Daily Cycling Facts 07.07.12

The Tour de France started on this day four times - 1936, 1955, 2001 and 2007.

1936
21 stages (Stages 13, 14, 18 and 20 split into parts A and B, Stage 19 split into parts A, B and C), 4,418km.

Desgrange didn't invent the Tour, but he made it what it is.
1936 was his final year as director.

For the very first time, teams from the Netherlands, Romania and Yugoslavia took part - there had also been a team made up of Italians resident in France but, very shortly before the race was due to begin, it was decided that they would not be permitted to take part. It was very noticeable that many more spectators turned out than in previous years, largely due to fine weather and the introduction of a summer public holiday.

Now aged 71, Tour director Henri Desgrange underwent surgery on his prostate a few weeks before the Tour and was due to have another one afterwards, but convinced his reluctant surgeon to agree to him attending in a car padded out with cushions and with a doctor in attendance. At that time, many roads outside of the centre of Paris were primitive, at best cobbled and at worst, unsurfaced tracks full of potholes and gulleys (in rural areas, they would remain as such until the Tour became televised, at which point local mayors began to find the money to modernise them so that the world wouldn't think their communities backward) and even in the first stage it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to continue. He attempted to continue through Stage 2, with a fever and in great pain, but was forced to give up. He retired that day, handing over L'Auto's editorship and the role of Tour director to Jacques Goddet, then traveled to his chateau. He died four years later at his villa on the Mediterranean.

Theo Middelkamp, 1936

Paul Egli won Stage 1 in torrential rain and thus became the first Swiss rider to have ever led the Tour; after that the first week was uneventful until Stage 7 when Theo Middelkamp became the first ever Dutch rider to win a stage - prior to this Tour, he had never left the Netherlands and Ballon d'Alsace in Stage 4 was the first mountain he'd ever seen. During Stage 7, 1935 winner Romain Maes abandoned with bronchitis; 1930 winner Georges Speicher also left a short while later. Maurice Archambaud took the maillot jaune in Stage 4 but, with the race still at an early point, could not defend it for long and it passed to Sylvère Maes (who wasn't related to Romain) in Stage 8. French team leader Antonin Magne expected Maes to beat him in the Stage 13b and 14b individual time trials but he lost a lot more time that he'd hoped - after 13a he was 3'49" behind overall, after 14b the gap had risen to 8'90". Then he tried to attack in the mountains, but Maes was better than expected there as well: Magne moved into second place overall from third in Stage 16 but by the end of Stage 17 he was 26'13" behind. Belgium would also win the two remaining team time trials so, by the end of the race, Maes' lead was 26'55".

Sylvere Mais

The Dutch team finished the race with three riders, the minimum number that permitted them to remain in the teams competition. The Swiss ended up with one remaining rider, Leo Amberg in eighth place; the entire Austrian, Yugoslavian, German and Romanian teams abandoned.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Sylvère Maes (BEL) Belgium 142h 47' 32"
2 Antonin Magne (FRA) France +26' 55"
3 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL) Belgium +27' 53"
4 Pierre Clemens (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +42' 42"
5 Arsène Mersch (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +52' 52"
6 Mariano Cañardo (ESP) Spain/Luxembourg +1h 03' 04"
7 Mathias Clemens (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +1h 10' 44"
8 Leo Amberg (SUI) Switzerland +1h 19' 13"
9 Marcel Kint (BEL) Belgium +1h 22' 25"
10 Léon Level (FRA) Touriste-routier +1h 27' 57"


1955

Miguel Poblet

22 stages (Stage 1 split into parts A and B), 4,495km.
Unusually, the prologue was replaced with a two-parter first stage featuring a 102km mass start road race and a 12.5km team time trial. For the first time, photo finish technology was used, finally replacing the mirador tower from which judges watched the riders crossing the finish line, the opportunity for human error - and good old-fashioned corruption - having caused many an argument in the past. It was also the first time since the Second World War that German riders took part, not so much due to any hatred the organisers felt for German riders after the war but because riders and organisers alike knew that their safety could not be guaranteed should any members of the public wish to attack them. Now that it had been a decade since the war, the majority realised that any German rider would have been either a child or of very junior rank in the military and, thankfully, no such attack took place. They rode as part of a mixed team that was also home to riders from Australia, Austria and Luxembourg. In addition to them and the French national team there were five French regional teams and one team each from Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and - for the first time in Tour history - Great Britain (the 1937 team made up of Britons Charles Holland and Bill Burl, along with Canadian Pierre Gachon, represented the British Empire rather than just Great Britain).

Miguel Poblet won Stage 1a and became the first Spaniard to have ever worn the maillot jaune, which is quite remarkable considering Spain had sent a team as long ago as 1930 and the enormous popularity of the sport over the Pyrenees, but then he lost it that very afternoon when the Netherlands won the Stage 1b team time trial and the leader's jersey passed to Wout Wagtmans. He kept it after Stage 3, which French team leader and popular favourite for overall victory Louison Bobet won, but lost it the next day to France's Antonin Rolland who got away with a group that finished five minutes ahead of the first favourites (and nine-and-a-half minutes ahead of Bobet) and earned an overall advantage of 9'21". He lost it the next day when Wim van Est joined a break that managed to finish 17'33" ahead of the bunch, but with only 25" to make up he had little difficulty winning it back on Stage 8 - not least of all because van Est was hopelessly outclassed in the mountains which made their first appearance that day.


The mountains were what Charly Gaul had been waiting for - because when the weather was cold enough for him, nobody in the world could climb like he did. He attacked early and was the first man over Les Aravis and the Cols du Telegraphe and Galibier, finishing the stage with 13'47" over second place Ferdinand Kübler; though he was now third overall he'd started the stage 25' behind Rolland and so remained 10'17" down in the General Classification. If he'd been able to do the same on Stage 9 he might well have won the Tour: he came close, attacking early again and being the first over Vars, Cayolle and Vasson but, because of a crash, he lost time and dropped to fourth overall with a disadvantage of 11'53". Meanwhile, Bobet moved into third, 11'33" behind Rolland.

Bobet was favourite - he'd won in 1953 and 1954, was World Champion and had trained aggressively, using the Classics as preparation; his campaign unexpectedly began on Stage 11 when the race climbed Mont Ventoux for the second time in its history. Three years later, when Gaul came to the Tour with the best form he would ever realise, he was so good that Ventoux seemed to welome his presence and he won the Tour; this time it did not and he came 13th, dropping to fifth overall. The old volcano wasn't in the mood to go easy on anyone that day - as Jean Malléjac and  Kübler discovered: Malléjac hadn't even realised he'd collapsed when the doctors got to him, lying flat on the stony ground with one leg still trying to turn the pedals; and he didn't regain consciousness for a quarter of an hour (he was one of six men to collapse that day). Kübler had believed himself able to tame the mountain. Raphaël Géminiani tried to warn him: "Watch out, Ferdy - the Ventoux is not like any other col." Kübler, with his curious habit of referring to himself in the third person, replied: "Ferdy is not like any other rider." Then he tried to sprint to the summit, and hadn't got very far before he was reduced to begging for a push from spectators to get over. On the way down, ashen-faced and in a cold sweat, he found a bar and started drinking heavily. "Ferdy has killed himelf on the Ventoux," he told a press conference that night, then abandoned and never returned to the Tour. Bobet, though, was able to deal with the heat, and he was cleverer than Malléjac and  Kübler - when he saw that Gaul was suffering he realised that an unmissable opportunity had come his way and that if he rode calmly and carefully he could win the stage. He finished in second place overall, now 4'53" behind Rolland, and then waited as his batteries recharged.

Louison Bobet

As a result, Bobet was the only man able to stay anywhere near Gaul when he attacked hard on Aspin and Peyresourde in Stage 17, finishing 1'24" after him while the rest came in with +3'18" or more and becoming race leader with an advantage of 3'08" on Rolland. Gaul attacked again the next day, but this time Bobet recruited a small chase group rather than trying to work alone and after following him over the Aubisque was able to catch and then pass him; his lead now grew to 6'04" - and with only four stages to go, the Tour was his even when he lost time in the time trial.

Bobet thus became the second man to have won three Tours (the first had been Philippe Thys, in 1913, 1914 and 1920) and the first to have won three consecutively, but he suffered for it: a saddle sore that had plagued him throughout the race led to necrosis, and after the race a large quantity of rotting flesh had to be cut away from his groin, in some cases stopping just short of "important organs." He knew that he had destroyed his chances of winning again and while he entered again in 1958 he was visibly unwell throughout the race, yet drove himself on and somehow finished in 7th place overall. He never finished another Tour after that.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louison Bobet (FRA) France 130h 29' 26"
2 Jean Brankart (BEL) Belgium +4' 53"
3 Charly Gaul (LUX) Luxembourg/Mixed +11' 30"
4 Pasquale Fornara (ITA) Italy +12' 44"
5 Antonin Rolland (FRA) France +13' 18"
6 Raphaël Géminiani (FRA) France +15' 01"
7 Giancarlo Astrua (ITA) Italy +18' 13"
8 Stan Ockers (BEL) Belgium +27' 13"
9 Alex Close (BEL) Belgium +31' 10"
10 François Mahé (FRA) France +36' 27


2001

Jan Ullrich

20 stages + prologue, 3,455.2km.
French fans had complained that there were too few French teams in the 2000 Tour, so the selection procedure was altered slightly so as to admit more whilst also continuing to admit teams that had earned their places. It was one of the hardest Tours for some time - though it had only one Alpine stage, this was followed by an individual mountain time trial, then a rest day transfer straight to the Pyrenees; this meant that were five consecutive summit finishes. Two of the time trials were also longer than usual - Stage 5, contested by the teams, was 67km; Stage 18, contested by individuals, was 61km (the prologue would nowadays have to be classed as Stage 1 - at 8.2km it was longer than the maximum length currently permitted for a prologue, 8km).

Lance Armstrong was widely expected to win for the third time and, since Marco Pantani's Mercatone-Uno team hadn't be invited after a police raid turned up a syringe containing traces of insulin in his room (the eight-month ban he received as a result was later overturned when it was shown that the syringe couldn't be proven to be his), Jan Ullrich was considered the only man capable of challenging him and it was noted that the German was looking fitter than he had done since he'd won in 1997.

Armstrong sat back and took it easy for the first nine stages - a plan that could very easily have become a disaster because a 14-man break got away during Stage 8, driven on by a desire to get out of the appalling weather as much as a desire for victory: as a result, he ended Stage 9 35'19" down in the General Classification, which was far greater than he'd have liked. What was more important, however, was that he was ahead of Ullrich who was 35'46" down - after all, many a Tour has been won in the mountains, and the mountains didn't start until the next day. On Stage 10, he began playing mind games, hovering around the back of the peloton and looking as though he was sick; knowing full well that the other team's managers would be watching with great interest on the televisions fitted inside their team cars. He did nothing as Laurent Roux led over La Madeleine and the Col du Glandon. For a while, he allowed the bunch to get a short way ahead of him; then when the race began climbing the Alpe d'Huez, he caught up and looked Ullrich in the eyes before dropping the entire Tour and winning the stage by 1'59". His time on the Alpe that day - 38'01" - was the third fastest ever recorded, eleven years later it remains fourth fastest ever (and the man who beat it since then was... Lance Armstrong, in 2004).

Armstrong on hairpin #5, Alpe d'Huez, 2001

He was, though, still 20'07" behind overall, and that meant that there was work to do. Fortunately, the next day was the mountain time trial and while he wasn't the last man down the ramp (as riders prefer, since they then know the times they need to beat and how much they can hold back, saving energy), he won with a 1' lead on Ullrich and shaved seven minutes off his overall time. He beat Ullrich by a minute again on Stage 13 and this time the maillot jaune was his - Andrei Kivilev was second overall, 3'54" behind him. Ullrich trailed in fourth with +5'13" and knew that despite his form he was beaten, yet the next day when they crossed the finish line atop Luz-Ardiden he held out his hand and the two men finished with arms linked. During that stage Jonathan Vaughters - who is now the manager of the Garmin-Sharp team but was then a rider for Crédit Agricole - was stung on the face by a wasp and suffered a reaction that caused his right eye to swell so much he couldn't open it. He was prescribed a medicated cream but team manager Roger Legeay was told by the UCI that it couldn't be used as it contained cortisone - a steroid that has no recognised performance-enhancing of its own but, since it can be used to mask the presence of other steroids that do, is on the list of banned drugs. In most cases, medical exemption will be given provided a genuine prescription can be shown; this time, for reasons not entirely clear (more than one argument suggests that it was prejudice on the part of Tour organisers towards an American rider because they were angry at Armstrong's domonation of the race), it was refused. Vaughters had no option but to abandon the race.

From this point, Armstrong's lead was unassailable, especially once he increased it to 6'44" in the Stage 18 time trial. The rest of the race, therefore, passed without incident; his final advantage was 6'44".

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 86h 17' 28"
2 Jan Ullrich (GER) Telekom +6' 44"
3 Joseba Beloki (ESP) ONCE +9' 05"
4 Andrei Kivilev (KAZ) Cofidis +9' 53"
5 Igor González (ESP) ONCE +13' 28"
6 François Simon (FRA) Bonjour +17' 22"
7 Óscar Sevilla (ESP) Kelme +18' 30"
8 Santiago Botero (COL) Kelme +20' 55"
9 Marcos Antonio Serrano (ESP) ONCE +21' 45"
10 Michael Boogerd (NED) Rabobank +22' 38"


2007

Cancellara, 2007

20 stages + prologue, 3,569.9km.
For the third time in its history, the Tour visited Britain - this time, the prologue took place in London (and was held in memory of the victims of the 7th of July bombings one year earlier) and was followed by a road race from London to Canterbury the following day. Unfortunately, this edition was hit hard by doping scandals with three riders and two teams being withdrawn. Michael Rasmussen, who had been leading the race, was removed by Rabobank in line with the team's strict zero-tolerance doping policy after evidence was found to suggest that he'd lied about his whereabouts during tests prior to the Tour.

Fabian Cancellara won the prologue by 13", then survived a large crash in Stage 2 before increasing his overall advantage to 33" by winning Stage 3. He managed to maintain it at about that level with consistent good results through the first week, only letting go of the maillot jaune when the race reached the mountains in Stage 7 and he came 148th, dropping to 108th overall with a disadvantage of 22'15". Linus Gerdemann, who would later become Cancellara's team mate at Leopard Trek, became race leader with an advantage of 1'24". He didn't have it for long - Rasmussen won the next day and took the jersey from him.

Stage 13 was won by Alexander Vinokourov, who had started the race as favourite but then injured both his knees in a crash and lost a lot of time in the Alps: this placed him 5'10" behind Rasmussen and fans began to wonder if he might just win after all. However, the sample he provided to doping control after his victory turned out to have a suspiciously high level of red blood cells, evidence that he might have had a homologous transfusion (ie, one using his own preserved blood). He was, therefore, removed from the Tour and disqualified from his Stage 13 and 15 wins(later, he was banned from competition for one year; there are those, however, who still argue that he might also have been innocent - he knew that he was already under suspicion due to his links with the infamous Dr. Michele Ferrari and would be tested regularly, they point out, so why would be cheat?)

Alberto Contador

Rasmussen remained in yellow all the way through the Alps and into the Pyrenees despite an attempt Alberto Contador to take it from him in Stage 14. At the end of Stage 15, Contador was 2'23" behind overall; this rode to 3'10" when Rasmussen won Stage 16, meaning that it's possible he'd have won the Tour had he not then have been removed. However, several riders were judged likely to beat him in the Stage 19 time trial - the biggest threats being Contador and, especially, Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer - it's also very possible that he would not, even if he was cheating (Evans has never been connected to any doping case. Contador was later banned for doping in a highly controversial case, Leipheimer had "unintentionally doped" in 1996 - and, if rumours surrounding the investigation into Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel at the time of writing are to be believed, may be about to reveal more; but there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that either man was cheating in the 2007 Tour. For the majority of fans, then, there is no question of whether Rasmussen might have won or not - he doped, therefore he could never have been a true winner).

Leipheimer and Evans both beat Contador in the time trial, Leipheimer by 2'18" (which won him the stage) and Evans by 1'27", which left the Spaniard in first place overall but with an advantage of just 23" over Evans and 31" over Leipheimer. There was still one stage to go but, by gentleman's agreement, the Tour is decided at the end of the penultimate stage, the final run into Paris is largely ceremonial for everyone except the domestiques and also-rans who try to grab any last opportunity to please their sponsors while the main contenders mug it up for the press. It could have been contested and the eventual outcome could have changed completely, but neither Evans nor Leipheimer were about to break with tradition and they accepted Contador as winner.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Alberto Contador (ESP) Discovery Channel 91h 00' 26"
2 Cadel Evans (AUS) Predictor-Lotto + 23"
3 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel + 31"
4 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC + 7' 08"
5 Haimar Zubeldia (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi + 8' 17"
6 Alejandro Valverde (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne + 11' 37"
7 Kim Kirchen (LUX) T-Mobile Team + 12' 18"
8 Yaroslav Popovych (UKR) Discovery Channel + 12' 25"
9 Mikel Astarloza (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi + 14' 14"
10 Óscar Pereiro (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne + 14' 25"

Llangollen-Wolverhampton

Percy Stallard

Britain's first modern-era mass start cycling road race took place on this day in 1942, organised by Percy Stallard and without the approval of the National Cycling Union which had strictly banned all racing (other than time trials) on British roads since 1890 due to a belief that racing would lead to a ban on all bicycles on public roads. Stallard was inspired by a race on the Isle of Man (which, having its own parliament and passports, was not subject to NCU rules) and approached the police to gauge their reaction: contrary to the NCU's fears, the police were supportive and offered to help.

The NCU were livid, especially when the race passed without incident and was even quite successful - Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment. In 1945 they organised the Victory Race to celebrate the end of the war - after growing, vanishing, reappearing and growing once again, it eventually became the modern Tour of Britain.

Cyclists born on this day: Sharon Laws (born Kenya, British nationality, 1974); Werner Riebenbauer (Austria, 1974); Nigel Donnelly (New Zealand, 1968); Elizabeth Hepple (Australia, 1959); Brian Smith (Great Britain, 1967); Fabrizio Trezzi (Italy, 1967); Mirco Gualdi (Italy, 1968); Sergey Klimov (USSR, 1980); Sataporn Kantasa-Ard (Thailand, 1950); Fernand Decanali (France, 1925); Erik Zabel (East Germany, 1970); Robert Vidal (France, 1933); Hans-Jürgen Geschke (East Germany, 1943); Angelo Ciccone (Italy, 1980); Guido Fulst (West Germany, 1970); Børge Gissel (Denmark, 1915); Héctor Pérez (Mexico, 1959).

Daily Cycling Facts 06.07.12

Maurice Moritz

The eighth edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest of the Monuments that make up the five most prestigious Classic races, was held on this day in 1913. The winner was Maurice Moritz who crossed the line just ahead of the twelve other men in the final sprint and recorded a time of 7h23' - virtually nothing else is known about him. This was the only time the race was ever held in July and it was the last edition until 1919, racing in Europe being brought to a temporary halt by the First World War.


The Tour de France has started on this date three times - 1932, 1991 and 2002.

1932
21 stages, 4,479km.
The number of stages and overall distance was reduced. Henri Desgrange was still concerned that the sprinters suffered more in the mountains than the climbers did on the plain stages, so the bonification system was overhauled once again - whereas the previous year the winner had received a bonus of three minutes, now he would receive four minutes plus an extra three if he finished more than three minutes ahead of second place, while second place earned two minutes and third one minute.

Jean Aerts

Antonin Magne and Charles Pélissier stayed away, but with a team that included André Leducq, Marcel Bidot, Maurice Archambaud and Georges Speicher the French remained favourites. Their biggest rivals were the Belgians, whose Jean Aerts won the first stage; the team suffered however from internal rivalry between the French-speaking Walloons and the Flemish - when the Walloons failed to support Aerts in Stage 2 the maillot jaune passed to Kurt Stöpel (thanks to bonification), who thus became the first German rider to have ever led the Tour. The next day, Stöpel was 57th but didn't lose a great deal of time as 52 of those riders finished together, finding himself 1'45" behind stage winner Leducq, who now held the yellow jersey and, with help from his team and by making good use of his excellent descending skills to regain time lost on the climbs to come, kept it throughout the remainder of the race. Leducq finished 1'09" after Stage 4 winner Georges Ronsse, but his advantage over Stöpel remained intact and then grew by 10" on Stage 5 despite Leducq finishing 3'53" after the winner. During that stage, Spanish Vicente Trueba - who would become the very first King of the Mountains the following year - was first over the Aubisque. Like many climbers he disliked descending, lacking the weight required to prevent the bike skipping all over the road at high speed, so French touriste-routier Benoît Fauré was able to catch him on the way to the Tourmalet and got to the top first- but was denied a stage win by the Italian Antonio Pesento who caught him on the way down and then beat him in a sprint to the finish.

In the mountains, 1932

Leducq got into difficulties during Stage 6 when the race climbed Les Ares, Portet d'Aspet, Port and Puymorens, but once again he was able to use his descending skills and managed to come second with the same time as winner Frans Bonduel, thus adding another minute to his lead over Stöpel. Bonduel and Leducq were first and second on Stage 7 too, so Leducq got another minute, then increased it to 6'05"despite finishing in the same time group as the German on Stage 8 and it remained the same after Stage 9. On Stage 10, Francesco Camusso got away (and became virtual leader for a while) on the Braus and Castillon climbs and won the stage. Stöpel went after him but tired, eventually finishing in fourth place with a time 2'38" greater, but Leducq was 16th and 5'30" down - his overall lead dropped to 3'13", but on Stage 11 it increased to 7'13". He could have won now by riding safely, remaining with the peloton and making sure he had his team around him ready to chase down any breaks that might have a chance of putting a dent in his lead, but he'd developed a taste for the ecstatic French fans that greeted him with every win so he chose to go for a more glorious win and kept contesting stages - he won Stage 13, once again through his descending skills which he used this time to catch Camusso who had escaped in a snowstorm on Galibier, after which he led by 13'03"; then came third on Stage 14 to increase it by another minute. He won Stage 15 too, adding another four, and he would have won even more when he was first over the line on Sage 18 had judges not have noticed that he'd received illegal help in the form of a push from Albert Barthélemy (who was not, as many people imagine, related to Honore Barthélémy - note the very small variation in their surnames). As punishment he was relegated to 21st, taking a place among a group of riders that received the same stage time as new winner Rafaele di Paco but missed out of bonuses. Stöpel was third and won back a minute, but with three stages to go it made no difference; especially when Leducq won Stages 20 and 21 as well, taking his eventual overall advantage to 24'03".

1932 wasn't the only time Leducq got a helpful push from a
team mate - he's seen here in 1933 receiving assistance from
Georges Speicher

Organisers could not miss the fact that all 24 of those minutes came from the total of 31 awarded to Leducq; since Stöpel had been awarded seven, without the bonus system the gap between the two riders would have been just 3", which would have been the smallest winning margin before or since. This, they felt, would have been fairer; perhaps more importantly it might have made for a more exciting race - the following year, it was changed again and the winner alone received a bonus, reduced to two minutes.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1  André Leducq (FRA) France 154h 11' 49"
2  Kurt Stöpel (GER) Germany/Austria +24' 03"
3  Francesco Camusso (ITA) Italy +26' 21"
4  Antonio Pesenti (ITA) Italy +37' 08"
5  Georges Ronsse (BEL) Belgium +41' 04"
6  Frans Bonduel (BEL) Belgium +45' 13"
7  Oskar Thierbach (GER) Germany/Austria +58' 44"
8  Jef Demuysere (BEL) Belgium +1h 03' 24"
9  Luigi Barral (ITA) Touriste-routier +1h 06' 57"
10  Georges Speicher (FRA) France +1h 08' 37"


1991
22 stages (Stages 1 and 2 held on the same day) + prologue, 3,914.4km.

Thierry Marie

Thierry Marie wore the maillot jaune in Stage 1 after winning the prologue, but nobody was surprised when Greg Lemond got into a breakaway on Stage 1 and grabbed sufficient time bonuses to take it away. Having won in 1986 and then, after making an incredible come-back following a near-fatal shotgun accident, in 1989 and 1991 as well, Lemond was favourite among the public and riders; all that remained to be seen was whether he'd now keep the jersey for as much of the race as possible or let it go in a few days and then take it back later on in the race. In fact, he had it for only 42 minutes - that very afternoon, the Ariostea team beat his Z team in the team time trial and the jersey went to Rolf Sørensen. Sørensen  lost it again in Stage 5 when he crashed hard enough to destroy his bike. A domestique was on hand to supply him with a new one but, very obviously in a great deal of pain, he finished in 90th place. X-rays revealed that he'd smashed his collarbone. Marie got another two days in yellow after breaking away after 25km in Stage 6 and then staying away for the rest of the day. At 234km, it's the second longest solo break in the history of the Tour.

Stage 8, the first of two individual time trials, was expected to the where the General Classifications contenders would begin their assualts on overall victory and this proved to be the case: all of them (with the exception of Claudio Chiappucci who, if he was going to win, would do so in the mountains) fought hard for good times. Miguel Indurain used his enormous physical strength to win, but Lemond came in just 8" slower and became race leader with an advantage of 1'13". That remained the same the next day, then dropped 4" after Stage 10, the stage in which the PDM's team Tour came to a premature end: Nico Verhoeven and Uwe Raab were both unable to start due to a fever, then three of their team mates abandoned later that day. On Stage 11, the remaining four PDM riders also left the race; which immediately led to allegations of doping. However, no proof was ever found; we must, therefore, accept the official line that their illness was caused by an injection of a contaminated but legal food supplement.

Urs Zimmerman

Stage 12 started with a protest as riders refused to move for forty minutes after the race was officially started, showing solidarity for Urs Zimmermann who had been rather pettily disqualified for travelling between Stage 11 and Stage 12 by car rather than aeroplane because flying frightened him. Eventually officials relented - Zimmermann was allowed back into the race and his Motorola team manager was barred instead for failing to get permission from race organisers. The riders were also not happy about a new rule requiring them to wear helmets: there had been a strike at Paris-Nice earlier in the year, now two thirds of the peloton handed their helmets over to race officials at the start of the stage and refused to take them back until the end - which doesn't sound a particularly effective protest unless one remembers that this meant the organisers now had to look after 150 helmets and transport them from the start town to the finish. Over the last few days it had become apparent that all was not well with Lemond - and the other riders spotted it, just as any predator notices weakness: when a break consisting of Luc Leblanc, Pascal Richard and Charly Mottet looked to have a good chance of staying away in Stage 12, he found that nobody was willing to help him catch them - three stages earlier he was still le patron, but now he was an also-ran and his word no longer carried weight. Mottet took the maillot jaune, Leblanc the stage. Meanwhile, a Spanish rider named Miguel Indurain who had come tenth the year before clawed back 8". It got worse the next day: Lemond somehow got to the top of Tourmalet only a few seconds behind the race leaders, but Indurain was already long gone and even managed to catch Chiappucci on the final climb up Val Louron. As the better climber, the climb took less of a toll on Chiappucci and he was able to get back ahead and win the stage by 1", but Indurain was now in yellow - with an advantage of 3'.

Indurain on his way home, with trophy

Lemond won back a few seconds later in the race. It wasn't enough to make any meaningful difference in the General Classification, but it turned the race into a defeat rather than a crushing one. Indurain had as good as won now and could have taken things relatively easy, but instead he kept on increasing his overall time by first managing to stay within 1" of Gianni Bugno when he launched a blistering attack on the hallowed Alpe d'Huez, then won the Stage 21 time trial by 27". Never in Tour history has there been such a sharply-defined transfer between two eras.

Top Ten Final General Classificiation
1  Miguel Indurain (ESP) Banesto 101h 01' 20"
2  Gianni Bugno (ITA) Gatorade-Chateau d'Ax +3' 36"
3  Claudio Chiappucci (ITA) Carrera +5' 56"
4  Charly Mottet (FRA) RMO +7' 37"
5  Luc Leblanc (FRA) Castorama +10' 10"
6  Laurent Fignon (FRA) Castorama +11' 27"
7  Greg LeMond (USA) Z +13' 13"
8  Andrew Hampsten (USA) Motorola +13' 40"
9  Pedro Delgado (ESP) Banesto +20' 10"
10  Gerard Rué (FRA) Helvetia +20' 13"


2002
20 stages + prologue, 3,277.5km.
The Saeco team's wildcard invite was revoked shortly before the race began when news emerged that Gilberto Simoni, who had won the Giro d'Italia in 2001, had tested positive for cocaine on two occasions; Jean Delatour being invited in their place.

Ventoux, 2002

Lance Armstrong won the prologue, then settled back into the prologue for the first week with absolutely no concern when the maillot jaune went to Rubens Bertogliati after Stage 1, then Erik Zabel and then Igor González. Everyone expected him to take the lead in the Stage 9 time trial, despite the time he'd lost when he got stuck behind a crash earlier in the race. In fact he came second, making up only 8"; which, had it have been any other rider, would not have drawn comment - but it wasn't any other rider; it was Lance. Did this mean - could this mean - that after three victories his reign was coming to an end? Armstrong couldn't explain it, he chose instead to wait for the Pyrenees in Stages 11 and 12.

He won both, taking back the yellow jersey on the first day and soaring past Laurent Jalabert and Richard Virenque on the final climbs as they fought one another in their own private battle for King of the Mountains. The peloton had seriously understimated him - Lance wasn't finished, he was just getting started.

Richard Virenque

Stage 14 climbed Mont Ventoux, an opportunity for Virenque - his best years were gone, but a decisive victory on the most hallowed mountain in cycling would secure him his position among the greatest climbers of all time. He won the stage by 1'58", which was a good result but not the sort of glorious mountain triumph enjoyed by the likes of Gaul and Bahamontes. He'd won the King of the Mountains five times by this point and he'd win it two more times; but he wasn't in the same league as the Angel and the Eagle. What's more, Ventoux had tested him and he had been found lacking - he didn't look well when he arrived at the finish line. Armstrong rode wisely - he knew that Ventoux can end a rider's Tour, career and even life, so he got himself up without demanding too much from his body and finishing 2'20" later in third place. It was more than sufficient and he added almost two minutes to his lead over second place Joseba Beloki in the General Classification, then when the race left the mountains behind and went to the last time trial he won and his advantage went up to 7'17" - the time by which he won overall a day later.

Top Ten Overall General Classification

1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 82h 05' 12"
2 Joseba Beloki (ESP) ONCE +7' 17"
3 Raimondas Rumsas (LIT) Lampre +8' 17"
4 Santiago Botero (COL) Kelme +13' 10"
5 Igor González (ESP) ONCE +13' 54"
6 José Azevedo (POR) ONCE +15' 44"
7 Francisco Mancebo (ESP) iBanesto.com +16' 05"
8 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank +17' 11"
9 Roberto Heras (ESP) US Postal Service +17' 12"
10 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC +19' 05"



Cyclists born on this day:Tiffany Cromwell (Australia, 1988); Tea Vikstedt-Nyman (Finland, 1959 Jeremy Yates (New Zealand, 1982); Henry Anglade (France, 1933); Jeremy Yates (New Zealand, 1982); Fortunato Baliani (Italy, 1974); René Le Grèves (France, 1910); Phạm Văn Sau (South Vietnam, 1939); Marcin Karczyński (Poland, 1978); Tiemen Groen (Netherlands, 1946); Son Hui-Jeong (South Korea, 1987); Adam Laurent (USA, 1971); Fitzroy Hoyte (Trinidad and Tobago, 1940, died 2008); Joseph Geurts (Belgium, 1939); Luis Laverde (Colombia, 1979); Al Sellinger (USA, 1914, died 1986).

Daily Cycling Facts 05.07.12

The Tour de France began on this day in 1909, 1938, 1956, 1997, 2003 and 2008.

1909

The Tour, 1909

14 stages, 4,498km.
In 1908, Desgrange decided that all riders should race on identical bikes supplied by the Tour in an attempt to make the race a contest of skill and athleticism, rather than one that might be won by superior equipment. This had not been judged a success and was dropped in 1909 - firstly due to the expense of providing the bikes and secondly because trade teams became official: in the past, while riders did ride with teams, teams were not recognised by the race. Now the teams were official, though riders were still considered to be individuals and were expected to race as such rather than in support of a team leader. This meant the companies that ran them would put more money into the Tour - and in return, they obviously wanted to show off their bikes to the public. However, each rider was still required to complete the race using one bike only, which could only be replaced if a course official declared it irreparably damaged; at the start line each bike was given a stamped lead seal and officials checked them carefully at the start lines, finish lines and checkpoints (where, for the first time, toilets were installed - Desgrange was embarrassed that riders urinated in front of spectators, despite the fact that spectators appear to have always found this a source of great amusement and will still gather around locations thought likely to become "nature break" stops to this day). The winner was selected according to points, as had been the case since 1905; after Stage 8, by which time 79 riders had abandoned (mostly due to the awful weather), the points amassed by those riders were redistributed among the riders still in the race according to the position in which they'd have finished each stage had the race only included them at the start. This was repeated after the eleventh stage.

Faber runs with his broken bike to win Stage 4

A record 150 riders started the race; only 38 of them rode for the teams, the remainder being unsponsored correurs isolés ("isolated riders") who paid their own way. The Tour had been developing into an international event ever since the first edition, but with so many riders there were more foreigners than ever before: the French were still in the majority but there were many Belgians (5), Swiss (5)  and Italians (19) and two riders from elsewhere. Cyrille van Hauwaert won Stage 1 and became the first Belgian stage winner and the first foreigner to lead the race in Tour history, then François Faber (having become the first Luxembourger to win a stage the previous year and only the second foreigner, Faber was tipped to win by Lucien Petit-Breton) won the next when be beat Octave Lapize by 33'. Faber, at 1.88m and 88kg, was enormous by the standards of the day, hence his nickname The Giant of Colombes; he used the strength he'd built up in his work as a docker to ride solo for 200km the next day through deep snow and won again, this time beating Gustave Garrigou by 33'. On Stage 4 his chain broke with a kilometres to go, so he ran the rest of the way with his bike beside him and won that one by 10'. During Stage 5 he was first blown right of the road by a powerful crosswind and then kicked off his bike by a horse, in both cases he was able to continue and ended up beating Garrigou into second place again, this time by 5'.

Faber now had a thirteen point advantage over Garrigou and became the Tour's first superstar: in the past, French fans supported French riders, Belgian fans supported Belgian riders and so on, but Faber transcended that - 20,000 people, French, Belgian, Luxembourger and others, turned out to see him finish Stage 6 and when he won that one too they were ecstatic and his five consecutive stage wins remains a record more than a century later. Tour organisers became worried, however, that if Faber continued to dominate the race so completely, the other riders would give up all hope of winning and race despondently for second and third; so they asked him if he'd take things easy for a while: he'd either tired himself out, realised that the race was already as good as his or agreed, because Stage 7 was won by Ernest Paul - who just happened to be his half-brother. Jean Alavoine won Stage 9 (Faber had a rest and came tenth, his worst performance in the race), then Constant Ménager took the only Tour stage win of his career. Louis Trousselier, Garrigou and Paul Duboc won the following three, but they were all still too far behind Faber overall for a single stage win to make any difference. Finally, Alavoine won Stage 14 in notable circumstances - his bike became sufficiently damaged to be unridable 10km to go and, realising that locating an official and going through the formalities of being permitted a new one was going to lose significant time, he shouldered it like a cyclo cross rider and ran to the finish line where he won the stage by 6'30".

François Faber

Faber had moved to Alcyon from Peugeot at the end of 1908 and was now instrumental in the team's domination of the race, but his team mates had also ridden remarkably well: three places in the top ten went to isolés, including Ernest Paul in sixth, while Le Globe's Ménager was seventh. All the other places were taken by Alcyon. Being tall and well-built with his big moustache, Faber looked older than he was - few realise therefore that, at 22 years and seven months old, he's the third youngest man to have won a Tour a well as the first foreigner. He was only 28 when he climbed out of a trench and went into no man's land to rescue an injured comrade on the 9th of May in 1915, and was shot in the back and killed as he carried the man back. That very morning he'd received a message from his wife, informing him that she had given birth to a healthy baby girl.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 François Faber (LUX) Alcyon 37
2 Gustave Garrigou (FRA) Alcyon 57
3 Jean Alavoine (FRA) Alcyon 66
4 Paul Duboc (FRA) Alcyon 70
5 Cyrille van Hauwaert (BEL) Alcyon 92
6 Ernest Paul (FRA) – 95
7 Constant Ménager (FRA) Le Globe 102
8 Louis Trousselier (FRA) Alcyon 114
9 Eugène Christophe (FRA) – 139
10 Aldo Bettini (ITA) – 142


1938

The Tour, 1938

21 stages (Stages 6 and 17 split into parts A and B; Stages 4, 10 and 20 split into parts A, B and C), 4,694km.
Unsponsored individual riders were barred from entry for the first time - as professionalism among the sponsored riders and teams increased, they had largely ceased to be competitive some time earlier. The time bonus system was extensively overhauled in an attempt to prevent any rider who won two or three stages with a large lead from gaining an unfair advantage over one who rode consistently; now winning a stage earned 1' or a maximum of 1'15" if his lead over the second place rider was judged sufficient. Since climbers were thought to suffer less on plain stages than sprinters did in the mountains, the winner of a mountain stage was limited to one minute. Team time trials had fallen out of favour and were abandoned, not reappearing in the race until 1954, and the Col d'Iseran - a mountain that has played host to so many of the most glorious moments in the history of the Tour, was included for the first time. The Belgian and French teams (there were in fact three French teams - the national team, the Bleuets made up of riders who for various reasons couldn't be included in the national team and the Cadets, a team of young riders) were considered to be the strongest. The Italians were thought less so, but they had Gino Bartali who, having come very close to victory in 1937, was a favourite for overall victory.

The first seven stages were unremarkable, save for the unwelcome sight of Willi Oberbeck winning Stage 1 in a jersey emblazoned with the swastika of Nazi Germany. Then on Stage 8, when the race reached the Pyrenees, Bartali attacked and nobody could follow him (Georges Speicher tried to do so by hanging onto a car, but was seen by officials and disqualified) - he was the first man over the Aubisque, Tourmalet and Aspin, but then disaster struck when his rear wheel crumpled. The Belgians Félicien Vervaecke and Ward Vissers passed him and went on to take first and second place, Bartali managed to take third place 55" behind them. After the stage, Vervaecke led the General Classification with Bartali second at +2'18", but with time bonuses the next day the gap was reduced to 57".

Gino Bartali

On Stage 14, Bartali attacked again - and for a second time nobody could stop him being the first over Allos, Vars and Izoard. This time his bike didn't let him down and he finished the stage with a overall advantage of 17'45" over the Luxembourgian Matt Clemens and 21'30" over Vervaecke. he lost some time in the Stage 20b time trial, but from that point onwards his victory was never in any doubt; his final advantage was 18'27". André Leducq (winner in 1930 and 1932) and Antonin Magne (winner in 1931 and 1934) mounted a successful two-man escape in the final stage and crossed the line together, being declared joint stage winner. For Leducq, it was a record 25th stage win, since bettered by only Eddy Merckx (34) and Bernard Hinault(28) (and, since Mark Cavendish has 21 and shows no signs of slowing down at the time of writing, probably him too before long). Neither man would ever ride the Tour again.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Gino Bartali (ITA) Italy 148h 29' 12"
2 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL) Belgium +18' 27"
3 Victor Cosson (FRA) France +29' 26"
4 Ward Vissers (BEL) Belgium +35' 08"
5 Matt Clemens (LUX) Luxembourg +42' 08"
6 Mario Vicini (ITA) Italy +44' 59"
7 Jules Lowie (BEL) Belgium +48' 56"
8 Antonin Magne (FRA) France +49' 00"
9 Marcel Kint (BEL) Belgium +59' 49"
10 Dante Gianello (FRA) Bleuets +1h 06' 47


1956
22 stages (Stage 4 split into parts A and B), 4,498km.
The French government ordered the Tour to take secondary roads as much as possible so as to avoid major road closures, but the Tour and caravan was now so large that it frequently became stuck on the narrow routes and caused far more disruption than it would have done had the organisers have been permitted to take it on roads of their own choosing. A rule change allowed punctures to be remedied by changing the wheel, previously the rider had to stop and repair it. For the second time in Tour history, no previous winner started the race - this had last happened in 1927 (1903 isn't counted on account of being the first Tour). Based on form, Charly Gaul therefore became favourite.

Enough climbing talent to make a thousand mortal grimpeurs:
Gaul and Bahamontes

Gaul, who was almost as good against the clock as he was in the mountains, won the Stage 4a but remained 15'04" behind overall; however, he was expected to make up time in the mountains provided the weather was on his side - he hated hot conditions, but when it was cool nobody in the world could follow him. Unforunately, the Pyrenees tended to be too hot for him and he lost time; when the race arrived at the Alps it was looking as though he was going to run out of time - even Stage 17, the second day in the Alps when he was the first man over Sestrieres, didn't win back enough time to make much of a difference. Stage 18 was a different matter entirely: Federico Bahamontes (the only climber to ever rival Gaul) was fastest up Mont Cenis and his less-famous countryman René Marigil fastest on Croix de Fer, then Gaul launched one of the blistering attacks that in the future would win him a Tour. Having simply ridden away from the peloton, he won the stage with 3'22" on Stan Ockers and 7'29" on Gastone Nencini and Bahamontes - who was so angry at his inability to respond that he picked up his bike and threw it into a gulley (his team mates managed to get it back out and persuaded him to continue). It had been a superb stage win, but it was still too late for Gaul to take the General Classification. The King of the Mountains, meanwhile, was his.

Every once in a while, the Tour turns up a completely unexpected winner. Roger Walkowiak, who had only been given opportunity to ride at the very last moment after Gilbert Bauvin was transferred from Nord-Est-Centre to the national team, found himself in the maillot jaune after Stage 7 when he got away in an escape group (for the second time in the race) that won the stage by 18'46", but at such an early point he neither expected nor intended to keep it - team manager Sauveur Ducazeaux told him he'd be far better off losing it and seeing what happened later, because defending it would likely prove too much effort. He lost time over the coming stages, giving up the jersey in Stage 10 and few people thought he'd get it back again. However, in Stage 15 the entire Belgian became ill - an incident they blamed on food poisoning from bad fish served in a hotel the night before but which is commonly supposed (and very possibly was) caused by an unknown drug administered to them; a serious setback for the French team's strongest rivals. In Stage 17 he got away in another successful break, though this time the maillot jaune went to Wouter Wagtmans; but when Walkowiak managed to keep up with Bahamontes as Gaul was winning Stage 18 it passed back to him. Bahamontes was now probably the only rider capable of challenging him, but with only one mountain stage left his chance never came - an almost unknown rider, dismissed as an also-ran before the race even got under way, had won. He was the second rider to win a Tour without a stage win on the way to victory, the last man to do so being Firmin Lambot in 1922, and the only Tour winner to have won a single Tour stage at any point during his career.

Roger Walkowiak

Neither the press nor public were impressed; they'd wanted the young Jacques Anquetil (who had decided not to take part anyway) to win - Jacques Goddet said that the applause as he crossed the last finish line sounded more like a lamentation than a celebration. It wasn't long before the first accusations that he was an undeserving winner, a victor through luck rather than skill and effort (the term "à la Walko," to succeed in that way, became popular for a while), began to appear and he was badly hurt by them.  He rode again the next year but his spirit was broken and he rapidly dropped the bottom of the General Classification, despite a stage win at that year's Vuelta a Espana proving that he was fully capable of winning a stage in his own right; gradually, depressed, he faded away. In retirement he opened a bar in his hometown, but even local cycling fans told him he shouldn't have won and before long he gave that up too, preferring the anonymity of a job at a car factory, where he had worked before becoming a professional cyclist.

Goddet had a totally different opinion. Walowiak, he said, was his all-time favourite winner and the very archetype of what an all-rounder should be and had won the maillot jaune with his legs before keeping it with his head. Later, Bernard Hinault would also defend him - "There are people who say that Walkowiak should not have won the Tour. They should have been on that Tour! He took the jersey, he lost it and he regained it. He was not a thief. The Tour is not a gift," he insisted. Walkowiak is 85 at the time of writing. In time, the cycling world finally came to understand that Goddet and Hinault were correct and, after so many years of shameful treatment that left him preferring to pretend his great achievement had never happened he's now happy to talk about it.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Roger Walkowiak (FRA) North East-Center 124h 01'16"
2 Gilbert Bauvin (FRA) France +1'25"
3 Jan Adriaensens (BEL) Belgium +3'44"
4 Federico Bahamontes (ESP) Spain +10'14"
5 Nino Defilippis (ITA) Italy +10'25"
6 Wout Wagtmans (NED) Netherlands +10'59"
7 Nello Lauredi (FRA) South East France +14'01"
8 Stan Ockers (BEL) Belgium +16'52"
9 René Privat (FRA) France +22'59"
10 Antonio Barbosa (POR) Luxembourg/Mixed +26'03"


1997

Ullrich and Udo Bolts, 1997

21 stages + prologue, 3,943.8km.
Jan Ullrich's final advantage of 9'09" becomes the biggest gap between first and second place since Laurent Fignon beat Bernard Hinault by 10'32" in 1984. Ullrich also wins the Youth category, becoming the first rider to have won it and the General Classification in a single edition.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Jan Ullrich (GER) Telekom 100h 30' 35"
2 Richard Virenque (FRA) Festina +9' 09"
3 Marco Pantani (ITA) Mercatone Uno +14' 03"
4 Abraham Olano (ESP) Banesto +15' 55"
5 Fernando Escartín (ESP) Kelme +20' 32"
6 Francesco Casagrande (ITA) Saeco +22' 47"
7 Bjarne Riis (DEN) Telekom +26' 34"
8 José Maria Jimenez (ESP) Banesto +31' 17"
9 Laurent Dufaux (SUI) Festina +31' 55"
10 Roberto Conti (ITA) Mercatone Uno +32' 26"


2003

Armstrong in the maillot jaune after Stage 8, 2003

20 stages + prologue, 3,427.5km.
Unusually for a modern Tour, the 2003 edition started and ended in Paris - to mark the race's first century, celebrations also inspiring the organisers to keep the race entirely in France, as had been the case with early editions. The race was expected to be - and was - one of the most hotly-contested in many years and numerous favourites attempted to prevent Lance Armstrong from matching the five-victory record shared by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain; yet statistics show - and he confesses - that his preformance in this edition was the worst of his seven wins. The Tour was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award, a prize given to events and organisations that "contribute to encouraging and promoting scientific, cultural and humanistic values that form part of mankind's universal heritage."

In 2003, there was an incident that is likely to remain unique - as fans watched the tail end of the peloton go by on Galibier, they were asked to move a little further along the road. Then, without warning, a man on a mountain bike hurtled down towards the road from higher up the slope, launched into the air from a small rocky ledge and jumped clear across the riders, landing (and crashing) on the rock-strewn terrain on the other side. His name was Dave Watson, a professional freerider with the Kona Clump team; after being given a check-over by paramedics, police decided that his assistants (from a French mountain bike magazine) hadn't endangered any member of the public other than Dave himself, he was allowed to go on his way.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 83h 41' 12"
2 Jan Ullrich (GER) Bianchi +1' 01"
3 Alexandre Vinokourov (KAZ) Telekom +4' 14"
4 Tyler Hamilton (USA) Team CSC +6' 17"
5 Haimar Zubeldia (ESP) Euskaltel +6' 51"
6 Iban Mayo (ESP) Euskaltel +7' 06"
7 Ivan Basso (ITA) Fassa Bortolo +10' 12"
8 Christophe Moreau (FRA) Crédit Agricole +12' 28"
9 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC +18' 49"
10 Francisco Mancebo (ESP) iBanesto.com +19' 15"


2008

Sastre in yellow, 2008

21 stages, 3,559km.
The bonification system - which awarded time bonuses to the winners of intermediate sprints and stages - was abandoned. A feud between the ASO and the UCI finally boiled over when the ASO announced that it wasn't inviting Astana to the race due to the team's involvement in Operacion Puerto, despite a UCI rule stating that all ProTour teams were to be invited to the Grand Tours; the ASO got its way. The race remained almost entirely in France, dipping briefly into Italy at the end of Stage 15 and the start of Stage 16. Mark Cavendish won his first four Tour stages but didn't place in the top ten on points, Bernard Kohl won the King of the Mountains and was third overall but was later shown to have doped with CERA, an EPO variant, and was disqualified. To date, second place Carlos Sastre - who also won overall - has not been upgraded in the Mountains, nor has Denis Menchov in the General Classification.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC 87h 52' 52"
2 Cadel Evans (AUS) Silence-Lotto +0' 58"
3  ---
4 Denis Menchov (RUS) Rabobank +2' 10"
5 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin +3' 05"
6 Fränk Schleck (LUX) Team CSC +4' 28"
7 Samuel Sánchez (ESP) Euskaltel +6' 25"
8 Kim Kirchen (LUX) Team Columbia +6' 55"
9 Alejandro Valverde (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne +7' 12"
10 Tadej Valjavec (SLO) Ag2r +9' 05"


Cyclists born on this day: Philippe Gilbert (Belgium, 1982); Günter Kaslowski (Germany, 1934, died 2001); Ali Çetiner (Turkey, 1925); Raimondas Vilčinskas (Lithuania, 1977); Jan Kudra (Poland, 1937); Hernán López (Argentina, 1973); Amadu Yusufu (Malawi, 1958); Pramote Sangskulrote (Thailand, 1952); Glenn Magnusson (Sweden, 1969); Jo Jae-Hyeon (South Korea, 1938); Alex Zülle (Switzerland, 1968); Gustav Hentschel (USA, 1896, died 1980); Frank Elliott (Canada, 1911, died 1964); Alexander Kristoff (Norway, 1987); Ernest Bens (Belgium, 1949); Ralf Elshof (Netherlands, 1962); ...and Paul Smith, the fashion designed who wanted to be a professional cyclist (Great Britain, 1946).