2016 Tour De France

The 2016 Tour de France was the 103rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The -long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 2 July in Mont Saint-Michel, Normandy, and concluding on 24 July with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. A total of 198 riders from 22 teams entered the race. The overall general classification was won by Chris Froome of , with the second and third places were taken by Romain Bardet () and Nairo Quintana (), respectively.

Mark Cavendish of won the opening stage to take the general classification leader's yellow jersey. rider Peter Sagan won the second stage to claim yellow and held onto it until the fifth stage when Greg Van Avermaet () took the stage and the yellow jersey. Van Avermaet lost ground in the mountainous eighth stage, finishing over 25 minutes behind the stage winner Froome, who took the yellow jersey. Froome retained the yellow jersey through to stage 17 and extended his lead further following a strong performance in the stage 18's mountain time trial. Bardet won the mountainous 19th stage and moved into second place overall and despite crashing in the rain, Froome was able to extend his lead. He then held the lead into the finish in Paris.

The points classification was won by Sagan, who won three stages. 's Rafał Majka won the mountains classification. rider Adam Yates, in fourth place overall, won the young rider classification. The team classification was won by and Sagan was given the award for the most combative rider. Cavendish won the most stages, with four.

Teams

Twenty-two teams participated in the 2016 edition of the Tour de France. The race was the 18th of the 28 events in the UCI World Tour, and all of its eighteen UCI WorldTeams were automatically invited, and obliged, to attend the race. On 2 March 2016, the organiser of the Tour, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the four second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams given wildcard invitations: , , and . 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 the town square of Sainte-Mère-Église, Normandy, on 28 June, two days before the opening stage held in the region. Each team arrived in World War II military vehicles, commemorating the Normandy landings.

Each squad was allowed a maximum of nine riders, therefore the start list contained a total of 198 riders. Of these, 33 were competing in their first Tour de France. The riders came from 35 countries; France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Germany all had 10 or more riders in the race. Riders from ten countries won stages during the race; British riders won the largest number of stages, with seven. The average age of riders in the race was 30 years, ranging from the 22-year-old Sondre Holst Enger () to the 42-year-old Matteo Tosatto (). Of the total average ages, was the youngest team and the oldest.

The teams entering the race were:

UCI WorldTeams

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UCI Professional Continental teams

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Pre-race favourites

In the run up to the 2016 Tour de France, Chris Froome () was seen by many as the top pre-race favourite for the general classification. His closest rivals were thought to be Nairo Quintana () and Alberto Contador (). The other riders considered contenders for the general classification were Richie Porte (), Thibaut Pinot (), Fabio Aru (), Vincenzo Nibali (), who won the 2014 Tour and the 2016 Giro d'Italia, Romain Bardet (), and Tejay van Garderen ().

Froome, who won both the 2013 and 2015 editions of the race, had shown his form during the season with overall victories in two stage races, the Herald Sun Tour and the Critérium du Dauphiné, a race considered to be the warm-up for the Tour. The runner-up in the 2013 and 2015 Tours, Quintana, had won three stage races in the lead up to the Tour, the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour de Romandie, and the Route du Sud. Contador, winner of the 2007 and 2009 Tours, found success in stage races during the season, winning the Tour of the Basque Country and placing second at Paris–Nice and the Volta a Catalunya.

The sprinters considered favourites for the points classification and wins on the flat or hilly bunch sprint finishes were Peter Sagan (), Marcel Kittel (), André Greipel (), Mark Cavendish (), Alexander Kristoff (), John Degenkolb () and Michael Matthews (). Sagan, the world road race champion and winner of the points classification in the four previous Tours, had won the one-day classics, Gent–Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders, and two stages of the Tour of California during the season before the Tour. Kittel's 2016 season had been successful up to the Tour as he had amassed a total of nine wins from sprints, most notably, two stages of the Giro and the Scheldeprijs one-day race. He also won both the general and points classifications of the Dubai Tour. Greipel's season total of wins so far was eight, with three Giro stages. Cavendish's form was not clear as his season was mostly spent training for the omnium track event at the Olympic Games the month following the Tour. Although Kristoff's total of wins in the season was eight, they were not in major races. Degenkolb had spent the majority of his season recovering from an injury and it was thought he could pose a threat. Matthews only had two wins so far in the season, both at Paris–Nice, including the race's points classification.

Route and stages

On 24 November 2014, ASO announced that for time the first time in Tour history the department of Manche

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