2011 Tour de France

The 2011 Tour de France was the 98th edition of the race. It started on 2 July at the Passage du Gois and ended on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 24 July. The cyclists competed in 21 stages over 23 days, covering a distance of . The route entered Italy for part of two stages. The emphasis of the route was on the Alps, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the mountain range first being visited in the Tour. Cadel Evans of the won the overall general classification. Andy Schleck of was second, with his brother and teammate Fränk third.

The general classification leader's yellow jersey was worn first by Philippe Gilbert of , who won the opening stage. In the following stage, 's victory in the team time trial put their rider Thor Hushovd into the overall lead. He held the yellow jersey until the end of the ninth stage when it was taken by Thomas Voeckler (), who went on to hold it throughout the stages in the Pyrenees and up until the end of the final Alpine stage. Andy Schleck, who had won the previous stage (the 18th), held it for the following individual time trial; Evans took enough time in this stage to take the yellow jersey. He then held the lead into the finish in Paris.

Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour, and the second non-European to have officially done so. At 34, he was also the oldest post-World War II winner being almost a year older than Joop Zoetemelk was when he won the 1980 edition. 's Mark Cavendish was the first British winner of the points classification, Samuel Sánchez () won the mountains classification and Pierre Rolland of won the young rider classification. The team classification was won by and the overall super-combativity award was given to Jérémy Roy ().

Teams

Twenty-two teams participated in the 2011 edition of the Tour de France. The race was the 17th of the 27 events in the UCI World Tour, and all of its eighteen UCI ProTeams were entitled, and obliged, to enter the race. On 19 January 2011, the organiser of the Tour, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the four second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams given wildcard invitations, all of which were French-based. One team, the Spanish-based , which included the third-placed rider in the 2010 Tour, Denis Menchov, and the 2008 Tour winner, Carlos Sastre, was overlooked. The presentation of the teams – where the members of each team's roster are introduced in front of the media and local dignitaries – took place in front of audience of 7,000 inside the Roman amphitheatre at the Puy du Fou theme park in Les Epesses, Vendée, on 30 June, two days before the opening stage.

Each squad was allowed a maximum of nine riders, resulting in a start list total of 198 riders. Of these, 49 were riding the Tour de France for the first time. The riders came from 30 countries; France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and United States all had 12 or more riders in the race. Riders from ten countries won stages during the race; British riders won the largest number of stages, with five. The average age of riders in the race was 29.38 years, ranging from the 21-year-old Anthony Delaplace () to the 39-year-old Jens Voigt (). Of the total average ages, was the youngest team and the oldest.

The teams entering the race were:

UCI ProTeams

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UCI Professional Continental teams

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Pre-race favourites

In the lead-up to the Tour, Alberto Contador (), winner of the 2007 and 2009 Tours, was widely considered as the top pre-race favourite for the general classification. His closest rivals were thought to be Andy Schleck () and Cadel Evans (). The other riders considered contenders for the general classification were Bradley Wiggins (), Ivan Basso (), Robert Gesink (), Samuel Sánchez (), Chris Horner (), Fränk Schleck () and Jurgen Van den Broeck ().

In September 2010, Contador announced that he had tested positive for the banned clenbuterol from a sample taken during his now-disqualified 2010 Tour victory. He was suspended from racing during an investigation until February 2011. When cleared to race he competed in and won the general classifications of the Vuelta a Murcia, Volta a Catalunya and Giro d'Italia before the Tour. With overall victory in the Tour he was aiming to complete the Giro-Tour double, last achieved by Marco Pantani in the 1998 Tour. Schleck had placed second to Contador in the previous two Tours and won the young rider classification in the previous three. In the lead up to the Tour his best results were third in the one-day race Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the mountains classification of the Tour de Suisse. Evans, podium finisher in the 2007 and 2008 Tours, had a successful season before the Tour, winning the general classifications of both the Tour de Romandie and Tirreno–Adriatico, as well as second place in the Critérium du Dauphiné.

The sprinters named as the "riders to watch" by ''Bicycling'' magazine and possible contenders for the points classification and wins on the flat or hilly bunch sprint finishes were Mark Cavendish (), Philippe Gilbert () and riders Tyler Farrar and Thor Hushovd. Former winners of the points classification and notable sprinters included in the startlist were the defending champion, Alessandro Petacchi (), and the winner in 2007, Tom Boonen (). The points classification winner of the 2002, 2004 and 2006 Tours, 39-year-old Robbie McEwen, was not selected by his team for the race, . Óscar Freire of was another former winner (2008) left out of his team's Tour squad.

Cavendish was runner-up in the 2010 Tour's points classification and had won 15 stages in the three previous Tours; he had won a stage at the Tour of Oman, the one-day race Scheldeprijs and two stages at the Giro during the 2011 season prior to the Tour. Gilbert had amassed a total of eleven wins (not including the national championships) for the season before the Tour, including three spring classics: Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne. Farrar's form in the lead-up to the Tour included a stage win in both Tirreno–Adriatico and the Ster ZLM Toer. Hushovd, the world road race champion, only had one win in the season before the Tour, a stage of the Tour de Suisse. Petacchi's best results prior the Tour were a trio of stages in the Giro, the Volta a Catalunya and the Tour of Turkey. The major victory of Boonen's season up to the Tour was the Gent–Wevelgem one-day race.

Route and stages

On 26 January 2010, the race director, Christian Prudhomme, announced that the department of Vendée would host the 2011 edition's opening stage (known as the ''Grand Départ''). It was the fifth time Vendée had hosted the ''Grand Départ'', which consisted of two stages. The entire route was announced by the ASO on 19 October 2010 at the official presentation at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. The route was thought to suit climbing specialists, with Prudhomme saying "We wanted a balanced route. We tried to keep the suspense for the Alps but also to have a big battle as early as the Pyrenees,". To celebrate the centenary of the introduction of the Alps into the Tour it featured two of its most famous climbs, the Col du Galibier and Alpe d'Huez, with the Galibier climbed twice.

The first of the two stages held in Vendée started in Passage du Gois and finished in Mont des Alouettes, whilst stage two was held in Les Essarts. The Tour left Vendée in Olonne-sur-Mer

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