Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the
race typically covers around 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) and lasts three
weeks.
As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three
"Grand
Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from
around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages.
Individual times to finish each stage are aggregated to determine the overall
winner at the end of the race. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the
end of each day wears the leader's yellow jersey on the next day of racing. The course changes every year, but the race
has always finished in Paris. Since 1975, the
climax of the final stage has been along the Champs-Élysées.
Description
The tour typically has 20 days of racing, 2 rest days and
covers 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) The shortest Tour was in 1904 at 2,420
kilometres (1,500 mi), the longest in 1926 at 5,745 kilometres
(3,570 mi). The three weeks usually include two rest days, sometimes used
to transport riders from a finish in one town to the start in another. The race alternates between clockwise and
anticlockwise circuits of France. The first anticlockwise circuit was in 1913.
The New York Times
said 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."
The number of teams usually varies between 20 and 22,
with nine riders in each. Entry is by invitation to teams chosen by the race
organiser, the Amaury Sport
Organisation. Team members help each other and are followed by
managers and mechanics in cars.
Riders are judged by the time each has taken throughout
the race, a ranking known as the general
classification. There may be time deductions for finishing well in a
daily stage or being first to pass an intermediate point. It is possible to win
without winning a stage; this has occurred six times. There are subsidiary
competitions (see below), some with distinctive jerseys for the best rider.
Riders normally start together each day, with the first over the line winning,
but some days are ridden against the clock by individuals or teams. The overall
winner is usually a master of the mountains and of these time trials. Most
stages are in mainland France, although since the 1960s it has become common to
visit nearby countries. Andorra, Belgium, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have all hosted stages
or part of a stage. Austria, Qatar and Scotland have expressed an interest in
hosting future startsStages can be flat, undulating or mountainous. Since 1975
the finish has been on the Champs-Élysées
in Paris; from 1903 to 1967 the race finished at the Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris
and from 1968 to 1974 at the Piste Municipale
south of the capital.
Origins
The roots of the Tour de France trace to the Dreyfus Affair, a cause célèbre
that divided France at the end of the 19th century over the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, a soldier convicted—though
later exonerated—of selling military secrets to the Germans. Opinions became
heated and there were demonstrations by both sides. One was what the historian Eugen Weber called "an absurd
political shindig" at the Auteuil
horse-race course in Paris in 1899. Among those involved was Comte Jules-Albert de
Dion, the owner of the De Dion-Bouton car works, who believed
Dreyfus was guilty. De
Dion served 15 days in jail and was fined 100 francs for his role at Auteuil,
which included striking Émile Loubet,
the president of France, on the head with a walking stick.
The incident at Auteuil, said Weber, was
"...tailor-made for the sporting press." The first and the largest
daily sports newspaper in France was Le Vélo, which sold 80,000 copies a day
Its editor, Pierre Giffard,
thought Dreyfus innocent. He reported the arrest in a way that displeased de
Dion, who was so angry that he joined other anti-Dreyfusards such as Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin
and opened a rival daily sports paper, L'Auto.
The new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as editor. He was a
prominent cyclist and owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes. De Dion knew him through
his cycling reputation, through the books and cycling articles that he had
written, and through press articles he had written for the Clément tyre company
Birth
L'Auto was not the success its
backers wanted. Stagnating sales lower than the rival it was intended to
surpass led 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 most
junior there, the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre Desgrange had poached him from
Giffard's paper Lefèvre suggested 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. If it succeeded, it would help L'Auto match its rival and
perhaps put it out of business. It could, as Desgrange said, "nail
Giffard's beak shut." Desgrange and Lefèvre discussed it after lunch.
Desgrange was doubtful but the paper's financial director, Victor Goddet, was enthusiastic.
He handed Desgrange the keys to the company safe and said: "Take whatever
you need." L'Auto
announced the race on 19 January 1903.
Distances
The Tour originally ran around the perimeter of France.
Cycling was an endurance sport and the organisers realised the sales they would
achieve by creating supermen of their 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. Desgrange said his ideal race would be so
hard that only one rider would make it to Paris. A succession of doping
scandals in the 1960s, culminating in the death of Tom Simpson in 1967, led the Union
Cycliste Internationale to limit daily and overall distances and to
impose rest days. It was then impossible to follow the frontiers, and the Tour
increasingly zig-zagged across the country, sometimes with unconnected days'
races linked by train, while still maintaining some sort of loop. The modern
Tour typically has 21 daily stages and not more than 3,500 km
(2,200 mi). The shortest and longest Tours were 2,428 and 5,745 km (1,509
and 3,570 mi) in 1904 and 1926, respectively.
Advertising caravan
The Tour changed in 1930 to a competition largely between
teams representing their countries rather than the companies that sponsored
them. The costs of accommodating riders fell to the organisers instead of the
sponsors and Henri Desgrange raised the money by allowing advertisers to
precede the race.
The procession of often colourfully decorated trucks and
cars became known as the publicity caravan. It formalised an existing
situation, companies having started to follow the race. The first to sign to
precede the Tour was the chocolate company, Menier, one of those who had followed the
race. Its head of publicity, Paul Thévenin, had first put the idea to Desgrange.
It paid 50,000 old francs. Preceding the race was more attractive to
advertisers because spectators gathered by the road long before the race or
could be attracted from their houses. Advertisers following the race found that
many who had watched the race had already gone home.
Menier handed out tons of chocolate in that first year of
preceding the race, as well as 500,000 policemen's hats printed with the
company's name. The success led to the caravan's existence being formalised the
following year.
The caravan was at its height between 1930 and the
mid-1960s, before television and especially television advertising was
established in France. Advertisers competed to attract public attention.
Motorcycle acrobats performed for the Cinzano apéritif company and a toothpaste
maker, and an accordionist, Yvette Horner, became one of the most popular
sights as she performed on the roof of a Citroën Traction Avant . The modern
Tour restricts the excesses to which advertisers are allowed to go but at first
anything was allowed. The writer Pierre Bost.lamented: "This caravan of 60 gaudy
trucks singing across the countryside the virtues of an apéritif, a make of
underpants or a dustbin is a shameful spectacle. It bellows, it plays ugly
music, it's sad, it's ugly, it smells of vulgarity and money."
Advertisers pay the Société du Tour de France
approximately €150,000 to place three vehicles in the caravan. Some have more.
On top of that come the more considerable costs of the commercial samples that
are thrown to the crowd and the cost of accommodating the drivers and the
staff—frequently students—who throw them. The vehicles also have to be
decorated on the morning of each stage and, because they must return to
ordinary highway standards, disassembled after each stage. Numbers vary but
there are normally around 250 vehicles each year. Their order on the road is established
by contract, the leading vehicles belonging to the largest sponsors.
The procession sets off two hours before the start and
then regroups to precede the riders by an hour and a half. It spreads
20–25 km and takes 40 minutes to pass at between 20 and 60 km/h.
Vehicles travel in groups of five. Their position is logged by GPS
and from an aircraft and organised on the road by the caravan
director—Jean-Pierre Lachaud—an assistant, three motorcyclists, two radio
technicians and a breakdown and medical crew. Six motorcyclists from the Garde
Républicaine, the élite of the gendarmerie, ride with them
The advertisers distribute publicity material to the
crowd. The number of items has been estimated at 11 million, each person in the
procession giving out 3,000 to 5,000 items a day.A bank, GAN, gave out 170,000
caps, 80,000 badges, 60,000 plastic bags and 535,000 copies of its race
newspaper in 1994. Together, they weighed 32 tons. Spectators have died in collisions with the
caravan (see below).
Strikes, exclusions and disqualifications
In 1904 twelve riders, including winner Maurice Garin and all the stage winners,
were disqualified for various reasons including illegal use of cars and trains.
In 1907 Emile Georget
was placed last in the day's results after changing his bicycle outside a
permitted area. Edmond Gentil, sponsor of the rival Alcyon team, withdrew all his riders in protest at what
he considered too light a penalty. They included Louis Trousselier, the winner in 1905.
In 1912 and in 1913 Octave Lapize withdrew all his La Française
team in protest at what he saw as the collusion of Belgian riders.
In 1913 as well, Odile Defraye
pulled out of the race with painful legs and took the whole Alcyon team with
him.
In 1920 half the field pulled out at Les Sables d'Olonne in protest
at Desgrange's style of management.
In 1925 the threat of a strike ended Desgrange's plan that riders
should all eat exactly the same amount of food each day.
In 1937 Sylvère Maes of
Belgium withdrew all his national team after he considered his French rival, Roger Lapébie, had been punished too
lightly for being towed uphill by car.
In 1950 the two Italian teams went home after the leader of the
first team, Gino Bartali,
thought a spectator had threatened him with a knife.
In 1950 much of the field got off their bikes and ran into the
Mediterranean at Ste-Maxime. The summer had been unusually hot and some riders
were said to have ridden into the sea without dismounting. All involved were
penalised by the judges.
In 1966 riders went on strike near Bordeaux after drug tests the
previous evening.
In 1968 journalists went on strike for a day after Félix Lévitan had
accused them of watching "with tired eyes", his response to the
writers' complaint that the race was dull.
In 1978 they rode slowly all day and then walked across the line at
Valence d'Agen in protest at having to get up early to ride more than one stage
in a day.
In 1982 striking steel workers halted the team time trial.
In 1987 photographers went on strike, saying cars carrying the
Tour's guests were getting in their way.
In 1988 the race went on strike in a protest concerning a drugs test
on Pedro Delgado.
In 1990 the organisers learned of a blockade by farmers in the
Limoges area and diverted the race before it got there.
In 1991 riders refused to race for 40 minutes because a rider, Urs Zimmerman, was penalised for driving
from one stage finish to the start of the next instead of flying.
In 1991 the PDM team went home after its riders fell ill one by one
within 48 hours.
In 1992 activists of the Basque separatist movement bombed
followers' cars overnight.
In 1997 Belgian sprinter Tom Steels was expelled from the race for
throwing his drinking bottle at another rider in a bunch sprint at Marennes.
- The Festina team was disqualified after revelations of organised
doping within the team.
- After this discovery, the race stopped in protest at what the riders
saw as heavy-handed investigation of this and other doping allegations.
In 1999 demonstrating firemen stopped the race and pelted it with
stink bombs.
- Team Astana abandoned the race after Alexander
Vinokourov was caught doping, and the Cofidis
team withdrew the next day following Cristian Moreni failing a drug test
- Michael Rasmussen
was removed by his team, Rabobank, while wearing the yellow jersey for
lying about his whereabouts during a team training session in Mexico. This
was an issue as by claiming to be in Mexico he was unavailable for random
drugs tests in Europe where he was actually residing.
In 2008 Riccardo Ricco was kicked out of the race after testing
positive for CERA
In 2008 Moisés Dueñas Nevado was kicked out of the race after
testing positive for Erythropoietin
In 2008 Manuel Beltrán was kicked out of the race after testing
positive for EPO
In 2010 Alberto Contador
failed a doping test. After a series of events, the CAS finally in February
2012 declared Andy Schleck the
new winner. Also in 2010 lead out man Mark Renshaw (HTC-Columbia) was
disqualified after headbutting another rider, Julian Dean, as well as his blocking of
Garmin-Transitions rider Tyler Farrar.
Organisers
The first organiser was Henri Desgrange, although daily
running of the 1903 race was by Lefèvre. He followed riders by train and
bicycle. In 1936 Desgrange had a prostate operation. At the time, two
operations were needed; the Tour de France was due to fall between them.
Desgrange persuaded his surgeon to let him follow the race. The
second day proved too much and, in a fever at Charleville,
he retired to his château at Beauvallon. Desgrange died at home on the
Mediterranean coast on 16 August 1940. The race was taken over by his deputy, Jacques Goddet.
War interrupted the Tour. The German Propaganda Staffel
wanted it to be run and offered facilities otherwise denied, in the hope of
maintaining a sense of normality. They offered to open the borders
between German-occupied France in the north and nominally independent Vichy France in the south but Goddet
refused.
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 was allowed to
publish another daily sports paper, L'quipe, but there was a rival
candidate to run the Tour: a consortium of Sports and Miroir Sprint.
Each organised a candidate race. L'quipe and Le Parisien Libary had
La Course du Tour de France.and 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 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'quipe
was given the right to organise the 1947 Tour de France
L'quipe's finances were never
sound and Goddet accepted an advance by Émilion Amaury, who had supported his
bid to run the post-war Tour. Amaury was a newspaper magnate whose
condition was that his sports editor, Félix Lévitan
should join Goddet for the Tour. The two worked together,
Goddet running the sporting side and Lévitan the financial.
Lévitan began to recruit sponsors, sometimes accepting
prizes in kind if he could not get cash. He introduced the finish of the Tour
at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées
in 1975. He left the Tour on 17 March 1987 after losses by the Tour of America,
in which he was involved. The claim was that it had been cross-financed by the
Tour de France.. Lévitan insisted he was innocent but
the lock to his office was changed and his job was over. Goddet retired the
following year. They were replaced in 1988 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 the Tour among other events—replaced Leblanc in 2005, having
been assistant director for two years.
Current race director Prudhomme works for the Société du
Tour de France, a subsidiary of Amaury Sport
Organisation (ASO), which since 1993 has been part of the media
group Amaury Group that owns L'Équipe. It
employs around 70 people full time, in an office facing but not connected to L'Équipe
in the Issy-les-Moulineaux
area of outer western Paris. That number expands to about 220 during the race
itself, not including 500 contractors employed to move barriers, erect stages,
signpost the route and other work.
Prizes
Prize money has always been awarded. From 20,000 old francs the first year, prize money has
increased each year, although from 1976 to 1987 the first prize was an
apartment offered by a race sponsor. The first prize in 1988 was a car, a
studio-apartment, a work of art and 500,000 francs in cash. Prizes only in cash
returned in 1990.
Prizes and bonuses are awarded for daily placings and
final placings at the end of the race. In 2009, the winner received €450,000,
while each of the 21 stage winners won €8,000 (€10,000 for the team time-trial
stage). The winners of the points classification and mountains classification
each win €25,000, the young rider competition and the combativity prize
€20,000, and €50,000 for the winner of the team classification
(calculated by adding the cumulative times of the best three riders in each
team).
The Souvenir Henri Desgrange, in memory of the founder
of the Tour, is awarded to the first rider over the col du Galibier where his
monument stands, or to the first rider over the highest col in the Tour. A
similar award is made at the summit of the col du Tourmalet, at the memorial to
Jacques Goddet, Desgrange's successor.
Overall leader
The yellow jersey (maillot jaune) is worn by the general
classification leader. This is decided by totalling the time each
rider takes on the daily stages. The rider with the lowest overall time at the
end of each stage receives a ceremonial yellow bicycling jersey and the right
to start the next stage of the Tour, usually the next day, in the yellow
jersey.
The rider to receive the yellow jersey after the last stage in Paris, is
the overall winner of the Tour.
The winner of the first Tour wore not a yellow jersey but a green armband.
The yellow was first awarded
formally to Eugène Christophe,
for the stage from Grenoble on 19 July
1919. However, at the age of 67 the Belgian rider Philippe Thys (who won in 1913, 1914 and
1920) recalled in the Belgian magazine Champions et Vedettes that he was
awarded a yellow jersey in 1913 when Henri Desgrange asked him to wear a
coloured jersey. Thys declined, saying making himself more visible would
encourage others to ride against him. 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.
He spoke of the next year, when "I won the first stage and was beaten
by a tyre by Bossus in the second. On the following stage, the yellow jersey 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."
The very first rider to wear the yellow jersey from start to finish was Ottavio Bottecchia
of Italy in 1924.. Nicolas Frantz (1928) and Romain Maes (1935) are the only two other
riders who have done the same. The first company to pay a daily prize to the
wearer of the yellow jersey – known as the "rent" – was a
wool company, Sofil, in 1948. The greatest number of riders to wear the yellow
jersey in a day is three: Nicolas Frantz,
André Leducq and Victor Fontan shared equal time for a day
in 1929 and there was no rule to split them.
One rider has won seven times:
Four riders have won five times:
- Jacques Anquetil
in 1957,
1961,
1962,
1963
and 1964;
- Eddy Merckx in 1969,
1970,
1971,
1972
and 1974;
- Bernard Hinault
in 1978,
1979,
1981,
1982
and 1985;
- Miguel Indurain
in 1991,
1992,
1993,
1994
and 1995
(the first to do so in five consecutive years).
Three riders have won three times:
Seven riders have won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia in the same year:
- Eddy Merckx three times, in 1970,
1972, 1974
- Fausto Coppi
twice, in 1949, 1952
- Bernard Hinault
twice, in 1982, 1985
- Miguel Indurain
twice, in 1992, 1993
- Jacques Anquetil
once, in 1964
- Stephen Roche
once, in 1987
- Marco Pantani
once, in 1998
Riders from France have won most (36), followed by Belgium (18), Spain
(12), the United States (10), Italy (9), Luxembourg (5), Switzerland and the
Netherlands (2 each) and Australia, Denmark, Germany and Ireland (1 each).
Points classification
The green jersey (maillot vert) is given to the leader of the points
classification. At the end of each stage, points are earned by the riders who
finish first, second, etc. More points are given for flat stages and fewer for
mountain stages. The points competition began in 1953, to mark the 50th
anniversary. It was called the Grand Prix du Cinquentenaire and was won by Fritz Schaer of Switzerland. The first
sponsor was La Belle Jardinière. The current sponsor is Pari Mutuel Urbain, a
state betting company. Currently, the points classification is calculated by
adding up the points collected in the stage and subtracting penalty points.
Points are rewarded for a high finishing position in a stage or at an
intermediate sprint.
|
Type
|
1st
|
2nd
|
3rd
|
4th
|
5th
|
6th
|
7th
|
8th
|
9th
|
10th
|
11th
|
12th
|
13th
|
14th
|
15th
|
|
|
"flat"
stage finish
|
45
|
35
|
30
|
26
|
22
|
20
|
18
|
16
|
14
|
12
|
10
|
8
|
6
|
4
|
2
|
|
|
"medium
mountain" stage finish
|
30
|
25
|
22
|
19
|
17
|
15
|
13
|
11
|
9
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
|
|
"high
mountain" stage finish
|
20
|
17
|
15
|
13
|
11
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
|
|
prologue/individual
time trial
|
20
|
17
|
15
|
13
|
11
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
|
intermediate
sprint
|
20
|
17
|
15
|
13
|
11
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
7
|
6
|
5
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
In case of a tie, the leader is determined by the number of stage wins,
then the number of intermediate sprint victories, and finally, the rider's
standing in the general classification.
One rider has won the points competition six times:
One rider has won the points competition four times:
King of the Mountains
The King of the
Mountains wears a white jersey with red dots (maillot pois rouges), inspired by a jersey that
one of the organisers, Félix Lévitan, had seen at the Vélodrome d'Hiver
in Paris in his youth The competition gives points to the first to top designated
hills and mountains.
The best climber was first recognised in 1933, prizes were given from 1934,
and the jersey was introduced in 1975. The
first to wear the mountain jersey was Lucien Van Impe, who earned the honour en
route to his third mountains title.
The first Tour de France crossed no mountain passes, but several lesser
cols. The first was the col des Echarmeaux, on the opening stage from Paris to
Lyon, on what is now the old road from Autun to Lyon. The stage from Lyon to
Marseille included the col de la République, also known as the col du Grand
Bois, at the edge of St-Etienne. The first major climb—the Ballon d'Alsace in the Vosges—was featured in the 1905 race. True mountains,
however, were not included until the Pyrenees in 1910. In
that year the race rode, or more walked, first the col d'Aubisque and then the nearby Tourmalet. Desgrange once more stayed away.
Both climbs were mule tracks, a demanding challenge on heavy, ungeared bikes
ridden by men with spare tyres around their shoulders and their food, clothing
and tools in bags hung from their handlebars. The assistant organiser, Victor
Breyer, stood at the summit of the Aubisque with the colleague who had proposed
including the Pyrenees, Alphonse Steinès. Breyer wrote of the first man to
reach them:
His body heaved at the pedals, like an automaton, on two wheels. He wasn't
going fast but he was at least moving. I trotted alongside him and asked 'Who
are you? What's going on? Where are the others?' Bent over his handlebars, his
eyes riveted on the road, the man never turned his head nor uttered one sole
word. He continued and disappeared round a turn. Steinès had read his number
and consulted the riders' list. Steinès was dumfounded. 'The man is François
Lafourcade, a nobody. He has caught and passed all the cracks' ... Another
quarter-hour passed before the second rider appeared, whom we immediately
recognised as Octave Lapize.
Unlike Lafourcade, Lapize was walking, half leaning on, half pushing his
machine. But unlike his predecessor, Lapize spoke, and in abundance. 'You are
assassins, yes, assassins!' To discuss matters with a man in this condition
would have been cruel and stupid.
Desgrange was confident enough after the Pyrenees to include the Alps
in 1911.
The 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 catgorie. Notable 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. In 2012, the attributed points
were changed:
Climbs rated "hors catégorie" (HC): 25, 20, 16, 14,
12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 points awarded for first 10 riders to reach the summit.
Category 1: 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points awarded for first 6 riders to reach
the summit.
Category 2: 5, 3, 2 and 1 points awarded for first 4 riders to reach the
summit.
Category 3: 2 and 1 points awarded for first 2 riders to reach the summit.
Category 4: 1 points awarded for first rider to reach the summit.
Points awarded are doubled for finishes that are of category two or above.
One rider has been King of the Mountains seven times:
Two riders have been King of the Mountains six times:
- Federico
Bahamontes in 1954,
1958,
1959,
1962,
1963,
1964.
- Lucien Van Impe
in 1971,
1972,
1975,
1977,
1981,
1983.
Best young rider
Between 1975 and 1989, and since 2000, there has been a competition for
young riders. The rider aged under 26 who places highest in the GC gets to wear
a white jersey (maillot blanc).
Since the young rider classification was introduced in 1975, it has been
won by 29 different cyclists. Of those, six cyclists also won the general
classification during their careers (Fignon, LeMond, Pantani, Ullrich, Contador
and Schleck). On four occasions a cyclist has won the young rider
classification and the general classification in the same year—Fignon in 1983,
Ullrich in 1997, Contador in 2007 and Schleck in 2010.
Two riders have won three times:
Miscellaneous categories
The prix de la combativité
goes to the rider who most animates the day, usually by trying to break clear
of the field. The most combative rider wears a number printed white-on-red
instead of black-on-white next day. An award goes to the most aggressive rider
throughout the Tour. Already in 1908 a sort of combativity award was offered,
when Sports Populaires and L'Education Physique created Le
Prix du Courage, 100 francs and a silver gilt medal for "the rider
having finished the course, even if unplaced, who is particularly distinguished
for the energy he has used." The modern competition started in 1958. In
1959, a Super Combativity award for the most combative cyclist of the Tour was
awarded. It was initially not rewarded every year, but since 1981 it has been
given annually.
The team classification
is assessed by adding the time 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. Until 1990, the leading team would wear
yellow caps. As of 2012, the riders of the leading team wear yellow helmets.
The best national teams are France and Belgium, with 10 wins each . From 1973
up to 1988, there was also a team classification based on points (stage
classification); members of the leading team would wear green caps.
