The 110th edition of the Tour de France began on Saturday in Bilbao, Spain, and one of the sport’s budding rivalries will be on display in cycling’s biggest race. Here’s what you need to know before one cyclist rides victoriously into the streets of Paris on July 23.
The 110th edition of the Tour de France began on Saturday in Bilbao, Spain, and one of the sport’s budding rivalries will be on display in cycling’s biggest race.
Among the 176 cyclists competing on 22 teams are defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and two-time winner Tadej Pogacar, who rank among the favorites to win.
Here’s what you need to know before one cyclist rides victoriously into the streets of Paris on July 23.
When is the Tour de France?
The 21-day Tour de France began on July 1 in Spain and ends July 23 with a ride down the Champs-Élysées in Paris – a tradition since 1975 – to conclude the stage from Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The race is one of the three grand tours – along with the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España – around which the cycling season takes place.
How long is the Tour de France route?
The race covers 2,115 miles, with Stage 2’s 130 miles from Vitoria-Gasteiz to San Sebastián the longest day of racing. There are eight flat stages, four hilly stages, eight mountain stages with four summit finishes and two rest days.
What are the changes this year?
The Tour de France will start outside Bilbao’s iconic Guggenheim Museum in Spain (after last year’s race started in Copenhagen), then wind north to the Bay of Biscay coastline before returning to the city. The race will feature only one time trial, rather than the traditional two, and 12 new stage towns. There are three new climbs: the Côte de Vivero in Basque country, the Col de la Croix Rosier (Massif Central) and the Col du Feu in the Alps. The Massif Central’s Puy de Dôme, which hasn’t appeared on the Tour route since 1988, will return.
Who won in 2022?
Vingegaard, of Denmark, won the 2022 Tour de France, and this year’s race may well come down to a battle with Pogacar, the 2020 and 2021 winner. The Slovenian Pogacar was virtually untouchable on every type of terrain until he broke his wrist in a crash in April and underwent surgery.
What is the yellow jersey?
The cyclist with the lowest aggregate time after each Tour de France stage gets to wear the yellow jersey for the next stage as leader of what’s known as the general classification, or the Tour’s main competition. Whoever is wearing the yellow jersey at the end of the final stage is the winner.
The yellow jersey officially has been employed since 1919, when the race director decided the leader needed to be more easily identified and picked yellow to honor the newspaper that sponsored the race, L’Auto-Vélo, which was printed on yellow newsprint.
Just what are these other jerseys?
There are three other Tour de France jerseys of note.
Green jersey: Worn by the leader of the points classification, a secondary competition at the Tour de France. This color was also chosen to honor a race sponsor, this time a lawn mower company. Cyclists receive points based on which place they finish each stage along with how they do in intermediate sprints during the flat stages of the tour. Generally, sprinters wear the green jersey.
Polka dot jersey: Worn by the leader of the mountain classification, another secondary competition in which riders receive points for being the first to reach the summits of the mountains along the course. And, yes, polka dots were chosen because a sponsor sold chocolate bars in polka dot wrappers.
White jersey: Worn by the leader of the young rider classification, for cyclists 26 and younger.
Only once has one rider won the general, points and mountain classifications in the same race: Belgium’s Eddy Merckx in 1969.
Who was Gino Mäder?
The name of Gino Mäder will be heard often on broadcasts and will not be far from the minds of cyclists on the peloton. The Swiss cyclist died June 16 from injuries suffered during a high-speed crash on a turn through the Albula Pass in the fifth stage of the Tour de Suisse. He crashed into American rider Magnus Sheffield, who had gone off the road, and fell into a ravine.
His death continues to resonate among riders, with Adam Hansen, the president of the riders union, saying pro racing is “significantly more dangerous” these days. “The bikes have become much faster, and the overall competition level has reached new heights,” he told the Guardian. “When all these factors combine, it creates a significantly higher level of danger.”
The prelude to the 2023 Tour de France has been overshadowed by concerns over safety that have raised existential questions for the sport https://t.co/nV6hBdwoJh
— CNN International (@cnni) July 1, 2023
Hansen said speed played a role in Mäder’s accident. “[The descent] was not technical, but the speed was dangerous. Maybe we need better education for the riders, or to somehow create a situation where they are unable to reach such high speeds. The riders need to be aware that cycling is a dangerous sport, and they must be well-informed about the risks.”
How do teams work in the race?
Twenty-two teams will make up the peloton, 18 of which are the Union Cycliste Internationale World Teams that received automatic invitations and four UCI Pro Teams from the organization’s second and third divisions. After each regular stage, a team’s top three finishers have their times added up, and the team with the fastest aggregate time at that point in the race gets to wear race numbers with yellow backgrounds instead of white.
During time trials, a team is awarded the time of the fifth team member to cross the finish line. (If a team has only three or four riders remaining, the time of the last rider to cross the finish line is used; if a team has fewer than three riders remaining, it is out of the team classification.)
Who is Mark Cavendish?
The 38-year-old Isle of Man cyclist, who will retire at the end of the season, is targeting a stage win that would give him sole possession of the all-time Tour record. He joined Merckx with 34 stage wins in 2021.
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What does the winner receive?
Cash prizes are awarded to the overall winner (a little more than $500,000), the points classification winner (about $26,000), the mountain classification winner (about $26,000), the young rider classification winner (about $21,000), the team classification winners (about $53,000) and the winners of each stage. Prizes also are awarded based on overall finish, with about $210,000 to second place, about $105,000 to third place and descending prizes from there. Anyone who finishes the race receives at least $1,000.
Two other prizes are awarded during the mountain stages: the Souvenir Henri Desgrange for the rider who first reaches the summit of Col du Galibier in the Alps; and the Souvenir Jacques Goddet for the rider who first reaches the summit of Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees. The winners of these prizes receive just more than $5,000.
Is there a women’s Tour de France?
For the second year, there will be a Tour de France Femmes, which begins July 23 in Paris as the men’s race ends. The women’s race consists of eight stages over 594 miles and ends July 30.
