Tour de France records and statistics
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This is a list of records and statistics in the
Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
,
road cycling Road cycling is the most widespread form of cycling in which cyclists ride on paved roadways. It includes Recreational cycling, recreational, Road bicycle racing, racing, Bicycle commuting, commuting, and utility cycling. As users of the road, ...
's premier competitive event. One rider has been
King of the Mountains The King of the Mountains (KoM) is an award given to the best climbing specialist in a men's cycling road race; in women's cycle racing, Queen of the Mountains (QoM) is used. While the title may be given to the rider who achieves the highest po ...
, won the combination classification, combativity award, the points competition, and the Tour in the same year -
Eddy Merckx Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx (, ; born 17 June 1945), better known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track bicycle racer who is among the most successful riders in the history of competitive cycling. His victorie ...
in 1969, which was also the first year he participated. Had the young riders classification, which replaced the combination classification, existed at the time, Merckx would have won that jersey too. The only rider to approach the feat of winning the green, polka dot and yellow jersey in the same Tour was
Bernard Hinault Bernard Hinault (; born 14 November 1954) is a French former professional road cyclist. With 147 professional victories, including five times the Tour de France, he is often named among the greatest cyclists of all time. In his career, Hinault ...
in
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
, where he won the race and the points classification, but finished 2nd in the mountains competition. After Merckx in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
no other rider would win three distinctive jerseys in a single Tour until
Tadej Pogačar Tadej Pogačar (; born 21 September 1998) is a Slovenian cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . He won the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Tour de France, winning three different jerseys during each Tour, a feat unseen in nearly four deca ...
in
2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
, a feat he repeated the following year. Twice the Tour was won by a racer who never wore the yellow jersey until the race was over. In 1947,
Jean Robic Jean Robic (; 10 June 1921 – 6 October 1980)L'Équipe, 9 July 2003 was a French road racing cyclist, who won the 1947 Tour de France. Robic was a professional cyclist from 1943 to 1961. His diminutive stature (1.61m, 60 kg) and appearanc ...
overturned a three-minute deficit on a 257 km final stage into Paris. In 1968,
Jan Janssen Johannes Adrianus "Jan" Janssen (; born 19 May 1940) is a Dutch former professional cyclist (1962–1972). He was world champion and winner of the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, the first Dutch rider to win either. He rode the Tour de ...
of the Netherlands secured his win in the individual time trial on the last day. In addition to 1947 and 1968, in 1989
Greg LeMond Gregory James LeMond (born June 26, 1961) is an American former professional road racing cyclist, entrepreneur, and anti-doping advocate. A two-time winner of the Road Race World Championship (1983 and 1989) and a three-time winner of the Tou ...
overcame a +:50 deficit to
Laurent Fignon Laurent Patrick Fignon (; 12 August 1960 – 31 August 2010) was a French professional road bicycle racer who won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984 and the Giro d'Italia in 1989. He is former FICP World No. 1 in 1989. He nearly captured t ...
on the last day of the race in Paris to win the race on the final day, however Lemond had worn the yellow jersey earlier in the race. This was the final time the last stage in Paris was held as an individual time trial. The Tour has been won four times by a racer who led the general classification on the first stage and held the lead all the way to Paris.
Maurice Garin Maurice-François Garin (; 3 March 1871 – 19 February 1957) was an Italian then French road bicycle racer best known for winning the inaugural Tour de France in 1903, and for being stripped of his title in the second Tour in 1904 along with ...
did it during the Tour's first edition, 1903; he repeated the feat the next year, but the results were nullified in response to widespread cheating. Ottavio Bottecchia completed a GC start-to-finish sweep in 1924. In 1928, Nicolas Frantz also led the GC for the entire race, and the final podium was made up of three riders from his Alcyon–Dunlop team. Lastly, Belgian Romain Maes took the lead in the first stage of the 1935 tour, and never gave it away. Similarly, there have been four tours in which a racer has taken over the GC lead on the second stage and held the lead all the way to Paris. After dominating the ITT during Stage 1B of the
1961 Tour de France The 1961 Tour de France was the 48th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 25 June and 16 July, with 21 stages covering a distance of . Out of the 132 riders who started the tour, 72 managed to complet ...
Jacques Anquetil Jacques Anquetil (; 8 January 1934 – 18 November 1987) was a French road racing cyclist and the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964. He stated before the 1961 Tour that he would gain the y ...
held the
Maillot Jaune The general classification is the most important classification, the one by which the winner of the Tour de France is determined. Since 1919 Tour de France, 1919, the leader of the general classification wears the yellow jersey (french: maillot ...
from the first day all the way to
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
René Pottier René Pottier (5 June 1879 in Moret-sur-Loing, Seine-et-Marne – 25 January 1907 in Levallois-Perret) was a French racing cyclist. Pottier won the amateur category of the 1903 Bordeaux–Paris race before turning professional. He came second in ...
,
Roger Lapébie Roger Lapébie (; 16 January 1911 – 11 October 1996) was a French racing cyclist who won the 1937 Tour de France. In addition, Lapébie won the 1934 and 1937 editions of the Critérium National. He was born at Bayonne, Aquitaine, and died i ...
,
Sylvère Maes Sylvère Maes (; 27 August 1909 – 5 December 1966) was a Belgian cyclist, who is most famous for winning the Tour de France in 1936 and 1939. In 1937, Maes left the 1937 Tour de France together with his Belgian team while he was leading the gene ...
,
Fausto Coppi Angelo Fausto Coppi (; 15 September 1919 – 2 January 1960) was an Italian cyclist, the dominant international cyclist of the years after the World War II, Second World War. His successes earned him the title ''Il Campionissimo'' ("Champio ...
and
Bradley Wiggins Sir Bradley Marc Wiggins, CBE (born 28 April 1980) is a British former professional road and track racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2016. He began his cycling career on the track, but later made the transition to r ...
all won the Tour de France the last time they appeared in the race.


Appearances

Between 1920 and 1985,
Jules Deloffre Jules Deloffre (22 April 1885 – 13 October 1963) was a French racing cyclist. He rode in fourteen editions of the Tour de France between 1908 and 1928, finishing in seven of them. Throughout his career he was nicknamed 'The Acrobat' (Frenc ...
(1885 – 1963) was the record holder for the highest number of Tour de France participations, with 14, and was sole holder of this record until 1966 with the fourteenth and last participation of
André Darrigade André Darrigade (born 24 April 1929 in Narrosse) is a retired French professional road bicycle racer between 1951 and 1966. Darrigade, a road sprinter won the 1959 World Championship and 22 stages of the Tour de France. Five of those Tour vict ...
. The record for most the appearances as of 2021 is held by
Sylvain Chavanel Sylvain Chavanel''Procycling'', UK, November 2008 (born 30 June 1979) is a French former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2000 and 2018 for the , , and two spells with the / team. His brother Sébastien Chavanel ...
, with 18.
George Hincapie George Anthony Hincapie (born June 29, 1973) is an American former racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 1994 and 2012. Hincapie was a key domestique of Lance Armstrong. Hincapie was also a domestique for Alberto Contador in 2007 an ...
had held the mark for the most consecutive finishes with sixteen, having completed every Tour de France that he participated in except his first one, but was disqualified in October 2012 from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 editions of the race for his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Joop Zoetemelk Hendrik Gerardus Joseph "Joop" Zoetemelk (; born 3 December 1946) is a Dutch former professional racing cyclist. He started and finished the Tour de France 16 times, which were both records when he retired. He also holds the distance record in T ...
and Chavanel jointly hold the record for the most finishes with sixteen each, with the former having completed all 16 of the Tours that he started. Zoetemelk also held the record for the most Tour de France stages completed with 365, a tally that was surpassed when Chavanel finished Stage 18 of the 2018 edition of the Tour. Chavanel's record now stands at 369. Zoetemelk currently holds the record for most kilometers ridden in Tour de France history at 62,885, a record which will be difficult to break considering the shorter stage lengths in modern Tours. Of the riders on this list only Van Impe (
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
) and Zoetemelk (
1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – ...
) have won the race. Riders who are still active are indicated in bold.


Smallest winning margin

In the early years of the Tour, cyclists rode individually, and were sometimes forbidden from riding together. This led to large gaps between the winner and the runner-up. Since the cyclists now tend to stay together in a
peloton In a road bicycle race, the peloton (from French, originally meaning 'platoon') is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close ( drafting or slipstreaming) to (particularly behind) other riders. The reductio ...
, the margins of the winner have become smaller, as the difference usually originates from time trials, breakaways or on mountain top finishes, or from being dropped by the peloton. In the table below, the ten smallest margins between the winner and the second placed cyclists at the end of the Tour are listed, all of them under one minute. The largest margin, by comparison, remains that of the first Tour in 1903: 2h 49m 45s between Maurice Garin and
Lucien Pothier Lucien Pothier ( Cuy, 15 January 1883 - Troyes, 29 April 1957) was a successful early twentieth century French racing cyclist who participated in the 1903 Tour de France and finished second. He also rode in the 1904 Tour de France, again finishi ...
.
Cadel Evans Cadel Lee Evans (; born 14 February 1977) is an Australian former professional racing cyclist, who competed professionally in both mountain biking and road bicycle racing. A four-time Olympian, Evans is one of three non-Europeans – along wi ...
is on this list twice, losing the
2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
and
2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
races by less than a minute; and he is just off this list for the 2011 edition, which he won by overturning a deficit during the final time trial claiming the victory by just 1:34 over
Andy Schleck Andy Raymond Schleck (; born 10 June 1985) is a Luxembourgish former professional road bicycle racer. He won the 2010 Tour de France, being awarded it retroactively in February 2012 after Alberto Contador's hearing at the Court of Arbitration f ...
. The smallest margins between first and second placed riders are as follows.


Successful breakaways

The longest successful post-war breakaway by a single rider was by Albert Bourlon in the
1947 Tour de France The 1947 Tour de France was the 34th edition of the Tour de France, taking place from 25 June to 20 July. The total race distance was 21 stages over . It was the first Tour since 1939, having been cancelled during World War II, although some Tour ...
. In the stage Carcassonne-Luchon, he stayed away for .Tour 09, Procycling (UK) summer 2009 It was one of seven breakaways longer than 200 km, the last being
Thierry Marie Thierry Marie (born 25 June 1963) is a French former cyclist. Marie often performed well in prologue stages: he won the Tour de France prologue three times in his career, and because of that he wore the yellow jersey in those three years, for sev ...
's 234 km escape in 1991. Bourlon finished 16:30 ahead. This is one of the biggest time gaps but not the greatest. That record belongs to José Luis Viejo, who beat the peloton by 22:50 in the 1976 stage Montgenèvre-Manosque. He was the fourth and most recent rider to win a stage by more than 20 minutes. Another remarkable solo effort was
Fons de Wolf Alfons ("Fons") De Wolf (born 22 June 1956 in Willebroek) is a retired Belgian road race cyclist, a professional from 1979 to 1990. He represented his country at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was forecast, with Danie ...
during stage 14 of the
1984 Tour de France The 1984 Tour de France was the 71st edition of the Tour de France, run over in 23 stages and a prologue, from 29 June to 22 July. The race was dominated by the Renault team, who won the team classification and ten stages: Renault's French rider ...
. He won the stage by 17:40 and actually came within a minute and a half of Tour favorite
Laurent Fignon Laurent Patrick Fignon (; 12 August 1960 – 31 August 2010) was a French professional road bicycle racer who won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984 and the Giro d'Italia in 1989. He is former FICP World No. 1 in 1989. He nearly captured t ...
in the overall standings. He paid for his solo effort in the following stages however, and fell back in the standings thereafter.


Overall speed

The 2022 edition was the fastest Tour de France in history.
Jonas Vingegaard Jonas Vingegaard Rasmussen (; born 10 December 1996) is a Danish cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam . He won the 2022 edition of the Tour de France. Vingegaard started as a youth rider for various Danish teams, making his breakthrough as a sen ...
rode 3,349,8 km in 79h 33' 20", thus realising an overall speed of 42.102 km/h (26.161 mph). The slowest Tour de France was the edition of 1919, when
Firmin Lambot Firmin Lambot (; 14 March 1886 – 19 January 1964) was a Belgian bicycle racer who twice won the Tour de France. Born in the small town of Florennes,The Bicycle, UK, 26 March 1952, p6 Lambot worked as a saddler. He worked 12 hours a day, star ...
's average speed was 24.1 km/h.


Stage speeds

The fastest massed-start stage was in 1999 from Laval to Blois (194.5 km), won by
Mario Cipollini Mario Cipollini (; born 22 March 1967), often abbreviated to "Cipo", is a retired Italian professional road cyclist most noted for his sprinting ability, the longevity of his dominance (his first pro win came in 1988, his last in 2005; 170 pro ...
at 50.4 km/h (31.32 mph). The fastest time-trial is
Rohan Dennis Rohan Dennis (born 28 May 1990) is an Australian professional road racing cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam . Dennis was born, raised, and resides in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. He won back to back UCI men's individual ti ...
' stage 1 of the 2015 Tour de France in
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
, won at an average pace of . The fastest stage win was by the 2013 Orica GreenEDGE team in a team time-trial. They completed the 25 km time-trial at 57.7 km/h (35.85 mph). The fastest climb of
Alpe d'Huez L'Alpe d'Huez () is a ski resort in southeastern France at . It is a mountain pasture in the Central French Western Alps, in the commune of Huez, which is part of the department of Isère in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It is part of th ...
was by
Marco Pantani Marco Pantani (; 13 January 1970 – 14 February 2004) was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely regarded as the greatest climbing specialist in the history of the sport by measures of his legacy, credits from other riders, and records. He rec ...
in
1997 Tour de France The 1997 Tour de France was the 84th edition of the Tour de France and took place from 5 to 27 July. Jan Ullrich's victory margin of 9:09 was the largest margin of victory since Laurent Fignon won the 1984 Tour de France by 10:32. Since 1997 no ...
at 23.1 km/h (14.35 mph).


Stage wins per rider

34 riders have won 10 or more stages (including half-stages, excluding Team Time Trials). Riders who are still active are indicated in bold. Riders with the same number of stage wins are listed alphabetically. Three riders have won 8 stages in a single year: * (
1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...
, in addition to seven 2nd and three 3rd places) * (
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...
,
1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...
) * (
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...
, in addition to four 2nd and two 3rd places) Mark Cavendish has the most mass finish stage wins with 34 ahead of André Darrigade and André Leducq with 22, François Faber with 19 and Eddy Merckx with 18. The youngest Tour de France stage winner is Fabio Battesini, who was 19 when he won stage 3 in the 1931 Tour de France. The oldest Tour de France stage winner is
Pino Cerami Giuseppe "Pino" Cerami (28 April 1922 – 20 September 2014) was a Belgian road bicycle racer. He joined the professional peloton in 1946 as an independent. Born in Misterbianco, Sicily, Italy he was naturalised as a Belgian on 16 March 19 ...
, who won stage 9 of the 1963 edition at 41 years old.


Riders who have won in all three specialties

These riders have won mountain, sprint, and
individual time trial An individual time trial (ITT) is a road bicycle race in which cyclists race alone against the clock (in French: ''contre la montre'' – literally "against the watch", in Italian: ''tappa a cronometro'' "stopwatch stage"). There are also track-b ...
stages in a single Tour.


Stage wins per country

Riders representing 33 countries have won at least one stage in the Tour de France.


Detailed table


Stage towns

Some cities and towns have hosted 25 or more stage starts and finishes: * Paris – 145 (most recent finish: 2022) *
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
 – 80 (most recent: 2010) * Pau – 73letour.fr (most recent: 2021) *
Bagnères-de-Luchon Bagnères-de-Luchon (; oc, Banhèras de Luishon), also referred to as just Luchon, is a commune and spa town in the Haute-Garonne department in the Occitanie region of south-western France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as ''Luchonn ...
 – 60 (most recent: 2018) *
Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
 – 41 (most recent: 2020) *
Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...
 – 40 (most recent: 2012) *
Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...
 – 40 (most recent: 2020) *
Briançon Briançon (, ) is the sole Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Hautes-Alpes Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region in Southeastern France. It is the highest city in France at an a ...
 – 36 (most recent: 2022) *
Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
 – 36 (most recent: 2017) *
Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...
 – 36 (most recent: 2009) *
Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...
 – 32 (most recent: 2003) *
Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
 – 31 (most recent: 2016) *
Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
 – 30 (most recent: 2008) *
Belfort Belfort (; archaic german: Beffert/Beffort) is a city in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Northeastern France, situated between Lyon and Strasbourg, approximately from the France–Switzerland border. It is the prefecture of the Territo ...
 – 30 (most recent: 2019) *
Brest Brest may refer to: Places *Brest, Belarus **Brest Region **Brest Airport **Brest Fortress *Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria *Břest, Czech Republic *Brest, France **Arrondissement of Brest **Brest Bretagne Airport ** Château de Brest *Brest, ...
 – 30 (most recent: 2021) *
L'Alpe d'Huez L'Alpe d'Huez () is a ski resort in southeastern France at . It is a mountain pasture in the Central French Western Alps, in the commune of Huez, which is part of the department of Isère in the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. It is part of ...
 – 30 (most recent: 2022) *
Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the t ...
 – 27 (most recent: 2022) *
Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
 – 27 (most recent: 2019) *
Roubaix Roubaix ( or ; nl, Robaais; vls, Roboais) is a city in northern France, located in the Lille metropolitan area on the Belgian border. It is a historically mono-industrial commune in the Nord department, which grew rapidly in the 19th century ...
 – 26 (most recent: 2018)


See also

* Multiple winners of the Tour de France


Notes


References

{{Grand Tour
Yellow jersey statistics Since the first Tour de France in 1903, there have been 2,205 stages, up to and including the final stage of the 2021 Tour de France. Since 1919, the race leader following each stage has been awarded the yellow jersey (french: link=no, Maillot ja ...
Cycling records and statistics Tour de France classifications and awards