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Tour de France

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Biker

Guest
The Tour de France started in 1903 and is the world's largest cycle race. It is a 23-day, 21-stage bicycle road race usually run over more than 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi). The route traces a circuit around most areas of France, and often passes into neighbouring countries. The race is broken into stages from one town to another, each of which is an individual race. The time taken to complete each stage is added to a cumulative total for each rider, to decide the outright winner at the end of the Tour.

Together with the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) and Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain), the Tour de France is one of the three major stage races. While the other two European Grand Tours are well known in Europe, they are relatively unknown outside the continent, and even the UCI World Cycling Championship is familiar only to cycling enthusiasts. The Tour de France, in contrast, has long been a household sporting name around the globe, even to those not interested in cycling.[citation needed]

As with most cycling races, competitors enter as part of a team. The race consists of 20 to 22 teams with nine riders each. Traditionally, entry is by invitation, invitations granted only to the best professional teams. The organizers recently have utilized UCI points (based upon team riders/results) to determine which teams would gain automatic entry into the tour and then typically reserve 2-4 slots to large teams or French continental teams not able to race in the tour based upon their individual team results. Each team, known by the name of its sponsor, wears a distinctive jersey and riders assist one another and have access to a shared team car (a mobile version of pit crews in car racing).

The 2008 Tour de France began on July 5 and will run until July 27.
 
Tour de france History

The dominant sports newspaper in France at the end of the 19th century was Le Vélo. Like other sports papers, it mixed sports reports with news and political comment. France was split socially over the guilt or innocence of a soldier, Alfred Dreyfus, who had been found guilty of selling secrets to the Germans. Le Vélo stood for Dreyfus's innocence while some of its biggest advertisers, notably the owner of the Dion car works, believed him guilty[1]. Angry scenes followed between the advertisers and the editor, Pierre Giffard, and the advertisers withdrew their support and started a rival paper.

It was to promote sales of the rival L'Auto, ancestor to the present l'Équipe, that the Tour de France began. It was a publicity measure to outdo the Paris-Brest et retour race organised by Giffard. The idea for a round-France stage race came from L'Auto's chief cycling journalist, 26-year-old Géo Lefèvre[2]. He and the editor, Henri Desgrange then discussed it after lunch at what is now the TGI Friday bar in Montmartre in Paris on November 20, 1902[2]. L'Auto announced the race on January 19, 1903. The plan was a five-week tour from May 31 to July 5; however, this proved too daunting, with only 15 entrants, so Desgrange cut the length to 19 days, changed the date to run from July 1 to 19, and offered a daily allowance which attracted 60 entrants, including amateur characters, some unemployed, some simply adventurous. It was these that helped catch the public imagination[2].

The demanding nature of the race (with the average length of the six stages being 400km the riders were sometimes expected to ride into the night)[3], caught public imagination. The race was such a success for the newspaper that the circulation, 25,000 before the 1903 Tour, increased to 65,000 after it[2]; by 1908 the race boosted circulation past a quarter of a million, and during the 1923 Tour it was selling 500,000 copies a day. The record circulation claimed by Desgrange was 854,000, achieved during the 1933 Tour.[4]

After the 1939 Tour de France, where Italy, Germany and Spain were not participating due to the growing political tensions preceding World War II, there was no Tour de France between 1940 and 1946. Several other races were held in that period, see Tour de France during the Second World War. In 1947, the Tour de France started again.

Today, the Tour is organised by the Société du Tour de France, a subsidiary of Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which is part of the media group that owns L'Équipe.
 
Tour de france Description

The Tour is a stage race, each stage being one race per day. The time each rider takes to complete each stage is accumulated. Riders are often awarded time bonuses as well as their prize for finishing, although for 2008 the organizers eliminated the time bonuses. Riders who finish in the same group are awarded the same time. Two riders finish in the same group if there is less than the length of a bike between them. A rider who crashes in the last three kilometres is given the time of the group in which he would have finished, unless the finish line is on a mountain.

The ranking of riders by accumulated time is known as the general classification. The winner is the rider with the least accumulated time after the final day.

It is possible to win overall without winning a stage, which Greg LeMond did in 1990. Winning a stage is more prestigious than winning most single-day races. Although the number of stages has varied, the modern Tour has about 20 and a total length of 3,000 to 4,000 kilometres (1,800 to 2,500 mi). The shortest Tour was in 1904 at 2,420km, the longest in 1926 at 5,745km.[5] The 2007 Tour was 3,569.9 km long.[5] There are subsidiary competitions within the race (see below), some with distinctive jerseys for the best rider.

Today, the Tour is contested by teams backed by commercial sponsors and employing complicated tactics, but Desgrange originally insisted his competitors ride as individuals, even if they had sponsorship. He penalised slipstreaming and other tactics and accepted their inevitability only from the 1920s. Even when commercial teams had become commonplace in other events, the Tour was contested by national teams from 1930 to 1961 and again in 1967 and 1968, in both cases because the organisers felt sponsors were detracting from sporting purity.

Most stages take place in France though it is common to have stages in nearby countries, such as Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Great Britain (visited in 1974 and 1994 and start of the 2007 tour). The three weeks usually include two rest days, sometimes used to transport riders long distances between stages.

In recent years, the Tour has sometimes been preceded by a short individual time trial (1 to 15km) called the prologue. Since 1975 the finish of the Tour has been on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. This is the only time the avenue is closed other than for the processions of Bastille Day and for the Paris Marathon. Before 1975, the race finished at the Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris and at the Piste Municipale.

Stages of the Tour can be flat, undulating or mountainous. They are normally contested by all the riders starting together with the first over the line winning, but they can also be run against the clock for individuals or teams. The time-trials often have a significant effect because they separate riders by substantial margins, whereas in some conventional stages participants finish together or in large groups. The overall winner is almost always a master of the mountains and time trials rather than of the more straightforward flat stages.

The race alternates between clockwise and counter-clockwise circuits of France. 2005 was clockwise — visiting the Alps first and then the Pyrenees — while 2006 went in the opposite direction. For the first half of its history, the Tour was a near-continuous loop, often close to France's borders. Rules to restrict drug-taking have, since the 1960s, limited the overall distance, the daily distance and the number of days raced consecutively, and the modern Tour skips between one city or one region and another.

A feature almost from the start has been the mountains. The roads are now good but at first they were tracks of hard-packed earth on which riders frequently had to push their bicycles. Even into the 1950s and 1960s, the road at the summit could be potholed and strewn with small rocks, and falls and serious injuries were common.

Mountain passes such as the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees have been made famous by the Tour de France and attract large numbers of amateur cyclists every day in summer, to test their speed and fitness on roads used by the champions. The physical difficulty of a climb is established by its steepness, length and its position on the course. The easiest are graded 4, most of the hardest as 1 and the exceptional (such as the Tourmalet) as beyond classification, or "hors catégorie".

Some recur almost annually. The most famous hors catégorie peaks include the Col du Tourmalet, Mont Ventoux, Col du Galibier, the climb to the ski resort of Hautacam, and Alpe d'Huez.

The combination of endurance and strength needed to complete the Tour led the New York Times to say in 2006 that the "Tour de France is arguably the most physiologically demanding of athletic events." The effort was compared to "running a marathon several days a week for nearly three weeks", while the total elevation of the climbs was compared to "climbing three Everests."[6]
 
Tour De France Famous stages


Since 1975, the final stage finishes on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, which is cobbled, making it difficult to cycle, though not as hard as the Paris-Roubaix. The race takes multiple turns over the avenue, which is lined with enormous crowds. This stage is not usually competitive in terms of the overall lead since it is flat and the leader is likely to have a sufficient margin to be unchallengeable. There have been exceptions, however. In 1987, with the Irish rider Stephen Roche leading the Spaniard Pedro Delgado by only 40 seconds, Delgado broke away from the peloton on the Champs-Élysées, threatening to snatch victory at the last minute. In the end he was caught. He and Roche both finished in the peloton, and Roche thereby won the Tour.

In 1989 the organisers returned to holding a time trial as the final stage. In it, Greg LeMond of the United States overtook the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, who held a 50-second lead, to win by eight seconds, the closest margin in the Tour's history.

The particularly tough climb of Alpe d'Huez is a favourite, providing a stage finish in most Tours. In 2004, in another experiment, the mountain time trial ended at Alpe d'Huez. This seems less likely to be repeated, following complaints from the riders of abusive spectator behavior.[7][8] Another famous mountain stage is the climb of Mont Ventoux, often claimed to be the hardest in the Tour due to the harsh conditions. The Tour usually features only one of these two climbs in a year.

To host a stage start or finish brings prestige and business to a town. The prologue and first stage are particularly prestigious. Usually one town will host the prologue (which is too short to go between towns) and also the start of stage 1. In some years, like 2008, there is no prologue. In 2007 the Tour director Christian Prudhomme stated that "in general, for a period of five years we have the Tour start outside of France 3 times and within France 2 times." [9] In addition, the first few stages often go into a neighbouring country.
 
Tour De france Prize money


Prize money has always been awarded, starting with the first Tour in 1903. From 20,000 francs the first year[10], the total prize money has increased each year. Prizes and bonuses are awarded according to the classification in each stage and the overall classifications at the end of the race. A smaller amount is paid to teams as a participation expense or a presence bonus. In 2006, a total of over €3,000,000 (US$4,800,000) was awarded, the winner of the individual general classification receiving €450,000 (US$720,000).[11] Notwithstanding these increasing amounts, the importance of the prize money has decreased through the years, but top finishers are often able to negotiate lucrative endorsement contracts. The minimum salary for a professional cyclist licensed by the UCI - the sport's international governing body - is US$36,000 per year. By contrast, the average basic salary of a footballer in the English Premiership in 2006 was £676,000 a year. By tradition, the overall winner does not keep the prize money for himself, but rather distributes it to his teammates, since he will be benefiting personally from those aforementioned endorsement contracts.
 
Classification jerseys

Apart from winning the Tour, each race has three further classifications: the points, the mountains and the best young rider. The leaders of the four competitions wear a distinctive jersey next day. Jerseys are awarded in a ceremony after each stage, sometimes before trailing riders have finished. When a single rider is entitled to more than one jersey, he wears the most prestigious and the second-placed rider in the other classification wears the jersey. For example, in the first week it is common for the overall classification (yellow jersey) and points (sprint) competition (green jersey) to be led by the same rider. In this case the leading rider will wear the yellow jersey and the rider placed second in the points competition will wear the green jersey.

The Tour's jersey colours have been adopted by other cycling stage races, and have thus come to have meaning within cycling generally, rather than solely in the Tour. For example, the Tour of Britain has yellow, green, and polka-dot jerseys with the same meaning as in the Tour de France. The Giro d’Italia differs in awarding the overall leader a pink jersey, having been organized and sponsored by La Gazzetta dello Sport, an Italian sports daily newspaper with pink pages.

Overall leader

The maillot jaune (yellow jersey), which is worn by the general classification (or overall time) leader, is the most prized. It is awarded by calculating the total combined race time up to that point for each rider. The rider with the lowest total time is the leader, and at the end of the event is declared the overall winner of the Tour.

The winner of the first Tour de France wore not a yellow jersey but a green armband.[12] There is doubt over when the yellow jersey began. The Belgian rider Philippe Thys, who won the Tour in 1913, 1914 and 1920, recalled in the Belgian magazine Champions et Vedettes when he was 67 that he was awarded a yellow jersey in 1913 when the organiser, Henri Desgrange, asked him to wear a coloured jersey. Thys declined, saying making himself more visible in yellow would encourage other riders to ride against him.[13][12]

He said:

"He then made his argument from another direction. Several stages later, it was my team manager at Peugeot, (Alphonse) Baugé, who urged me to give in. The yellow jersey would be an advertisement for the company and, that being the argument, I was obliged to concede. So a yellow jersey was bought in the first shop we came to. It was just the right size, although we had to cut a slightly larger hole for my head to go through." [13][14][15]

He spoke of the next year's race, when "I won the first stage and was beaten by a tyre by Bossus in the second. On the following stage, the maillot jaune passed to Georget after a crash."

The Tour historian Jacques Augendre called Thys "a valorous rider... well-known for his intelligence" and said his claim "seems free from all suspicion". But: "No newspaper mentions a yellow jersey before the war. Being at a loss for witnesses, we can't solve this enigma."[16]

Desgrange added the yellow jersey in 1919 because he wanted the race leader to wear something distinctive and because the pages of his newspaper, L'Auto, were yellow.[17] Additional time bonuses, in the form of a number of seconds to be deducted from the rider's overall time, are available to the first 3 riders to finish the stage or cross an intermediate sprint (see below). As of 2005, the first 3 places to finish are awarded bonuses of 20, 12, and 8 seconds respectively, while the first 3 places at intermediate sprints are awarded 6, 4, and 2 seconds. However, these bonuses are rarely significant enough to cause major upset in the classement géneral (General Classification).

Sometimes a rider takes the overall lead during a stage and gets sufficiently far ahead of the yellow jersey wearer that his current lead is greater than his time deficit to the yellow jersey in the general classification; when this happens, this rider may be referred to as being "the yellow jersey on the road". Obviously, no jerseys can be exchanged in this situation.

Points classification

Main article: maillot vert
See also: Points classification

The maillot vert (green jersey) is awarded for sprint points. At the end of each stage, points are earned by the riders who finish first, second, etc. Points are higher for flat stages, as sprints are more likely, and less for mountain stages, where climbers usually win.

Flat stages: 35, 30, 26, 24, 22, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 points are awarded to the first 25 riders across the finish.

Medium-mountain stages: 25, 22, 20, 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the first 20 riders across the finish.

High-mountain stages: 20, 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the first 15 riders across the finish.

Time-trials: 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points are awarded to the top 10 finishers of the stage.

Intermediate sprints: 6, 4, and 2 points are awarded to the first three finishers.

In case of a tie, the number of stage wins determine the green jersey, then the number of intermediate sprint victories, and finally, the rider's standing in the overall classification.

King of the Mountains

Main article: Polka dot jersey


The "King of the Mountains" wears a white jersey with red dots (maillot à pois rouges), referred to as the "polka dot jersey" and inspired by a jersey that the former organiser, Félix Lévitan saw while at the Vélodrome d'Hiver track in Paris in his youth. The competition is calculated by points awarded to the first riders at the top of designated hills and mountains, the greatest number of points being awarded for the hardest ascents.

Climbs rated "Hors Catégorie" (HC): 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points for the first 10 riders to the summit.

Category 1 climbs: 15, 13, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 points for the first 8 riders to the top.

Category 2 climbs: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 for the first 6 riders to the top.

Category 3 climbs: 4, 3, 2 and 1 points for the first 4 riders to the top.

Category 4 climbs: 3, 2 and 1 points for the first 3 riders to the top.

NOTE: For the last climb of a stage, the points are doubled (for HC, Cat 1 and Cat 2 climbs only).

In case of a tie, the rider with the most HC wins takes the jersey, then the rider with the most Cat 1 wins, etc...

Although the best climber was first recognised in 1933, the jersey was not introduced until 1975.

Other classifications

There are three lesser classifications, though only one awards the leader a jersey. The maillot blanc (white jersey) is for the best-placed rider less than 25 years old on January 1 of the year the Tour is ridden.

The "prix de combativité" goes to the rider who has done most to animate the day's racing, usually by trying to break clear of the field. It is decided by a panel of experts. The most combative rider of a stage wears a number printed white-on-red instead of black-on-white in the next stage. At the end of the Tour, an award is given to the rider thought to be the most aggressive throughout the entire tour.

The team prize is assessed by adding the times of each team's best three riders each day. The competition does not have its own jersey but since 2006 the leading team has worn numbers printed black-on-yellow instead of black-on-white. The number of riders in a team has varied but is now normally nine. Until 1930, teams represented countries, groups of countries or French regions. From 1930, but with the exception of 1967 and 1968 when there was a return to geographical teams, riders have been entered by commercial teams.

As in all road races, national and world champions wear not their ordinary team colours but their world or national championship jerseys when competing in the appropriate race: the time-trial champion in the time-trial, the road race in massed stages.

Historical jerseys

Previously, there was a red jersey for the standings in non-stage-finish sprints: points were awarded to the first three riders to pass two or three intermediate points during the stage. These sprints also scored points towards the green jersey and bonus seconds towards the overall classification, as well as cash prizes offered by the residents of the area where the sprint took place. The sprints remain, with all these additional effects, the most significant now being the points for the green jersey. The red jersey was abolished in 1989.[18]

There was also a combination jersey, scored on a points system based on standings for the yellow, green, red, and polka-dot jerseys. The design was a patchwork, with areas resembling each individual jersey design. This was abolished in the same year as the red jersey.
 
Tour De france Stages


Mass-start stages

In an ordinary stage, all riders start simultaneously and share the road. The real start (départ réel) usually is some 2 to 5 kilometres (1 to 3 mi) away from the starting point, and is announced by the Tour director in the officials' car waving a white flag.

Riders are permitted to touch (but not push or nudge) and to shelter behind each other, in slipstream (see drafting). The rider who crosses the finish line first wins. In the first week of the Tour, this often leads to spectacular mass sprints.

While only finishers are awarded sprint points, all riders finishing in an identifiable group (with no significant gap to the rider in front, as determined by race officials) are deemed to have finished the stage in the same time as the lead rider of that group for overall classification purposes. This avoids what would otherwise be dangerous mass sprints. It is not unusual for the entire field to finish in a single group, taking some time to cross the line, but being credited with the same time as the stage winner.

Time bonuses are awarded at some intermediate sprints and stage finishes to the first three riders who reach the specified point. These bonuses generally are a maximum of 20 seconds, and can allow a good sprinter to qualify for the yellow jersey early in the Tour. For the 2008 tour these time bonuses have been abandoned.

Riders who crash within the last 3 kilometres of the stage are credited with the finishing time of the group that they were with when they crashed [19]. This prevents riders from being penalised for accidents that do not accurately reflect their performance on the stage as a whole given that crashes in the final kilometre can be huge pileups that are hard to avoid for a rider farther back in the peloton. A crashed sprinter inside the final kilometre will not win the sprint, but avoids being penalised in the overall classification. The final kilometre is indicated in the race course by a red triangular pennant - known as the flamme rouge - raised above the road.

Some ordinary stages take place in the mountains, almost always causing major shifts in the General Classification. On ordinary stages that do not have extended mountain climbs, most riders can manage to stay together in the peloton all the way to the finish; during mountain stages, however, it is not uncommon for some riders to lose 40 minutes to the winner of the stage. The so-called mountain stages are often the deciding factor in determining the winner of the Tour de France. With the exception of the now traditional finish at the Champs-Elysées all famous stages, like Alpe d'Huez and Mont Ventoux, are mountain stages, and these often bring out the most spectators, who line up the roads by the thousands to cheer and encourage the cyclists and support their favorites.


Individual time trials

In an individual time trial each rider rides individually. The first stage of the tour is often a short time trial known as a prologue. The prologue is to decide who wears yellow on the opening day, and provide a spectacle for the organising city.

There are usually three or four time trials during the Tour. One may be a team time trial. Traditionally the final time trial has been the penultimate stage, and effectively determines the winner before the final ordinary stage which is not ridden competitively until the last hour. On a few occasions, the race organisers made the final stage into Paris a time trial. The most recent occasion on which this was done, in 1989, yielded the closest ever finish in Tour history, when Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds overall. Fignon wore the yellow jersey for the final stage, with a lead of 50 seconds, and was beaten by LeMond's superior time trial performance. LeMond's unusual handlebars which placed his forearms close together and reduce wind resistance, and his streamlined helmet, were considered to be a large factor in his victory.[20]


Team time trial

Often in the first week of the Tour there is a team time trial (TTT), in which each team rides together without interference from competing teams. The team time is determined by the fifth rider to cross the line; all riders ahead of the fifth rider, and those finishing within one bike length of each other, are awarded this same time. Riders who finish more than one bike-length behind their respective teams are awarded their own individual times.

The TTT has been criticised for unfairly favoring strong teams and handicapping strong riders in weaker teams. To address this criticism, the 2004 and 2005 editions of the Tour limited the maximum team time difference relative to the fastest team, according to the team rankings on the stage. The following table indicates the maximum time penalty added to the winning team's time that a team will receive, according to its team time placing. However, this does not apply to riders finishing behind their own teams, and does not protect riders in case of crashing in the last kilometre, unlike during normal stages.

For example, a team that finishes in 14th place, six minutes behind the winning team, would lose only two minutes and 20 seconds in the General Classification relative to the winners of the TTT. If the team time had been 2:13 behind the winning team, then the team time will be 2:13 assuming that this were still the 14th place.

The most recent TTT was held in 2005.
 
Tour De France Deaths

* 1910: French racer Adolphe Helière drowned at the French Riviera during a rest day.
* 1935: Spanish racer Francisco Cepeda died after plunging down a ravine on the Col du Galibier.
* 1967: July 13, Stage 13: English rider Tom Simpson died of heart failure during the ascent of Mont Ventoux. Amphetamines were found in Simpson's jersey and in his blood. His death prompted officials to accelerate drug testing.
* 1995: July 18, stage 15: Italian racer Fabio Casartelli crashed at approximately 88 km/h (55 mph) descending the Col de Portet d'Aspet. Casartelli hit his head on a concrete block and died on the scene. He did not have a helmet, although the race doctor who attended to him maintains that it is unlikely one would have saved him as it would not have protected the part of his head that hit the concrete block. [41]

Apart from the deaths of riders, another four fatal accidents have also occurred.

* 1957: July 14, motorcycle rider Rene Wagter and his passenger Alex Virot, a journalist for Radio-Luxembourg, slipped on gravel and went off a road without barriers in the mountains near Ax-les-Thermes.
* 1958: An official, Constant Wouters, died after an accident with sprinter André Darrigade during the final stage of the tour at the Parc des Princes.[42]
* 2000: A 12-year-old from Ginasservis known as Phillippe was hit by a car in the Tour de France publicity caravan.[43]
* 2002: A seven-year-old boy, Melvin Pompele, died near Retjons after running in front of the caravan.[43]
 
Tour De France Statistics

One rider has won seven times:

* Lance Armstrong (USA) in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 (seven consecutive years).

Four other riders have won five times:

* Jacques Anquetil (France) in 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964;
* Eddy Merckx (Belgium) in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974;
* Bernard Hinault (France) in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985;
* Miguel Indurain (Spain) in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995 (the first to do so in five consecutive years).

Three other riders have won three times:

* Philippe Thys (Belgium) in 1913, 1914, and 1920;
* Louison Bobet (France) in 1953, 1954, and 1955;
* Greg LeMond (USA) in 1986, 1989, and 1990.

The youngest winner was Henri Cornet aged 19 in 1904. Next youngest was Romain Maes aged 21 in 1935.

The oldest winner was Firmin Lambot aged 36 in 1922. Next oldest were Henri Pelissier (1923) and Gino Bartali (1948) both 34.

Gino Bartali holds the longest time span between titles, having earned his first and last Tour victories 10 years apart (in 1938 and 1948).

Riders from France have won most (36), followed by Belgium (18), United States (10), Spain (10), Italy (9), Luxembourg (4), Switzerland and the Netherlands (2 each) and Ireland, Denmark and Germany (1 each).

One rider has won the points competition six times:

* Erik Zabel (Germany) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 (consecutive years)

One rider has won the King of the Mountains seven times:

* Richard Virenque (France) in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2004.

Two riders have won the King of the Mountains six times:

* Federico Bahamontes (Spain) in 1954, 1958, 1959, 1962, 1963, 1964
* Lucien van Impe (Belgium) in 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1983

One rider has won the King of the Mountains, the points competition, and the Tour in the same year:

* Eddy Merckx (Belgium) in 1969. Merckx would also have won the award for best young rider had it been conducted in that year; that competition was not initiated until 1975.

The most appearances have been by Joop Zoetemelk with 16 and no abandonments. Three riders (Lucien van Impe, Guy Nulens and Viatcheslav Ekimov) have made 15 appearances; van Impe and Ekimov finished all 15 whereas Nulens abandoned twice.

In the early years of the Tour, cyclists rode individually, and were sometimes even forbidden by the organization to ride together. This led to large gaps between the winner and the number two. Since the cyclists tend to stay together in a peloton, the margins of the winner have become smaller, as the difference can only originate from time trials or breakaways. In the table below, the ten smallest margins between the winner and the second placed cyclists at the end of the Tour are given.[44]
 
The Leaders' Jerseys:

  • Yellow Jersey for the General Time Classification
  • Green Jersey for the General Points Classification
  • There are three intermediate sprints on each of the first seven non time-trial stages and two on each stage thereafter
  • White and Red Polka-Dotted Jersey for the Best Climber Classification
  • White Jersey for the Best Young Rider, for riders no more than 25 years old in the year of the race
This year's Tour:
  • 21 stages over a total distance of 3,554 kilometres
  • For the first time since 1967 there will be no prologue
  • There are no time bonuses on offer for placing in intermediate sprints and stage finishes, as has previously been the norm
  • There are 10 flat stages, five mountain stages, four medium mountain stage and two individual time trials
  • Stage five, between Cholet and Chateauroux is the longest at 232km
  • The two rest days are July 15th and July 21st
  • There are four mountain finishes and 19 passes of category 2, category 1 or greater will be climbed
  • The highest climb is on Stage 16 where riders reach an altitude of 2802m on Cime de la Bonette-Restefond
  • The finish to Stage 15, the second rest day and the start of Stage 16 are in Italy
  • There are 10 new stop-over towns (including the two in Italy)
Tour facts:
  • First Tour: 1903
  • Shortest Tour: 2,388 kilometres in 1904
  • Longest Tour: 5,745 kilometres in 1926
  • Longest stage: 482 kilometres from Les Sables d'Olonne to Bayonne in 1919
  • Fewest stages: Six in 1903
  • Most stages: 31 in 1937
  • Fewest participants: 60 in 1903, 1905 and 1934
  • Most participants: 210 in 1986
  • Seven-time winner: Lance Armstrong (1999, 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05)
  • Five-time winners:
    Jacques Anquetil (1957, 61, 62, 63, 64), Eddy Merckx (1969, 70, 71, 72, 74), Bernard Hinault (1978, 79, 81, 82, 85), Miguel Indurain (1991, 92, 93, 94, 95)
  • The course and total distance travelled changes every year
  • The fastest average speed over the whole tour was 40.276 kph and was set by Lance Armstrong in 1999
  • The last hour of each stage is televised live throughout Western Europe
  • The Tour has its own motorcycle police force and a travelling bank - the only one in France allowed to open on Bastille Day
  • More than 2300 accredited journalists, 1100 technicians or chauffeurs, 4500 support staff and 1500 vehicles accompany the riders throughout the event
 
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