50 Fun Facts About Tour De France

Which newspaper created the Tour de France in 1903 to boost its sales?

Its rival Le Vélo was the biggest sports daily in France; the race doubled the upstart's circulation and it survives today as L'Équipe.

In which year was the yellow jersey for the race leader introduced?

It arrived midway through the first post-war edition, and its colour matched the newsprint of the paper that ran the race.

The green jersey is awarded to the leader of which competition?

It is effectively the sprinters' prize, introduced in 1953 for the race's 50th birthday.

Which jersey is worn by the leader of the mountains classification?

The best-climber prize dates from 1933, but the spotted jersey itself only appeared decades later.

What colour jersey goes to the best-placed rider aged under 26?

Between 1989 and 1999 the young rider classification was still contested but had no jersey of its own.

Who was the first rider to win the Tour de France five times?

He won in 1957 and then four in a row from 1961 to 1964, and in 1961 he promised to take the lead on day one and keep it all the way to Paris, which he did.

Which five-time winner is the only one to take all five titles in a row, from 1991 to 1995?

During those five wins he never won a stage that was not a time trial.

Which Frenchman won his fifth Tour de France title in 1985?

Known as Le Blaireau, the Badger, he adopted the animal for its aggressive nature; no Frenchman won the men's Tour for decades after him.

What nickname did Eddy Merckx earn for refusing to let anyone else win?

The name was reportedly suggested by a teammate's daughter, and Merckx went on to wear yellow for a record 96 stages.

How many consecutive Tour titles was Lance Armstrong stripped of in 2012?

The UCI decided the vacated wins from 1999 to 2005 would not be reallocated to any other rider.

Tadej Pogačar's 2020 win at 21 made him the second-youngest champion, behind which 1904 winner?

He inherited the 1904 title after the first four finishers were disqualified for cheating.

Before Pogačar in 2024, who was the last rider to win the Giro and the Tour in one year, in 1998?

Il Pirata, so called for his shaven head, bandana and earrings, set a 1995 record for the climb of Alpe d'Huez that stood for three decades.

Before turning pro, 2022 and 2023 winner Jonas Vingegaard worked in what kind of factory?

His team manager arranged the job at Chrisfish in Hanstholm to give the young rider structure, with training saved for the afternoons.

The closest finish in Tour history, in 1989, was decided by how many seconds?

It came down to a final-day time trial into Paris in which the winner used triathlon-style aero handlebars.

Who in 1986 became the first non-European to win the men's Tour de France?

He was seriously wounded in a hunting accident the following year yet came back to win twice more.

Which sprinter broke Eddy Merckx's long-standing record with a 35th Tour stage win in 2024?

The record of 34 had stood since 1975; he was handed a framed black jersey marked CAXXXV on the final podium.

Which rider holds the record of seven green jerseys?

He also won three straight road world championships from 2015 to 2017.

Which French climber won the King of the Mountains title a record seven times?

His seventh, in 2004, broke a tie with Federico Bahamontes and Lucien Van Impe.

Since which year has the race traditionally finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris?

That first finish was a 25-lap Paris circuit won by Walter Godefroot, and only 2024 has broken the run since.

Because Paris was preparing to host the Olympics, which city staged the 2024 finish?

The race ended with an individual time trial there, and Pogačar won it after winning six stages overall.

From the first edition until 1967, where did the Tour finish?

The 1903 riders were timed at Ville-d'Avray and then rode into the velodrome for laps of honour.

Which city hosted the first Grand Départ outside France, in 1954?

The Low Countries have since hosted the start more often than any other region abroad.

On which mountain did British rider Tom Simpson collapse and die during the 1967 Tour?

A granite memorial stands a kilometre below the summit where he fell, and riders still leave bidons and caps there.

How many numbered hairpin bends are there on the classic climb to Alpe d'Huez?

The 13.8 km ascent averages 8.1% and each bend carries the name of a past stage winner.

Who won the first ever stage finish at Alpe d'Huez, in 1952?

It was the Tour's first mountain-top finish, and the first year motorcycle TV crews followed the race.

Alpe d'Huez was nicknamed which nation's mountain after eight wins in the first 14 finishes?

Coach companies in the Netherlands sell winter trips to the resort, and the church at the top once had a priest from that country.

Which pass, first crossed in 1910, has featured in more Tours than any other?

Octave Lapize was first over the top that year and went on to win the race in Paris; a statue of him gasping for air now stands at the col.

The Tour's first high-mountain stages, in 1910, took the race through which range?

The Alps followed a year later, and the two ranges have anchored the route ever since.

Which Alpine pass, first used in 1911, is the Alps' most-visited mountain and hosts the race founder's monument?

The 2011 stage to its summit marked the climb's centenary and, at 2,645 m, the highest finish in Tour history.

Who was the founding director of the Tour de France, running it until the late 1930s?

He banned multiple gears for years and once insisted every rider use an identical plain yellow bicycle.

At a 1902 crisis meeting, which 26-year-old cycling journalist suggested a race around France?

The editor was never wholly convinced and nearly dropped the idea before the race doubled the paper's circulation.

The race was suspended during World War II. In which year did it return?

The organising paper had been shut down in 1944 for being too close to the occupiers, and the state seized the Tour along with it.

The 1919 Tour had the fewest finishers ever. How many riders made it to Paris?

The war had ended only seven months earlier, so few riders had been able to train properly, and it was also the slowest Tour ever.

Maurice Garin, winner of the first Tour, had worked in which trade?

Born in the Aosta Valley, he took French nationality in 1901 and won the 1904 race too before being stripped of it for cheating.

How many stages made up the very first Tour de France?

The stages were so long that all but the first began before dawn, and the last set off at 9 pm the night before.

What is the last-placed rider in the general classification called?

The name comes from the red lamp on the back of a train, and in 1980 the organisers even tried eliminating the last rider each day to discourage the honour.

Who won the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes in 2022?

She won by nearly four minutes despite a stomach bug early in the eight-day race, which ended atop La Planche des Belles Filles.

Which French rider won the 2025 Tour de France Femmes by more than three and a half minutes?

She sealed it with two stage wins in the Alps, having already been an Olympic mountain bike champion.

What is the procession of decorated sponsor vehicles that drives the route ahead of the riders called?

It began in 1930 to pay for national teams, stretches 20 to 25 km and takes about 40 minutes to pass.

Which Frenchman was called 'The Eternal Second' after eight podium finishes without ever wearing yellow?

His grandson Mathieu van der Poel finally put the family in yellow with a stage win in 2021 dedicated to him.

Which Italian holds the record for the longest gap between Tour victories, winning in 1938 and 1948?

During the war years in between he is credited with helping to save Jews by carrying forged papers in his bike frame.

Which German electronic band released the single 'Tour de France' in 1983?

The track used bicycle chains, gear mechanisms and a cyclist's breathing as sounds, and turned up in the 1984 film Breakin'.

From 1976 to 1987, what unusual first prize did the overall winner receive?

By 1988 the haul was a car, a studio, a work of art and 500,000 francs; today the winner gets several hundred thousand euros.

Which 1992 Olympic road race champion died crashing on the Col de Portet d'Aspet in 1995?

He was riding for Motorola alongside Lance Armstrong, who won a stage days later and pointed to the sky in tribute.

The 1998 doping scandal that nearly derailed the Tour is named after which team?

It began when a soigneur's car was stopped at the Belgian border full of EPO, and all nine of the team's riders eventually confessed.

The famous 1964 shoulder-to-shoulder duel between two French rivals took place on which extinct volcano?

Eddy Merckx was punched in the kidney by a spectator on the same climb in 1975, and the Tour returned there for the first time in 35 years in 2023.

Who was the first rider ever to wear the yellow jersey?

Other riders mocked him as a canary, and he then lost the race by breaking his fork; six years earlier he had famously forged his own repair at a village blacksmith's.

In 1968, for the only time, the sprinters' jersey was not green. What colour was it?

The one-year switch matched a new sponsor's colours before the green returned for good.

Since 1987, the race leader has been handed a toy of which animal on the podium?

It is offered by the jersey sponsor Crédit Lyonnais, whose logo is the animal.

Which sponsor's wrappers inspired the King of the Mountains jersey's spots in the mid-1970s?

The chocolate maker later flipped things round and put spotted wrappers on its bars.