
Some 4,700 athletes from 105 countries and regions are expected to attend the World Games this year.

The Graveyard Call
July 23-27
Round 2 of the 2009 International Gravity Sports Association (IGSA) World Cup Series will be held in Argonay, France in the French Alps.
The first 800 meters of the Graveyard Call skateboarding championships will use the official closed road used for downhill training. And the remainder of the course is on the technical track that is approximately 1.5 km long and has top speeds of about 75 km/h. It leads to a big curve at a cemetery at the end of the course, giving the competition its eerie name.