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Tour de France Winners List

The most successful rider in the Tour de France was Lance Armstrong , who finished first seven times before his wins were removed from the record books after being found guilty of doping by the USADA in 2012. No rider has been named to replace him for those years.

> see also more information about how they determine the winners of the Tour

General Classification Winners

* footnotes

• 1904: The original winner was Maurice Garin, however he was found to have caught a train for part of the race and was disqualified.
• 1996: Bjarne Riis has admitted to the use of doping during the 1996 Tour. The Tour de France organizers have stated they no longer consider him to be the winner, although Union Cycliste Internationale has so far refused to change the official status due to the amount of time passed since his win. Jan Ullrich was placed second.
• 1999-2005: these races were originally won by Lance armstrong, but in 2012 his wins in the tour de france were removed due to doping violations.
• 2006: Floyd Landis was the initial winner but subsequently rubbed out due to a failed drug test.
• 2010: Alberto Contador was the initial winner of the 2010 event, but after a prolonged drug investigation he was stripped of his win in 2012.

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Tour de France Winners List

Mathew Mitchell

• Published on June 7, 2021
• in Men's Cycling

Many great champion riders are winners of the Tour de France in its 100+ year history. There are currently 4 riders with 5 Tour de France victories: Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil. Chris Froome is still an active rider and on 4 victories, but it looks unlikely now that he will join the 5-Wins club. Honorary mentions go to Greg Lemond, Louison Bobet and Philippe Thys with 3 victories each.

France naturally has the highest amount of victories with 36. Although it’s of note that their last victory was in 1985 and the wait is very much ongoing. Belgium has 18 victories and Spain 12 wins. Belgium are another country with a long wait, their last victory was in 1976 courtesy of Lucien van Impe. Slovenia and Colombia are the newest countries to join the list after Tadej Pogačar’s victory in 2020 and Egan Bernal’s victory in 2019. All 6 of the UK’s victories have happened in the last 10 years.

Asterisks are there to note that another rider originally was declared the winner of that year’s Tour de France.

1904 Maurice Garin was disqualified after catching a train to complete some of the race. Henri Cornet was declared winner instead.

1999-2005 The infamous Lance Armstrong had his titles stripped in 2012 due to doping. Due to the climate at the time, where doping was rife, the Tour de France chose not to replace Armstrong with another victor.

2006 Floyd Landis initially finished first but after the race was completed it was found that Landis had tested positive in a sample given near the end of the race. He was stripped of the victory and 2nd placed Oscar Pereiro won instead.

2010 Alberto Contador won the 2010 Tour de France but was stripped of the title after testing positive for minute traces of clenbuterol. Despite length legal battles, Contador was removed as winner in 2012.

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The Complete Guide to Every Tour de France Winner Through History

A rider-by-rider list of champions, from Maurice Garin in 1903 to Jonas Vingegaard in 2022.

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We’ve got you covered with this complete list of every rider who has ever won an overall Tour de France title.

To learn more about the stories behind these athletes and their victories, Bill and Carol McGann’s two-volume The Story of the Tour de France and Les Woodland’s The Unknown Tour de Franc e are two of the best English-language resources out there.

Maurice Garin

Country: France Team: La Française Year(s): 1903

A chimney sweep-turned-champion, Garin led the inaugural Tour de France from start to finish, winning by almost three hours over the second-place rider. He earned the equivalent of about $40,000 for his efforts, money he later used to buy his own gas station.

Henri Cornet

Country: France Team: Conte Year(s): 1904

Cornet was declared the winner of the 1904 Tour after the first four finishers (including Garin) were disqualified for various forms of cheating. Only 19 at the time, Cornet remains the youngest winner in Tour history.

Louis Trousselier

Country: France Team: Peugeot–Wolber Year(s): 1905

Trousselier had to go on leave from the French army to compete in the 1905 Tour, so he made sure he invested his time wisely, winning three stages on his way to the overall victory. The night before winning the final stage, “Trou-Trou” spent all night drinking and gambling, losing the money he was set to win. He returned to the army the day after being crowned champion.

René Pottier

Country: France Team: Peugeot–Wolber Year(s): 1906

One year after becoming the first man to abandon the Tour while leading it, Pottier got his revenge by winning five stages and the overall title. Sadly, he hanged himself in his team clubhouse the following January after learning that his wife had had an affair while he competed in the race.

Lucien Petit-Breton

Country: France Team: Peugeot–Wolber Year(s): 1907, 1908

The Tour’s first two-time winner, Petit-Breton’s name is actually Lucien Mazan. Trying to keep his occupation a secret from his father—who didn’t want him to become a cyclist—Mazan raced under a pseudonym. In earning the second of his two Tour victories, he won five stages and never finished outside the top four. He was killed while serving as a driver for the French army in World War I.

François Faber

Country: Luxembourg Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1909

The first foreigner to win the Tour de France, Faber was incredibly large by contemporary standards. Nicknamed the “Giant of Colombe” after the Parisian suburb in which he lived, Faber measured six feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. He was shot in the back and killed while trying to carry a wounded comrade across no-man’s-land during a battle in WWI.

Octave Lapize

Country: France Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1910

To win his only Tour de France, Lapize had to overcome both his teammate Faber, the defending champion, and the Tour’s first visit to the Pyrenees. Luckily, Lapize was a much better climber than Faber, so the high mountains played to his strengths. He is perhaps most famous for shouting, “You are assassins!” at Tour organizers while climbing the Tourmalet. While serving as a fighter pilot in WWI, he was shot down and killed over Verdun.

Gustave Garrigou

Country: France Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1911

Despite complaints from racers, Tour organizers considered the Pyreneean stages such a success that they added the Alps in 1911. Faber again lost to a teammate, the climber Garrigou, who needed a bodyguard and disguise to finish the race after accusations that he poisoned a fellow competitor. He was later found innocent.

Odile Defraye

Country: Belgium Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1912

The first Belgian to win the Tour de France, Defraye rode the Tour six times and only finished once (in the same year that he won).

Philippe Thys

Country: Belgium Teams: Peugeot–Wolber, La Sportive Year(s): 1913, 1914, 1920

The Tour’s first three-time winner, Thys was the last rider to win before the start of WWI, and one of only a few prior champions to survive the conflict and continue his career.

Firmin Lambot

Country: Belgium Teams: La Sportive, Peugeot-Wolber Year(s): 1919, 1922

When the Tour started again after the war, Lambot continued Belgium’s run of success, taking the lead just two stages from the finish after Eugène Christophe—for the second time in his career—had his Tour ruined by a broken fork. Lambot won his second title at age 36, making him the oldest winner to date.

Léon Scieur

Country: Belgium Team: La Sportive Year(s): 1921

Discovered by Lambot, who hailed from the same town in Belgium, Scieur was nicknamed “the Locomotive” in the press for the way he relentlessly consolidated his lead. His wheel broke on the penultimate day and he carried it more than 300K on his back to show officials that he was justified in taking a replacement (rules at the time limited outside support for riders).

Henri Pélissier

Country: France Team: Automoto–Hutchinson Year(s): 1923

The oldest of three brothers, all of whom were cyclists, Pélissier finished only two of the eight Tours he started, placing second in 1914 and finally winning in 1923. Talented but ill-tempered, he dropped out mostly by choice. His most famous DNF came in 1920, when rather than accept a two-minute penalty for throwing away a flat tire, he abandoned the race in protest.

Ottavio Bottecchia

Country: Italy Team: Automoto Year(s): 1924, 1925

In 1924, Bottecchia became Italy’s first Tour de France champion and the first rider to wear the yellow jersey from start to finish. His initial win was made easier thanks to the departure of the Pélissier brothers on Stage 3. Discovered to be wearing two jerseys at a time, then a violation of the rules, Henri, his brother, and another teammate abandoned—you guessed it—in protest.

Lucien Buysse

Country: Belgium Team: Automoto–Hutchinson Year(s): 1926

Buysse rode selflessly for Bottecchia in 1925 and was rewarded with a chance to win the Tour for himself in 1926. Tragically, the Belgian received news that his daughter had died early in the race, but his family convinced him to carry on to victory.

Nicolas Frantz

Country: Luxembourg Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1927, 1928

Fourth in 1925 and second in 1926, Frantz set the foundation for his first Tour victory by winning Stage 11, a mountainous day that tackled the Pyrenean “Circle of Death,” a route with four challenging climbs including the Col d’Aubisque and Col du Tourmalet. He led the 1928 Tour from start to finish, becoming only the fifth rider (at the time) to win the overall twice.

Maurice De Waele

Country: Belgium Team: Alcyon–Dunlop Year(s): 1929

Second in 1927 and third in 1928, De Waele overcame several flat tires—riders were then required to change their own flats—and illness to win in 1929. He wasn’t a popular champion, which caused organizer Henri Desgrange to remark, “A corpse has won my race!”

André Leducq

Country: France Teams: Alcyon–Dunlop, France Year(s): 1930, 1932

The year 1930 brought a change to the Tour: National and regional teams, instead of sponsored trade teams, would now compete. This shifted the power back to France, with Leducq winning two of the decade’s first five Tours (all of which went to the French).

Antonin Magne

Country: France Team: France Year(s): 1931, 1934

Third behind Leducq in 1930, Magne took advantage of new three-minute time bonuses given to stage winners—as well as a mysterious letter tipping him off to the tactics of a competitor—to win in 1931, his first of two victories.

Georges Speicher

Country: France Team: France Year(s): 1933

Historians consider the French team at the 1933 Tour to be one of the strongest collections of pre-war riders ever assembled. Speicher was joined on the start line by former winners Leducq and Magne, as well as future winner Roger Lapébie.

Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.

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Kasia Niewiadoma and Tadej Pogačar both finished in yellow - but the Tour de France Femmes winner took home less than a tenth of the prize money

How much did Kasia Niewiadoma and Tadej Pogačar earn for winning the iconic yellow jersey?

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The Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes are the two largest races of the year for cycling fans and racers alike. 

To emerge victorious and take home the most iconic jersey, the yellow one, in the sport, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) had to out-ride and out-smart their competitors for 3,498km and 948km, respectively. 

Both Tours de France sport the season's most competitive fields, most prestigious and also, the largest prize purse. However, there is a big difference in what Pogačar took home in comparison with Niewiadoma.

Now in its second year, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has €250,000 (£213,000/$277,000) of prize money in total, with the overall winner taking home €50,000, second taking €25,000 and third place earning €10,000. This prize pool makes the Tour de France Femmes the highest-paying race on the Women's WorldTour calendar. And while this is a significant step forward for women's racing , it still pales in comparison to the men's Tour.

The men's Tour de France has €2.4 million of prize money in total , of which Pogačar took home the €500,000 (£423,000/$554,000) grand prize - double the entire prize pool of the Tour de France Femmes. 

Or, to put it in Euros per kilometre raced, the 2023 men's Tour winner was paid €142.94 per km while the women's winner earned €52.7 per km. 

At the end of the Tour, his stage placings and days in yellow also rewarded, Pogačar won a total of €650,000. As the overall Tour de France Femmes winner, Niewiadoma earned less than a tenth of that.

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Niewiadoma did not win any stages along the way, so did not bump up her take-home win bonus anymore that way, but did collect extra from finishing in the top-20 on stages four, five, six, seven and eight, as well as placing high up in the other classifications.

Classifications and Stage Earnings:

- In the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, an individual stage win paid out €4,000 versus €11,000 in the men's Tour. 

- The points classification was won by Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) in the men's race and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) in the women's Tour. Girmay took home €25,000 and an additional €300 every day he wore the green jersey. Vos, in comparison, took home €3,000 and an additional €100 for every stage she topped the points classification.

- For the mountains and best young rider classifications, the men's winners earned €25,000 and €20,000, respectively - that's Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) . As well as an additional €300 for every day they wore the respective jerseys. The women's QOM and best young riders earned €3,000 and an additional €100 for every stage they wear the jersey - Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) , respectively. This means the three jersey winners in the men's race earned over eight times the amount of money that the jersey winners of the women's Tour earned. 

- Further earnings go to the team with the best performances. The team's classification is calculated by a team's three highest-placed riders and was won by UAE Team Emirates in the men's Tour, netting the team €50,000. Lidl-Trek earned €6,000, in comparison, in the Femmes.

- Finally, the rider awarded the most combative prize in the men's Tour earned €20,000. This year it was won by Carapaz. In the women's Tour, Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), who finished in second, received the honours, adding an additional  €2,000 to her Tour winnings.

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Cycling Weekly 's North American Editor, Anne-Marije Rook is old school. She holds a degree in journalism and started out as a newspaper reporter — in print! She can even be seen bringing a pen and notepad to the press conference.

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Tour de France Femmes Stage 7 Live: Katarzyna Niewiadoma has yellow as the race hits the mountains

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Updated 17/08/2024 at 13:50 GMT

Ghekiere claims 'biggest win of her life' in polka dots on Stage 7

Notable feats and failures make 8 significant impressions at 2024 Tour de France Femmes

From the decisive four seconds on Alpe d'Huez to Charlotte Kool’s duo of triumphs and Justine Ghekiere’s stunning win to Le Grand-Bornand

The third edition of the Tour de France Femmes lived up to the hype, with the spoils of eight stages divided among six individual winners, including two stages compressed into one day. From the fast, low-lying plains of the Netherlands to the punchy climbs of the Ardennes Classics in Belgium and finally to the mountainous peaks of the Alps, the 946.3 kilometres of racing came down to precious seconds to determine the maillot jaune.

Two of the best from last year’s race fought for podium spots again, this time on the epicentre of European climbing on the Alpe d’Huez, defending champion Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) took her second stage victory of the week on the fabled ascent, but would ultimately fall short by four seconds to new champion Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), who improved from last year’s third overall finish.

Most significant was that the GC was decided by the smallest margin of victory in Tour de France history, since Greg Lemond defeated Laurent Fignon by eight seconds in the 1989 men’s race.

It wasn’t just about two riders battling on Sunday across the 21 switchbacks either. There were plot twists each day in breakaways, classification leads and moments to define careers, as well as give home crowds several reasons to turn out in big numbers and name new heroes. It had been since 1991 that two stages were packed into one day at a Tour de France, this year's race contesting a road race and an ITT on the second day.

Cyclingnews had a strong contingent covering the Tour de France Femmes from start to finish, including Deputy Editor Kirsten Frattini, News Writer James Moultrie and contributor Lukas Knöfler. Here are our choices of the most memorable moments and conclusions from the race.

Charlotte Kool's wins were no fluke

Before the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, Lorena Wiebes was not only the favourite for the opening two stages in the Netherlands but also the undisputed best sprinter in the world. But things didn’t go to plan on the opening stage to The Hague, when late contact with Anniina Ahtosalo before the sprint saw Wiebes’ rear derailleur come off, leaving her unable to contest the sprint. 

Emerging from the bunch to take the win and with it the first yellow jersey, was Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), the sprinter who used to be Wiebes’ final lead-out rider and the only rider who had really matched her compatriot for top-end speed in the past season and a half.

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This could have seemed like a fluke at the time, but Kool explained how a breathing problem had been holding her back throughout the 2024 season, leading Wiebes to enter the Tour with 18 wins while Kool had netted just one this season, and on the second sprint, she confirmed it was her strength, not Wiebes’ bad luck that led her to victory.

Wiebes tried to bounce back in Rotterdam after a strong lead-out by Barbara Guarischi, but Kool wasn’t too far back just on the wheel of Marianne Vos. When Wiebes hit the front, there wasn’t the usual separation she has at lift-off, but a yellow jersey instead getting up to her and around her before the line. The doubling up on wins confirmed that Kool was every bit Wiebes’ equal in a flat finish, if not stronger. 

It’s a sprint battle that we should see continue into the next few seasons from the former teammates, however, for now, Kool will hold that crown and be confident for each of her next meetings with Wiebes. Women’s sprinting has two stars.

Prestige of the Tour breeds unexpected winners

One of the most intriguing things the Tour de France Femmes has led to since its inception in 2022, is a number of surprising winners. That continued and then some at the 2024 edition of the race, right through from Kool’s duo of triumphs ahead of Wiebes to Justine Ghekiere ’s (AG Insurance-Soudal) stunning solo win from the break to Le Grand-Bornand.

The Dutch Grand Départ actually had three surprise wins, with Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) also producing a stunning individual time trial on the 6.3km stage 3 course to move into the yellow jersey. The Course was expected to be one for the sprinters or for the pure TT specialists, but not a GC favourite due to the mainly flat profile.

But neither Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) nor Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) was able to put in better performances than Vollering, who made up all her time in the final 3km of the course, as the lactic acid built up in the legs for the specialists over the Erasmusbrug bridge. She would win by five seconds ahead of the ITT World Champion Dygert in a huge shock. 

This theme didn’t end there, with Vollering herself then being stunned by Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), who enjoyed a terrific debut at her first-ever stage race, topped off by her victory into Liège on stage 4 ahead of the defending champion - in a photo finish no less. 

As the race finally hit France for stage 5, three consecutive surprise winners arrived at the line: Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime), Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) and Ghekiere. Vas triumphed in a sprint on the drama-filled day to Amnéville, where teammate Vollering crashed and lost yellow, while Kerbaol produced a stunning descent and TT effort into Morteau to hold off the chasers, and Ghekiere went solo after getting into the days early break on the first real mountain stage.

There’s something special about the Tour and the extra motivation it can give riders, being a common theme throughout the 121 years the men's race has existed and now making its way consistently into the women's race. The added power that chasing the glory of a Tour de France Femmes stage win can extract is not to be underestimated.

Two stages in one day is a logistical nightmare

The Tour de France Femmes had good reason to host the double stage on day two, with the Dordrecht to Rotterdam sprint stage and the Rotterdam time trial allowing them to keep the race at eight stages as it had been for the previous two editions, all while fitting in with the Paris Olympics-altered calendar.

However, for riders, teams, mechanics, organisers and press, it can only be described as a massive headache. The teams had to be up early to make the Dordrecht start, with little time to comfortably make the journey to the finish after 66k of incredibly fast racing.

The problems started just there, as, after the sprint, the mechanics then had to work double time to ensure two sets of bikes - road and TT - were cleaned and set up properly for the race against the clock and the day after.

FDJ-SUEZ even booked another hotel for after the sprint, so their riders could get out of the 30-degree heat in the city, shower and prepare optimally for the time trial. It also meant that stress levels were higher and everyone had to do double the work for a normal stage.

Even for the press, there was confusion about whether cars would need to be moved to a different car park after the first stage, and the late finish of the time trial meant there was little time between the end of Vollering’s winner’s press conference and the press centre closing. Coverage was perhaps done half as well as it could have been had there been the normal one stage. 

While it’s understandable why the organisers had to do it so the race didn’t shrink in size and so that spectators in Rotterdam had a double day of action on the same finish line, it perhaps shows why double stages haven’t been at any Tour, men’s or women’s since 1991. 

SD Worx-Protime’s tactics continue as biggest weakness

For the best team in women’s cycling, SD Worx-Protime’s biggest weakness continues to be themselves. With many of the best riders in the world and the top GC star in women’s cycling - Demi Vollering, they should have been able to retain their crown from 13 months ago, but a tactical error on stage 5 cost them the race.

Vollering’s crash on the approach to Amnéville will surely be looked at in years to come as the defining moment of this year’s race, with the subsequent response, or lack thereof, from SD Worx-Protime being the biggest mistake. 

When the yellow jersey hits the deck with 6km to go, she should have been surrounded by teammates waiting to help her try and keep the jersey. But Vollering was instead alone, in pain and losing the Tour de France Femmes. Only Mischa Bredewold would drop back to help her after she finally remounted 49 seconds after going down on the exit to a roundabout, with teammate Blanka Vas winning the stage and Lorena Wiebes crossing the line eighth - neither dropped back to help their leader.

Sports manager Danny Stam said that team radios weren’t working and that there wasn’t much extra help would have done in the final approach to the line. But with a four-second margin now separating them from yellow, would SD Worx-Protime perhaps rethink their approach?

Even with Bredewold dropping back. She’d already been on the front trying to lead out Wiebes so she wasn’t fresh to save her teammate four seconds or more from the eventual 1:47 she lost to overall winner Niewiadoma. It was nothing short of a tactical disaster and perhaps vindicated part of why Vollering is rumoured to leave the team - they aren’t all in for her.

At that point, she was in the yellow jersey after a stunning stage 3 time trial and with the hardest mountain stages, that suited her better than anyone, still to come on stages 7 and 8. SD Worx-Protime simply weren’t tactically astute enough and it’s come back to bite them in the form of gruelling defeat. 

Women’s riders are true icons 

Having been introduced to men’s racing in 1952, Alpe d’Huez is finally set to see one of its fabled 21 bends marked with the name of a women’s rider, the winner of the final queen stage, Demi Vollering. The likes of Bernard Hinault, Gianni Bugno and Geraint Thomas have long been present on the bends, but now Vollering’s name will be etched and championed in the same way on the blue and white signs.

After rarely being seen in women’s racing having been a part of the 1992 and 1993 Tour Cycliste Féminin, where Dutch competitor Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel took victory twice, Vollering emulated her countrywoman and took victory, albeit a bittersweet one as she lost the overall.

But nonetheless, her victory up the climb and the grittiest of defences that followed it by yellow jersey Kasia Niewiadoma, will go down in history as one of cycling's closest but most incredible finishes, setting up Alpe d'Huez to feature as a historic climb for women as it has for men in racing.

Women’s stars being honoured on a corner was also a bit of a theme in this race, with the 'Virage' Juliette Labous coming to life on stage 6 to Morteau, as she raced in front of hundreds of fans lining the roads just to see and cheer her on.

Allez Juliette signs were everyone on the course as the race headed towards the finish, with Labous honouring the crowds with an attack that ultimately didn’t come off but showed just how heroic these riders are to the fans. 

The various virages that have been seen recently are all from men’s racing - Thaibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet and Julien Bernard, with Labous now joining them in a special list of honoured riders.

Kerbaol’s win opens the door to more French success

The first two editions of the Tour de France saw the Dutch dominate most of the stages, be that the sprints or the high mountains, with little success coming from the French outside of Cédrine Kerbaol’s success in the best young rider’s classification last year.

So it was very fitting that after a Dutch-dominated Grand Départ in the Netherlands, France finally found its first home stage winner, since the women’s Tour was revived in 2022 through, Kerbaol again. 

It was an opportunistic move by the 23-year-old into Morteau, with her launch coming off the back of the GC favourites Vollering and Niewiadoma marking each other out on the final climb up Côte des Fins. She followed it up with a daring descent on roads she knew well, railing each corner on the absolute limit before time trialling her way to the line.

It felt huge for the French, with this now opening the door for more French stage wins to follow. Kerbaol embraced race director Marion Rousse at the finish, with her compatriot captioning a post to Instagram ‘forever the first’. 

With lots of French talent on show at the race through Kerbaol, Labous and Muzic, who are all still young, the even younger generation of future stars like Marion Bunel and Celia Gery will be hoping to emulate what Kerbaol did at the 2024 Tour de France Femmes.  

The race is ready for 9 days and more

A four-second margin separated Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma at the finish of one of cycling’s greatest-ever finales, coming right down to the wire after a brutal week of racing. While it was exciting to witness the closest winning margin the Tour de France has ever seen, men’s or women’s, that is partly down to the race being only eight stages still. 

With such a short ‘Grand Tour’ format, this puts higher pressure on each and every mistake made, especially for the GC riders. This was felt worst by Vollering of course, who after a crash on stage 5, saw her lead overall completely evaporated in the Amnéville heat.

While this is part of racing, and it makes the jeopardy higher in the women’s race, only having eight stages and seven days to win the Tour means there is little time to come back from a minor setback, caused by yourself or someone else accidentally.

Alongside this, the race has now experienced three great years of racing in different regions and it feels right to start expanding - albeit in small increments - so the proposed one extra stage for next year sounds about right. The 2025 race is due to start in Brittany and is scheduled to run for nine days based on the current information released by ASO, which means more of the great action.

Women’s races have also been much longer in the past, such as the old women’s Tours de France from the 80s and 80s and the women’s Giro d’Italia, which had 10 stages for a long time It’s not as if eight stages is a barrier the riders cannot handle, but a UCI limit. The stages are getting longer - 150km and over, the most famous climbs are now being used, so why not expand the race? 

Niewiadoma and Canyon-SRAM rode the perfect race

A lot of the focus since the end of the race has been on the mistakes made by SD Worx-Protime and Demi Vollering, however, it’s important to note just how brilliant Canyon-SRAM were in their pursuit of yellow.

Their language right from the pre-race media day was confident, spurred on by showing brilliant race tactics throughout the season such as at the Tour de Suisse where Kasia Niewiadoma and Neve Bradbury lit up the racing to try and beat Vollering to the top spot. On that occasion, they weren’t able to do it but they had their eyes on the bigger prize.

But losing Elisa Chabbey early on and Bradbury as a GC card to play due to crashes meant it had to be the Polish star who took the reigns and led the German team.

Niewiadoma, twice a third-place finisher at the Tour de France Femmes, had her full focus on Vollering and even identified that there were weaknesses in the Dutch squad’s roster without Lotte Kopecky and Marlen Reusser. And it was the crash and subsequent poor tactics that arrived on stage 5 which perhaps proved Niewiadoma’s point - they were vulnerable. 

Canyon-SRAM then responded perfectly, putting time trial World Champion Chloé Dygert to work and letting the brutally powerful American do some serious damage on the front which maximised Niewiadoma’s time gain.

This ride put Niewiadoma into the lead with a 1:19 gap to Vollering, and despite many riders being in between them on GC, she knew that only the Dutch rider could fully challenge her now. Niewiadoma quickly changed tack from her usual attacking style and settled brilliantly into the role of defender, keeping Vollering close on stages 6 and 7 to only lose four seconds heading into the final stage.

Four seconds that she called insignificant post-stage 7, but close to 24 hours later, she was calling a different four seconds "magical" after that was all of her lead that remained following the queen stage to Alpe d’Huez. Niewiadoma produced the grittiest ride of her life, albeit with some help from Lidl-Trek and FDJ-Suez, defending a 1:01 gap for the final 54km of stage 8 up Col du Glandon and Alpe d’Huez to take victory. 

Once the perennial bridesmaid of professional cycling but now the champion of the biggest race, Niewiadoma’s rise from serial second-place finisher and podium contender to winner is one that hasn’t come without the required hard work. It’s a win that will live on in the memory of cycling fans for an awful long time, as the closest margin of victory ever in a Tour de France.

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James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.

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Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe head to Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain this September

Double olympic gold medallist and tour de france podium finisher remco evenepoel and julian alaphilippe, winner of the 2018 lloyds bank tour of britain men (both soudal quick-step), headline the first batch of star riders to be confirmed for this september’s lloyds bank tour of britain men, which begins on tuesday 3 september..

Evenepoel will be joined on the start line in the Scottish Borders at Kelso on Tuesday 3 September by teammate and former world champion Julian Alaphilippe, whose two previous appearances in the Tour have resulted in overall victory (2018), and third overall (2021).

For Evenepoel it will be a first appearance in the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men, coming just a month after he sensationally became the first male rider in history to win the gold in both the road race and time-trial at an Olympic Games.

This came in a season when he has already won stages in four major stage races, most recently at the Tour de France where he won the stage seven individual time trial on his way to the best young rider jersey and third overall.

Double World Road race champion (2020 and 2021) Alaphilippe will be making his third appearance in Britain’s biggest professional cycle race. Having won the King of the Mountains classification in the 2018 Tour de France, Alaphilippe lived up to his star billing at that year’s Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men, winning the third stage in Bristol, and taking a runner up spot on a crucial summit finish in the Lake District to seal the overall victory.

Three editions later Alaphilippe returned to contest a memorable battle with Wout van Aert for overall victory, and despite recording top 10 positions on the first six stages, eventually had to settle for third in the general classification, but cemented himself in the hearts of British fans.

This season the 32-year-old Frenchman has won stages of the Tour of Slovakia, Czech Tour, and Giro d’Italia, also taking the Combativity Award in the latter. Having starred during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games road race, he highlighted his good form with second place in the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa WorldTour race at the weekend.

Alongside the formidable Soudal Quick-Step duo are Paris 2024 Olympic Games track cycling silver medallist Ethan Vernon (Israel – Premier Tech), Tour de France mountains hero Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) plus a trio of national champions.

Vernon will line-up for his fourth Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men, having won a silver medal in the team pursuit during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Already a double World Champion on the track, Vernon was a member of the squad that broke the British record in the first round before claiming a silver medal in the final.

Having made his Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men debut in 2019, last September saw the 23-year-old finishing in the top six in each of the first six stages of the race, including runners up spot in a photo finish with Danny van Poppel in Harlow.

Making his Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men debut will be Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility). The 28-year-old Norwegian leapt to prominence in this summer’s Tour de France, featuring strongly in the days’ break on each of the first two stages to hold the King of the Mountains jersey for the first 10 stages.

Earlier this season Abrahamsen took his biggest career win to date in the Brussels Cycling Classic UCI ProSeries race, while also finishing runner-up in the UCI WorldTour Dwars door Vlaanderen one-day race a few weeks before.

A trio of national champions scheduled to ride are also among the first names to be confirmed, led by Uno-X Mobility’s Norwegian road race champion Markus Hoelgaard and Estonian Norman Vahtra (Van Rysel – Roubaix). Vahtra is twice a winner of his country’s national road race title, the most recent coming in June this year.

Should he recover from injury in time Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Development Team) will complete the trio riding in the national champions jerseys, having beaten WorldTour opposition to the Danish road race title in the summer. Due to become the latest Danish talent to join the UCI WorldTour next season, Pedersen also took the honours in the prestigious GP Herning one-day in his home country in May before breaking his collarbone in July.

In total 18 teams, including six that participated in this summer’s Tour de France, from 12 countries will line-up in Scotland for stage one on Tuesday 3 September for a field of 108 riders.

The Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men begins in the Scottish Borders on Tuesday 3 September followed by stages in the Tees Valley, South Yorkshire, the East Midlands and West Northamptonshire, before concluding in Suffolk on Sunday 8 September after six stages of action-packed racing.

Fans wanting to see Julian Alaphilippe in action firsthand at the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men can now book and enjoy a range of premium hospitality opportunities and experiences, available via Sportive Breaks here .

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