Le Vélo was the leading French sports newspaper from its inception on 1 December 1892 until it ceased publication in 1904. Mixing sports reporting with news and political comment, it achieved a circulation of 80,000 copies a day. Its use of sporting events as promotional tools led to the creation of the Paris–Roubaix cycle race in 1896, and the popularisation of the Bordeaux–Paris cycle race during the 1890s.
118-502: Its demise was a consequence of the creation of the Tour de France by L'Auto , a rival newspaper that had been founded in 1900 from the intense animosity generated by the Dreyfus affair . Le Vélo was easily recognised by the green-tinted newsprint on which it was published, so L'Auto ( née L'Auto-Vélo ) was distinguished by a yellow tint, and thus the ' Yellow Jersey ' worn by the leader of
236-426: A bicycle. Vienne and Perez wrote: Dear M. Rousseau, Bordeaux–Paris is approaching and this great annual event which has done so much to promote cycling has given us an idea. What would you think of a training race which preceded Bordeaux–Paris by four weeks? The distance between Paris and Roubaix is roughly 280km, so it would be child's play for the future participants of Bordeaux–Paris. The finish would take place at
354-465: A generous prize list which will be to the satisfaction of all. But for the moment, can we count on the patronage of Le Vélo and on your support for organising the start? The first prize represented seven months' wages for a miner. Rousseau was enthusiastic and sent his cycling editor, Victor Breyer, to find a route. Breyer travelled to Amiens in a Panhard driven by his colleague, Paul Meyan. The following morning Breyer — later deputy organiser of
472-404: A history of bicycle development, La Reine Bicyclette . The expression was made more emblematic by the picture on the cover, of a young woman wearing a modern bicycle as a crown. The title was intended to describe the spirit that the bicycle had brought to her life. Cycling enthusiasts adopted the name, calling their machine "la petite reine". Le Sieur de Va-Partout was the first French book in
590-446: A jersey, he wears the yellow one, since the general classification is the most important one in the race. Between 1905 and 1912 inclusive, in response to concerns about rider cheating in the 1904 race , the general classification was awarded according to a point-based system based on their placings in each stage, and the rider with the lowest total of points after the Tour's conclusion was
708-512: A meal and drinks with the team from Roubaix, he changed his mind. The Dreyfus affair split French opinion at the turn of the 20th century, causing passionate and physical arguments. Pierre Giffard , the Director of Le Velo , was a 'left-wing' 'Dreyfusard' while many of the manufacturers who funded the advertisements were anti-Dreyfusards, especially the Comte Jules-Albert de Dion , owner of
826-463: A new style, the literature of reporting, and therefore of a new type of author: the writer-reporter. La Fin du Cheval was Giffard's 1899 humorous thesis on the inevitable replacement of the horse by the bicycle, then by the car. It was illustrated by Albert Robida . La Guerre Infernale was an adventure novel for children, published as a serial, an edition appearing every Saturday. The 520 illustrations were created by Albert Robida. It described
944-453: A newspaper magnate whose sole condition was that his sports editor, Félix Lévitan , should join Goddet for the Tour. The two worked together—with Goddet running the sporting side, and Lévitan the financial. On the Tour's return, the format of the race settled on between 20 and 25 stages. Most stages would last one day, but the scheduling of 'split' stages continued well into the 1980s. 1953 saw
1062-658: A one/two day race ( La Course by Le Tour de France ) was held between 2014 and 2021. The first Tour de France Femmes was held in 2022 . The Tour de France was created in 1903. The roots of the Tour de France trace back to the emergence of two rival sports newspapers in the country. On one hand was Le Vélo , the first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France, on the other was L'Auto , which had been set up by journalists and businesspeople including Comte Jules-Albert de Dion , Adolphe Clément , and Édouard Michelin in 1899. The rival paper emerged following disagreements over
1180-426: A proliferation of sprint finishes on flat stages. Until 1930 , Desgrange demanded that riders mend their bicycles without help and that they use the same bicycle from start to end. Exchanging a damaged bicycle for another was allowed only in 1923 . Desgrange stood against the use of multiple gears, and for many years insisted riders use wooden rims, fearing the heat of braking while coming down mountains would melt
1298-509: A result, the UCI decided that each of Armstrong's seven wins would be revoked. This decision cleared the names of many people, including lesser-known riders, reporters, team medical staff, and even the wife of a rider who had their reputations tarnished or had been forced from the sport due to pressure from Armstrong and his support staff. Much of this only became possible after Floyd Landis came forward to USADA . Also around this time, an investigation by
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#17328766540601416-502: A rider will be given the honor of leading the rest of the peloton onto the circuit finish in their final Tour, as was the case for Jens Voigt and Sylvain Chavanel , among others. From the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, the Tour was dominated by Frenchman Bernard Hinault , who would become the third rider to win five times. Hinault was defeated by Joop Zoetemelk in 1980 when he withdrew, and only once in his Tour de France career
1534-504: A second edition of the Paris–Brest–Paris cycle-race in 1901, that he had created in 1891. L'Auto's response came on 19 December 1902, when Géo Lefèvre suggested a Tour de France which was an overwhelming circulation success in 1903. Le Vélo' s response in 1903 was a running-race from Bordeaux to Paris, but it was too late. Le Vélo disappeared in 1904 and Giffard eventually joined Desgrange's staff at L'Auto . Giffard created
1652-402: A serious problem, culminating in the death of Tom Simpson in 1967 , after which riders went on strike, although the organisers suspected sponsors provoked them. The Union Cycliste Internationale introduced limits to daily and overall distances, imposed rest days, and tests were introduced for riders. It was then impossible to follow the frontiers, and the Tour increasingly zig-zagged across
1770-517: A six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France. Long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, but nothing of the length that Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. The first Tour de France was staged in 1903. The plan was a five-stage race from 31 May to 5 July, starting in Paris and stopping in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Nantes before returning to Paris. Toulouse
1888-593: A stoker which was forbidden. On 18 July 1896 Giffard organised the inaugural Paris Marathon on behalf of Le Petit Journal , although he was editor of Le Vélo , suggesting a cooperative commercial relationship. The event followed on from the success of the marathon in the 1896 inaugural Olympics. Gifford started the race before a large crowd at the Porte Maillot, and it followed a course to Versailles and finished in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine . The race and
2006-401: A team to ride the Tour once more, but Armstrong refused because Landis was a convicted doper. Landis joined OUCH , an American continental team, and not long after this initiated contact with USADA to discuss Armstrong. In 2011 , Cadel Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour after coming up just short several times in the previous few editions. The 2012 Tour de France was won by
2124-572: A world war, years before it happened, describing an attack on London by the Germans and war between Japan and the United States . It was subsequently republished as a book. Giffard stood in the national election of March 1900, a candidate in the 2nd constituency of Seine-Inférieure ( Yvetot ). A passionate left wing Dreyfussard , he failed due to the general Dreyfusine rift in French politics, and he
2242-517: A year. That attracted between 60 and 80 entrants – the higher number may have included serious inquiries and some who dropped out – among them not just professionals but amateurs, some unemployed, and some simply adventurous. The first Tour de France started almost outside the Café Reveil-Matin at the junction of the Melun and Corbeil roads in the village of Montgeron . It was waved away by
2360-588: Is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams , with the exception of the teams that the organizers invite. Traditionally, the bulk of the race is held in July. While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same, and includes time trials, passage through the mountain's chains of the Pyrenees and the Alps , and (except in 2024 due to preparations for
2478-419: Is the second-oldest jersey awarding classification in the Tour de France. The mountains classification was added to the Tour de France in the 1933 edition and was first won by Vicente Trueba . Prizes for the classification were first awarded in 1934 . During stages of the race containing climbs, points are awarded to the first riders to reach the top of each categorized climb, with points available for up to
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#17328766540602596-455: The 2024 Summer Olympics ) a finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The modern editions of the Tour de France consist of 21 day-long stages over a 23 or 24 day period and cover approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi) total. The race alternates between clockwise and counterclockwise circuits. Twenty to twenty-two teams of eight riders usually compete. All of the stages are timed to
2714-663: The De Dion-Bouton car works. The comte was arrested and spent 15 days in gaol after a melee at the Auteuil horse-race course in 1899, because he had struck the President of France (Émile Loubet) over the head with a walking stick . Giffard's tone of reporting this led to a group of 'anti-Dreyfusards' including de Dion, Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin to withdraw advertising. Subsequently, in 1900, they entrusted Henri Desgrange (editor of Paris-Velo or Le Petit Velo ) to create
2832-518: The Dreyfus Affair . De Dion, Clément and Michelin were particularly concerned with Le Vélo —which reported more than cycling—because its financial backer was one of their commercial rivals, the Darracq company. De Dion believed Le Vélo gave Darracq too much attention and him too little. De Dion was rich and could afford to indulge his whims. The new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as the editor. He
2950-599: The General Classification five times, the Mountains Classification twice, the Points Classification three times and held the record for the most stage victories (34) until overtaken by Mark Cavendish in 2024. Merckx's dominating style earned him the nickname "The Cannibal". In 1969 , he already had a commanding lead when he launched a long-distance solo attack in the mountains which none of
3068-474: The L'Auto-Velo in direct competition to Le Vélo . The deliberate similarity of the names triggered a court case by Le Vélo for infringement of title, which it duly won on January 16, 1903 and thus L'Auto was renamed. There are slightly varying reports about the reason for the breakaway of L'Auto . Either the advertisers withdrew their custom whilst planning a paper of their own, or an alternative version has it that Giffard banished them. Either way, Le Vélo
3186-596: The Légion d'Honneur and in 1900 he was appointed an Officier (Officer) of the Légion d'Honneur. Parisian newspapers used sporting events as circulation aids, and Giffard created the Paris–Brest–Paris cycle race in 1891, the 380 kilometre Paris–Belfort running race in 1892, the world's first car race from Paris to Rouen in 1894, the Paris Marathon in 1896, and a foot-race from Bordeaux to Paris in 1903. Giffard served as
3304-415: The Paris–Brest–Paris cycle race in 1891, although it was promoted as Paris–Brest et retour in his editorials which he signed "Jean-sans-Terre" . It is now established as the oldest long-distance cycling road event. Le Petit Journal described it as an "épreuve," a test of the bicycle's reliability and the rider's endurance. Riders were fully self-sufficient, carrying their own food and clothing and riding
3422-499: The Pyrenees ) appeared in 1910 . Early tours had long multi-day stages, with the format settling on 15 stages from 1910 until 1924 . After this, stages were gradually shortened, such that by 1936 there were as many as three stages in a single day. Desgrange initially preferred to see the Tour as a race of individuals. The first Tours were open to whoever wanted to compete. Most riders were in teams that looked after them. The private entrants were called touriste-routiers— tourists of
3540-495: The Tour de France and a leading official of the Union Cycliste Internationale — continued by bike. The wind blew, the rain fell and the temperature dropped. Breyer reached Roubaix filthy and exhausted after a day of riding on disjointed cobbles. He swore he would send a telegram to Minart urging him to drop the idea, saying it was dangerous to send a race the way he had just ridden. But that evening, following
3658-543: The 'Tour de France'. Pierre Giffard was a French journalist, a pioneer of modern political reporting, a newspaper publisher and a prolific sports organizer. In 1896, he joined his colleague Paul Rousseau at the head of Le Vélo , where he wrote under the name Arator . Le Vélo was widely considered to be the premier sports newspaper produced in France. He had been a journalist with Le Figaro before becoming editor of Le Petit Journal , on whose behalf he had created Paris–Brest–Paris in 1891. On 19 July 1896 he organised
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3776-399: The 200-franc prize were won by Len Hurst , a 24-year-old brick maker from England. Giffard organised the first foot-race from Bordeaux to Paris in 1903, which was won by Francois Peguet in 114 hours 22 minutes 20 seconds with Emil Anthoine in second place. The phrase "la petite reine" has passed into the French language as a term for a bicycle. The origins are in 1891, when Giffard wrote
3894-424: The French government into doping in cycling revealed that way back during the 1998 Tour, close to 90% of the riders who were tested, retroactively tested positive for EPO. The result of these doping scandals being that in the case of Landis in 2006, and Contador in 2010, new winners were declared in Óscar Pereiro and Andy Schleck , respectively; however, in the case of the seven Tours revoked from Armstrong, there
4012-405: The Germans. The paper's largest advertisers, anti-Dreyfusards such as Count Jules-Albert de Dion , Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin believed Dreyfus guilty and removed their advertising from the paper. They then launched a rival paper, at first called L'Auto-Vélo and then simply L'Auto . A circulation war broke out between the two papers. Le Vélo's biggest publicity stunts included staging
4130-482: The Mediterranean coast on 16 August 1940. The race was taken over by his deputy, Jacques Goddet . The Tour was again disrupted by War after 1939, and did not return until 1947 . In 1944, L'Auto was closed—its doors nailed shut—and its belongings, including the Tour, sequestrated by the state for publishing articles too close to the Germans. Rights to the Tour were therefore owned by the government. Jacques Goddet
4248-732: The Netherlands and Denmark. He reported on the attack by French troops on Cheikh Bouamama fr:Cheikh Bouamama in Algeria and the taking of Sfax in Tunisia , and the arrival of the British fleet at Alexandria and the departure of the French navy. In June 1906, he went back to Le Figaro and reported the first meeting of the Russian parliament , the Douma . Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni asked Giffard to reorganise
4366-478: The Roubaix vélodrome after several laps of the track. Everyone would be assured of an enthusiastic welcome as most of our citizens have never had the privilege of seeing the spectacle of a major road race and we count on enough friends to believe that Roubaix is truly a hospitable town. As prizes we already have subscribed to a first prize of 1,000 francs in the name of the Roubaix velodrome and we will be busy establishing
4484-504: The Tour among other events—replaced Leblanc in 2007, having been assistant director for three years. In 1993 ownership of L'Équipe moved to the Amaury Group , which formed Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) to oversee its sports operations, although the Tour itself is operated by its subsidiary the Société du Tour de France. 1988 onward was arguably the beginning of what can be referred to as
4602-467: The Tour de France using banned substances, and he was no longer considered the winner by the Tour's organizers. In July 2008, the Tour reconfirmed his victory but with an asterisk label to indicate his doping offences. In 2013 Jan Ullrich , the first German rider to win the Tour (in 1997 ), admitted to blood doping. During the 1998 Tour de France , a doping scandal known as the Festina Affair shook
4720-427: The Tour de France, and cycling in general. Roche was the first winner from Ireland; however, in the years leading up to his victory, cyclists from numerous other countries began joining the ranks of the peloton. In 1982 , Sean Kelly of Ireland (points) and Phil Anderson of Australia (young rider) became the first winners of any Tour classifications from outside cycling's Continental Europe heartlands, while Lévitan
4838-491: The Tour from teams, insisting competitors enter in national teams rather than trade teams and that competitors ride plain yellow bicycles that he would provide, without a maker's name. There was no place for individuals in the post-1930s teams, and so Desgrange created regional teams, generally from France, to take in riders who would not otherwise have qualified. The original touriste-routiers mostly disappeared, but some were absorbed into regional teams. Desgrange died at home on
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4956-463: The Tour was not held in July. This saw the first of two successive victories for Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates , who was the first Slovenian winner, and the second youngest (at 21) after Henri Cornet in 1904. He also won the mountain and youth classifications, becoming the first rider since Eddy Merckx in 1972 to win three jerseys in a single Tour. Pogačar repeated this triple in 2021 . On stage 13 of this Tour, sprinter Mark Cavendish tied
5074-423: The Tour were built on an exceptional ability to ride alone against the clock in individual time trial stages, which lent him the name "Monsieur Chrono" . Anquetil enjoyed a rivalry with Raymond Poulidor , who was known as " The Eternal Second ", because he never won the Tour, despite finishing in second place three times, and in third place five times (including his final Tour at the age of 40). Doping had become
5192-418: The aforementioned classifications wears a distinctive jersey, with riders leading multiple classifications wearing the jersey of the most prestigious that he leads. In addition to these four classifications, there are several minor and discontinued classifications that are competed for during the race. The oldest and most sought-after classification in the Tour de France is the general classification. All of
5310-416: The age of 26 (white jersey), and the team classification , based on the first three finishers from each team on each stage. Achieving a stage win also provides prestige, often accomplished by a team's sprint specialist or a rider taking part in a breakaway. A similar race for women was held under various names between 1984 and 2009. Following criticism by campaigners and the professional women's peloton,
5428-478: The all-time stage wins record in the Tour. The oldest and main competition in the Tour de France is known as the "general classification", for which the yellow jersey is awarded; the winner of this is said to have won the race. A few riders from each team aim to win overall, but there are three further competitions to draw riders of all specialties: points, mountains, and a classification for young riders with general classification aspirations. The leader of each of
5546-501: The chance he worked so hard for with a stunning and improbable solo breakaway on Stage 17 in which he set himself up to win the Tour in the final time trial, which he then did. Not long after the Tour was over, however, Landis was accused of doping and had his Tour win revoked. Over the next few years, a new star in Alberto Contador came onto the scene; however, during the 2007 edition, a veteran Danish rider, Michael Rasmussen ,
5664-521: The col du Grand Bois, outside St-Étienne. The leading riders, including the winner Maurice Garin, were disqualified, though it took the Union Vélocipèdique de France until 30 November to make the decision. McGann says the UVF waited so long "...well aware of the passions aroused by the race." Desgrange's opinion of the fighting and cheating showed in the headline of his reaction in L'Auto : THE END. By
5782-408: The country, sometimes with unconnected days' races linked by train, while still maintaining some sort of loop. The Tour returned to national teams for 1967 and 1968 as "an experiment". The Tour returned to trade teams in 1969 with a suggestion that national teams could come back every few years, but this has not happened since. In the early 1970s, the race was dominated by Eddy Merckx , who won
5900-414: The demise of his old paper. Victor Breyer was the cycling editor for Le Vélo , and he was the first to reconnoitre the route for the 1896 Paris–Roubaix cycle race, which was promoted by the director at the time, Paul Rousseau. In February 1896 two Roubaix businessmen, Theodore Vienne and Maurice Perez, contacted Louis Minart, the editor of Le Vélo , and suggested a race from Paris to Roubaix . Minart
6018-551: The distinctions between a reliability trial, a general event and a race, but the main prize was for the first across the finish line in Rouen. 102 people paid the 10 franc entrance fee. On 22 July 1894, 69 cars started the 50 km selection event that would show which entrants would be allowed to start the main event, the 127 km race from Paris to Rouen. The entrants ranged from serious manufacturers like Peugeot , Panhard or De Dion to amateur owners, and only 25 were selected for
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#17328766540606136-447: The doping era. A new drug, erythropoietin (EPO), began to be used; it could not be detected by drug tests of the time. Pedro Delgado won the 1988 Tour de France by a considerable margin, and in 1989 and 1990 Lemond returned from injury and won back-to-back Tours, with the 1989 edition still standing as the closest two-way battle in TDF history, with Lemond claiming an 8-second victory on
6254-466: The doping fiasco of the previous year. Initially it seemed to be a Cinderella story when cancer survivor Lance Armstrong stole the show on Sestriere and kept on riding to the first of his astonishing seven consecutive Tour de France victories; however, in retrospect, 1999 was just the beginning of the doping problem getting much, much worse. Following Armstrong's retirement in 2005 , the 2006 edition saw his former teammate Floyd Landis finally get
6372-435: The easiest, to hors catégorie, the hardest. During his career Richard Virenque won the mountains classification a record seven times. Pierre Giffard Pierre Giffard ( French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ ʒifaʁ] ; 1 May 1853 – 21 January 1922) was a French journalist, a pioneer of modern political reporting, a newspaper publisher and a prolific sports organiser. In 1892, he was appointed Chevalier (Knight) of
6490-464: The editor of Le Petit Journal and then the sports daily Le Vélo , where his passionate support for Alfred Dreyfus and thus his opposition to the car-maker Comte Jules-Albert de Dion over the whole Dreyfus affair led de Dion to create a rival daily, L'Auto , which in turn created the Tour de France cycle race. Pierre Giffard's father was a lawyer and mayor in Fontaine-le-Dun . Pierre
6608-420: The extra effort to keep the jersey for as long as possible in order to get more publicity for the team and its sponsors. Eddy Merckx wore the yellow jersey for 96 stages, which is more than any other rider in the history of the Tour. Four riders have won the general classification five times in their career: Jacques Anquetil , Eddy Merckx , Bernard Hinault , and Miguel Induráin . The mountains classification
6726-413: The final time trial to best Laurent Fignon. The early 1990s was dominated by Spaniard Miguel Induráin , who won five Tours from 1991 to 1995 , the fourth, and last, to win five times, and the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively. He wore the race leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 60 days. He holds the record for the most consecutive Tour de France wins and shares
6844-514: The finish and the riders' times are compounded with their previous stage times. The rider with the lowest cumulative time is the leader of the race and wears the yellow jersey. While the general classification attracts the most attention, there are other contests held within the Tour: the points classification for the sprinters (green jersey), the mountains classification for the climbers (polka dot jersey), young rider classification for riders under
6962-417: The first 10 riders, depending on the classification of the climb. Climbs are classified according to the steepness and length of that particular hill, with more points available for harder climbs. The classification was preceded by the meilleur grimpeur (English: best climber ) which was awarded by the organising newspaper L'Auto to a cyclist who completed each race. The classification awarded no jersey to
7080-491: The first British rider to ever win the Tour, Bradley Wiggins , while finishing on the podium just behind him was Chris Froome , who along with Contador became the next big stars to attempt to contest the giants of Anquetil , Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong. Overshadowing the entire sport at this time, however, was the Lance Armstrong doping case , which finally revealed much of the truth about doping in cycling. As
7198-518: The first Paris marathon and helped found the Automobile Club de France . As editor of Le Vélo , his opposition to the car-maker Albert de Dion over the Dreyfus affair led de Dion to create a rival daily, L'Auto . Géo Lefèvre was a sports journalist who was recruited from Le Vélo , to work as a rugby and cycling correspondent for L'Auto . Lefèvre's idea for 'a six-day race round France' lead to
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#17328766540607316-465: The first rider to win the Tour in three successive years, 1953 , 1954 and 1955 . Jacques Anquetil became the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964 . He stated before the 1961 Tour that he would gain the yellow jersey on day one and wear it all through the tour, a tall order with two previous winners in the field— Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes —but he did it. His victories in stage races such as
7434-441: The following spring, Desgrange was planning a longer Tour, with 11 stages rather than 6—and this time all in daylight to make any cheating more obvious. Stages in 1905 began between 3 am and 7:30 am. The race captured the imagination. The Tour returned after its suspension during World War I and continued to grow. Desgrange and his Tour invented bicycle stage racing . Desgrange experimented with different ways of judging
7552-473: The glue that held the tires on metal rims (however, they were finally allowed in 1937 ). By the end of the 1920s, Desgrange believed he could not beat what he believed were the underhand tactics of bike factories. When in 1929 the Alcyon team contrived to get Maurice De Waele to win even though he was sick, he said, "My race has been won by a corpse". In 1930 , Desgrange again attempted to take control of
7670-621: The initial stages, as the physical effort the tour required was just too much. Only a mere 24 entrants remained at the end of the fourth stage. The race finished on the edge of Paris at Ville d'Avray, outside the Restaurant du Père Auto, before a ceremonial ride into Paris and several laps of the Parc des Princes. Garin dominated the race, winning the first and last two stages, at 25.68 kilometres per hour (15.96 mph). The last rider, Arsène Millocheau , finished 64h 47m 22s behind him. L'Auto 's mission
7788-458: The introduction of the Green Jersey 'Points' competition. National teams contested the Tour until 1961 . The teams were of different sizes. Some nations had more than one team, and some were mixed in with others to make up the number. National teams caught the public imagination but had a snag: that riders might normally have been in rival trade teams the rest of the season. The loyalty of riders
7906-532: The leader until the 1975 Tour de France , when the organizers decided to award a distinctive white jersey with red dots to the leader. This is colloquially referred to in English as the "polka dot" jersey. The climbers' jersey is worn by the rider who, at the start of each stage, has the largest number of climbing points. If the race leader is also leading the Mountains classification, the polka dot jersey will be worn by
8024-476: The length to 19 days, changed the dates to 1 to 19 July, and offered a daily allowance to those who averaged at least 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph) on all the stages, equivalent to what a rider would have expected to earn each day had he worked in a factory. He also cut the entry fee from 20 to 10 francs and set the first prize at 12,000 francs and the prize for each day's winner at 3,000 francs. The winner would thereby win six times what most workers earned in
8142-588: The main race. The race started from Porte Maillot and went through the Bois de Boulogne . Count Jules-Albert de Dion was first into Rouen after 6 hours and 48 minutes at an average speed of 19 km/h. He finished 3’30" ahead of Albert Lemaître ( Peugeot ), followed by Doriot ( Peugeot ) at 16’30", René Panhard ( Panhard ) at 33’30’’ and Émile Levassor (Panhard) at 55’30”. The official winners were Peugeot and Panhard as cars were judged on their speed, handling and safety characteristics, and De Dion's steam car needed
8260-486: The newsroom of the daily paper, Le Petit Journal . He began work on 1 October 1887. There he started a diary which, in the tradition of the paper, he signed with a pseudonym: Jean-sans-Terre. He stayed at the paper for 10 years. In 1891 he organised the Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race for the newspaper, followed by the Paris–Belfort running race. In 1892, he was appointed a member of the Légion d'Honneur , and in 1900 he
8378-422: The next eligible rider in the Mountains standings. At the end of the Tour, the rider holding the most climbing points wins the classification. Some riders may race with the aim of winning this particular competition, while others who gain points early on may shift their focus to the classification during the race. The Tour has five categories for ranking the mountains the race covers. The scale ranges from category 4,
8496-457: The other elite riders could answer, resulting in an eventual winning margin of nearly eighteen minutes. In 1973 he did not win because he did not enter the Tour; instead, his great rival Luis Ocaña won. Merckx's winning streak came to an end when he finished 2nd to Bernard Thévenet in 1975 . During this era, race director Felix Lévitan began to recruit additional sponsors, sometimes accepting prizes in kind if he could not get cash. In 1975 ,
8614-400: The perimeter of France. Cycling was an endurance sport, and the organisers realised the sales they would achieve by creating supermen of the competitors. Night riding was dropped after the second Tour in 1904, when there had been persistent cheating when judges could not see riders. That reduced the daily and overall distance, but the emphasis remained on endurance. The first mountain stages (in
8732-467: The podium. Pogačar won six stages, including five of the last eight stages. With his win, he became only the eighth rider, and the first since Marco Pantani in 1998 , to win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same calendar year. On stage 5 of the race, sprinter Mark Cavendish won his 35th overall Tour stage win, breaking the tie between him and Eddy Merckx , who held the record for 49 years, for
8850-450: The polka-dot jersey was introduced for the winner of the Mountains Classification . This same year Levitan also introduced the finish of the Tour at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées . Since then, this stage has been largely ceremonial and is generally only contested as a prestigious sprinters' stage. (See 'Notable Stages' below for examples of non-ceremonial finishes to this stage.) Occasionally,
8968-410: The previous year. Newspaper circulation dramatically increased as the French public followed the progress of race participants, 380 of whom completed the course in under 10 days. In Le Petit Journal on 18 June 1892, Giffard praised the event as a model for the physical training of a nation faced by hostile neighbours. The event was won by Constant Ramoge in 100 hours 5 minutes. In 1894, when Giffard
9086-409: The record for most wins with Jacques Anquetil , Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx . Induráin was a strong time trialist , gaining on rivals and riding defensively in the climbing stages. Induráin won only two Tour stages that were not individual time trials : mountain stages to Cauterets (1989) and Luz Ardiden (1990) in the Pyrenees . These superior abilities in the discipline fit perfectly with
9204-446: The record of Eddy Merckx for all time stage wins with 34. Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard , second in 2021, won in both 2022 and 2023 , with Pogačar coming second both times. The 2022 race was followed by the Tour de France Femmes , the first official Tour de France for women since 1989. In 2024 , Pogačar took back the Tour title, winning by more than six minutes over Vingegaard while Tour debutant, Remco Evenepoel , rounded out
9322-740: The reserve army in November at Le Havre . There, following the custom of the time, he was made an officer. He became a lieutenant on 10 December 1870. At the end of the war he resumed his studies at Douai , where he gained a university degree in August 1871. Giffard's father died on 1 August 1872, and Giffard moved to Paris to work as a journalist. Giffard had a long and successful career in journalism. Between 1873 and 1878 he worked for Le Corsaire , L'Evénement , La France , Le Gaulois , Le Petit Parisien , La Lanterne and finally Le Figaro . He then assumed editorship of Le Petit Journal in 1887 and of
9440-477: The road—from 1923 and were allowed to take part provided they make no demands on the organisers. Some of the Tour's most colourful characters have been touriste-routiers. One finished each day's race and then performed acrobatic tricks in the street to raise the price of a hotel. Until 1925, Desgrange forbade team members from pacing each other. The 1927 and 1928 Tours, however, consisted mainly of team time-trials , an unsuccessful experiment which sought to avoid
9558-574: The running of the race. Lévitan launched the Tour of America as a precursor to his plans to take the Tour de France to the US. The Tour of America lost much money, and it appeared to have been cross-financed by the Tour de France. In the years before 1987, Lévitan's position had always been protected by Émilien Amaury , the then owner of ASO , but Émilien Amaury would soon retire and leave son Philippe Amaury responsible. When Lévitan arrived at his office on 17 March 1987, he found that his doors were locked and he
9676-471: The same bicycle for the duration. The public response to his articles was so phenomenal that he had to change the rules and start charging 5 francs entrance, as 300 riders including 7 women signed up, although the women were later refused entrance. Each bicycle was given an 'official seal' at a two-day ceremony in front of the offices of Le Petit Journal . The 280 sealed machines included 10 tricycles , 2 Tandem bicycles , and 1 Penny-farthing . Participation
9794-647: The senior journalists of France, he went back to Le Figaro and reported the first meeting of the Russian parliament. In 1910 Giffard was employed by his arch-rival Henri Desgrange writing for L'Auto until retirement. Giffard joined Le Figaro on the strength of his reports of the World Exhibition in Paris and of conferences he organised there concerning the invention of the telephone and telegraph. He reported from Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece, Austria, Scotland, Algeria, Tunisia, Malta, Cyprus, Spain,
9912-409: The sport to its core when it became apparent that there was systematic doping going on in the sport. Numerous riders and a handful of teams were either thrown out of the race, or left of their own free will, and in the end Marco Pantani survived to win his lone Tour in a decimated main field. The 1999 Tour de France was billed as the ‘Tour of Renewal’ as the sport tried to clean up its image following
10030-534: The sports daily Le Vélo in 1896. After an abortive election attempt in 1900 Giffard returned to full-time journalism at Le Vélo until its demise in 1904. He then joined Matin , which sent him to the Far East to cover the Russia-Japan war. He returned to Paris in July 1904, weakened by illness, and proceeded to work for several papers, including Dépêche Coloniale and Petit Marseillais . In June 1906, now one of
10148-412: The stages are timed to the finish. The riders' times are compounded with their previous stage times; so the rider with the lowest aggregate time is the leader of the race. The leader is determined after each stage's conclusion: he gains the privilege to wear the yellow jersey, presented on a podium in the stage's finishing town, for the next stage. If he is leading more than one classification that awards
10266-456: The starter, Georges Abran, at 3:16 p.m. on 1 July 1903. L'Auto hadn't featured the race on its front page that morning. Among the competitors were the eventual winner, Maurice Garin , his well-built rival Hippolyte Aucouturier , the German favourite Josef Fischer , and a collection of adventurers, including one competing as "Samson". Many riders dropped out of the race after completing
10384-426: The success of the race boosted its circulation, to the detriment of Le Velo . In 1904 Le Vélo ceased its activities and collaborationist L'Auto eventually transmogrified into L'Équipe in 1944. Tour de France The Tour de France ( French pronunciation: [tuʁ də fʁɑ̃s] ) is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race held primarily in France. It is the oldest and most prestigious of
10502-513: The three Grand Tours , which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España . The race was first organized in 1903 to increase sales for the newspaper L'Auto (which was an ancestor of L'Équipe ). and has been held annually since, except when it was not held from 1915 to 1918 and 1940 to 1946 due to the two World Wars . As the Tour gained prominence and popularity, the race was lengthened and gained more international participation. The Tour
10620-431: The time trial heavy Tours of the era, with many featuring between 150 and 200 km of time trialling vs the more common 50–80 km today. The influx of more international riders continued through this period, as in 1996 the race was won for the first time by a rider from Denmark, Bjarne Riis , who ended Miguel Induráin's reign with an attack on Hautacam . On 25 May 2007, Bjarne Riis admitted that he placed first in
10738-435: The whole race. Judging the race by points removed over-influential time differences but discouraged competitors from riding hard. It made no difference whether they finished fast or slow or separated by seconds or hours, so they were inclined to ride together at a relaxed pace until close to the line, only then disputing the final placings that would give them points. The format changed over time. The Tour originally ran around
10856-400: The winner. The leader in the first Tour de France was awarded a green armband. The yellow jersey (the color was chosen as the newspaper that created the Tour, L'Auto , was printed on yellow paper), was added to the race in the 1919 edition and it has since become a symbol of the Tour de France. The first rider to wear the yellow jersey was Eugène Christophe . Riders usually try to make
10974-452: The winner. Initially he used total accumulated time (as used in the modern Tour de France) but from 1906 to 1912 by points for placings each day. Desgrange saw problems in judging both by time and by points. By time, a rider coping with a mechanical problem—which the rules insisted he repair alone—could lose so much time that it cost him the race. Equally, riders could finish so separated that time gained or lost on one or two days could decide
11092-458: Was a prominent cyclist and owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes . L'Auto sales were lower than the rival it was intended to surpass, leading to a crisis meeting on 20 November 1902 on the middle floor of L'Auto ' s office at 10 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, Paris. The last to speak was the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre . Lefèvre suggested
11210-412: Was a risk, the trade said, that the industry would die if factories were not allowed the publicity of the Tour de France. The Tour returned to trade teams in 1962. In the same year, Émilion Amaury, owner of le Parisien Libéré , became financially involved in the Tour. He made Félix Lévitan co-organizer of the Tour, and it was decided that Levitan would focus on the financial issues, while Jacques Goddet
11328-692: Was a victim of de Dion 's sometimes violent anti-Dreyfussard stance. De Dion had distributed free copies of Giffard's humorous book La Fin du Cheval , claiming it to be Giffard's political program. In 1892, Giffard was appointed 'Chevalier' (Knight) of the Légion d'Honneur and in September 1900, at the Paris Exposition, he was appointed an 'Officier' (Officer) of the Légion d'Honneur. He died on 21 January 1922 at his home in Maisons-Laffitte where he had lived since 1883. The rue de Pierre Giffard in
11446-423: Was accomplished, as circulation of the publication doubled throughout the race, making the race something much larger than Desgrange had ever hoped for. Such was the passion that the first Tour created in spectators and riders that Desgrange said the 1904 Tour de France would be the last. Cheating was rife, and riders were beaten up by rival fans as they neared the top of the col de la République, sometimes called
11564-458: Was added later to break the long haul across southern France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Stages would go through the night and finish next afternoon, with rest days before riders set off again. But this proved too daunting and the costs too great for most and only 15 competitors had entered. Desgrange had never been wholly convinced and he came close to dropping the idea. Instead, he cut
11682-432: Was again organised by Giffard but on behalf of Le Vélo . On 5 June 1892, Giffard organised a foot-race from Paris to Belfort, a course of over 380 kilometers, the first large scale long-distance running race on record. Over 1,100 competitors registered for the event and over 800 started from the offices of Le Petit Journal , at Paris Opera . This had also been the start point for the inaugural Paris–Brest–Paris cycle-race
11800-422: Was allowed to publish another daily sports paper, L'Équipe , but there was a rival candidate to run the Tour: a consortium of Sports and Miroir Sprint . Each organised a candidate race. L'Équipe and Le Parisien Libéré had La Course du Tour de France, while Sports and Miroir Sprint had La Ronde de France. Both were five stages, the longest the government would allow because of shortages. L'Équipe 's race
11918-436: Was appointed as an officer. In 1896, he joined his colleague Paul Rousseau at the head of the newspaper, Le Vélo , where he wrote under the name Arator . There on 19 July 1896 he organised the first Paris marathon and helped found the Automobile Club de France . In 1900 he threw the paper in support of Alfred Dreyfus in the Dreyfus affair . France was divided over the justice of his trial for selling military secrets to
12036-402: Was better organised and appealed more to the public because it featured national teams that had been successful before the war, when French cycling was at a high. L'Équipe was given the right to organise the 1947 Tour de France . However, L'Équipe ' s finances were never sound, and Goddet accepted an advance by Émilion Amaury, who had supported his bid to run the postwar Tour. Amaury was
12154-421: Was directly involved in a 'circulation war' that only one side could win. Le Vélo had always achieved good circulation boosts from the cycle races it sponsored, including the second edition of the 1200 km Paris–Brest–Paris in 1901, as well as the yearly Bordeaux–Paris and Paris–Roubaix one-day classics. By 1903, in a bid to stem falling circulation, L'Auto launched the initial Tour de France , and
12272-423: Was editor in chief of newspaper Le Petit Journal , he organised what is considered to be the world's first car race from Paris to Rouen , sporting events were a tried and tested form of publicity stunt and circulation booster. The paper promoted it as a Competition for Horeseless Carriages (Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux) that were not dangerous, easy to drive, and cheap during the journey . Thus it blurred
12390-405: Was enthusiastic but said the decision of whether the paper would run the start and provide publicity belonged to the director, Paul Rousseau. Minart may also have suggested an indirect approach because Vienne and Perez recommended their race not on its own merits but as preparation for another. Rousseau was immediately sold on the notion, and sent his cycling editor Victor Breyer to recce the route on
12508-560: Was fired. The organisation of the 1987 Tour de France was taken over by Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet. He was not successful in acquiring more funds, and was fired within one year. Months before the start of the 1988 Tour, director Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet was replaced by Xavier Louy. In 1988, the Tour was organised by Jean-Pierre Courcol , the director of L'Équipe , then in 1989 by Jean-Pierre Carenso and then by Jean-Marie Leblanc , who in 1989 had been race director. The former television presenter Christian Prudhomme —he commentated on
12626-399: Was he soundly defeated, and this was by Laurent Fignon in 1984 . In 1986 , Hinault, who had won the year before with American rider Greg LeMond supporting him, publicly pledged to ride in support of LeMond. Several attacks during the race cast doubt on the sincerity of his promise, leading to a rift between the two riders and the entire La Vie Claire team, before LeMond prevailed. It
12744-548: Was highly competitive, and the lead changed hands eight times before Stephen Roche won. When Roche won the World Championship Road Race later in the season, he became only the second rider (after Merckx) to win cycling's Triple Crown , which meant winning the Giro d'Italia , the Tour and the Road World Cycling Championship in one calendar year. Lévitan helped drive an internationalization of
12862-404: Was in the maillot jaune late in the Tour, in position to win, when his own team sacked him for a possible doping infraction; this allowed the rising star Contador to ride mistake-free for the remaining stages to win his first. 2008 saw a Tour where so many riders were doping that, when it went ten days without a single doping incident, it became news. It was during this Tour that a UCI official
12980-543: Was influential in facilitating the participation in the 1983 Tour by amateur riders from the Eastern Bloc and Colombia. In 1984, for the first time, the Société du Tour de France organized the Tour de France Féminin , a version for women. It was run in the same weeks as the men's version, and it was won by Marianne Martin . While the global awareness and popularity of the Tour grew during this time, its finances became stretched. Goddet and Lévitan continued to clash over
13098-471: Was no alternate winner named. Team Sky dominated the event for several years, with wins for Bradley Wiggins , Chris Froome (four times) and Geraint Thomas before Egan Bernal became the first Colombian winner in 2019. The streak was interrupted only by Vincenzo Nibali 's 2014 win. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 Tour started in late August, the first time since the end of World War II that
13216-451: Was put in charge of sporting issues. The Tour de France was meant for professional cyclists, but in 1961 the organisation started the Tour de l'Avenir , the amateur version. Twice, in 1949 and 1952 , Italian rider Fausto Coppi won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, the first rider to do so. Louison Bobet was the first great French rider of the post-war period and
13334-481: Was quoted as saying, "These guys are crazy, and the sooner they start learning, the better." Roger Legeay , a Directeur Sportif for one of the teams noted how riders were secretly and anonymously buying doping products on the internet. Like Greg LeMond at the beginning of the EPO era, 2008 winner Carlos Sastre was a rider who went his entire career without a single doping incident and between approximately 1994 and 2011 this
13452-451: Was restricted to Frenchmen and 99 of the 207 (or 280 ) participants finished. Michelin 's Charles Terront won in 71 hours 22 minutes after passing Dunlop 's Jiel-Laval as he slept during the third night. Both had suffered punctures in their pneumatic tyres, but still enjoyed an advantage over riders on solid tires. The first race was a coup for Le Petit Journal and the organisers decided to run it every ten years. The second race in 1901
13570-441: Was sometimes questionable, within and between teams. Sponsors were always unhappy about releasing their riders into anonymity for the biggest race of the year, as riders in national teams wore the colours of their country and a small cloth panel on their chest that named the team for which they normally rode. The situation became critical at the start of the 1960s. Sales of bicycles had fallen, and bicycle factories were closing. There
13688-756: Was taught from the age of six by Father Biville at Saint-Laurent-en-Caux and from eight at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen . He completed his schooling in Paris , at the Lycée Charlemagne in the Marais district. It was there that he developed his republican ideas. The Franco-Prussian War started in 1870 and Giffard enrolled in the army, with his parents' reluctant permission, at Fontaine-le-Dun in Normandy . He joined
13806-405: Was the first ever victory for a rider from outside of Europe. The 1986 Tour is widely considered to be one of the most memorable in the history of the sport due to the battle between LeMond and Hinault. The 1987 edition was more uncertain than past editions, as previous winners Hinault and Zoetemelk had retired, LeMond was absent, and Fignon was suffering from a lingering injury. As such, the race
13924-524: Was the only Tour to have a winner with a clear biological passport. 2009 saw the return of Lance Armstrong and, strangely, after Contador was able to defeat his teammate, the Danish National Anthem was mistakenly played. No Danish rider was in contention in 2009, and Rasmussen, the only Danish rider capable of winning the Tour during this era, was not even in the race. Another rider absent was Floyd Landis, who had asked Armstrong to get him back on
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