8 things about le Tour de France,

as known as La Grande Boucle

5- The scandals

From the start, there were scandals.

In 1904, riders were thrown out of the race for being pulled by cars, riders spreading tacks on the road to delay rivals with punctures or even poisoning fellow riders.

Garin, the 1903 winner, was seen taking a train rather than riding in 1904.

The public felled trees to delay competitors, even beating them at night.

The violence of the first years has gone, but the scandals have been regular. Mostly due to doping.

The first anti-doping test was introduced in 1966 and as riders refused to “piss in a tube”, they dismounted and walked instead of riding their bikes.

Amphetamine use was allegedly common in the 60s.

In 1967, one favourite rider died while climbing due to heart failure, exhaustion and dehydration. The medical officials said ampethamine had contributed to his death.

In 1998, the whole Festina team (riders and officials) was arrested for systematic doping operation. Only 96 riders finished the Tour as most of them had resigned that year.

The 2006 edition was renamed the Tour de Dope, with Greg Landis losing his title for doping.

In 2007, teams sacked their own leading riders to avoid more doping scandals.

There are whispers of some "electric bikes" too...

6- The Caravan

The Tour has always been a sporting event for commercial purposes.

Since 1930, a parade of floats precedes the races.

It is called La Caravane Publicitaire (the publicity caravan), which is what its name states: a gigantic advertising event that 47% of viewers of the Tour admit coming to see rather than the races…

In 2015, there were 154 vehicles representing 34 brands, with 600 people working on it, giving out 14 million freebies.

1- A little bit of history

In 1903, Geo Lefevre, a journalist at L’Auto (nowadays, L’Equipe, a daily sport newspaper in France), was probably a little crazy to think that people would ride 2500km around France.

60 cyclists joined for the 6-stages race. 21 made it to Paris!

Le Tour de France was born!

It gathered rapidly lots of attention both from the readers of L’Auto as well as the public looking to see the cyclists on the road.

It has been on ever since, in July, with a steady increase of participants and followers, changing the stages every year, adding mountains, starting from cities outside the borders of France, creating a colour code for t-shirts and legendary performances.

7- The Women

Female riders are absent from the Tour.

There was a 5-stage Tour in 1955 that was cancelled after one edition.

There was a real female Tour de France (18 stages, the same routes as men) that lasted from 1984 until 1993

From 1992 to 2009, another Tour de France called La Grande Boucle took place in August.

Since 2015, there is a one day race on the Champs Elysees (89km vs 3000km), before the men's finish.

2- The Heroes

Maurice Garin is the 1st winner ever (right picture above, with the bike). He also won the 2nd tour in 1904 but was stripped of his title for cheating!

Out of 102 editions, 61 cyclists won the Tour de France. All of them are heroes as it is not easy to ride 3 weeks in a row across France.

However, there are among them real heroes: Jacques Anquetil won 5 Tours, including 4 in a row, in the 60s, as did Bernard Hinault in late 70s early 80s. Eddie Merckx, from Belgium, is also a 5 tour winner, with Miguel Indurain (Spain) in the 90s, the only one with 5 consecutive wins.

4- The jerseys

The Yellow jersey is the winner jersey. It is the most wanted one!

You get to wear it when you have got the best overall time. It is yellow because L’Auto (the organising newspaper from 1903) was yellow. If you wear it on the final day, you have won the Tour and €450,000 on top of it!

The green jersey is worn by the leader by points, which you get during the sprint races.

The polka dot is for the best climber (mountain rider).

The white one is for the under 25 best rider.

Whichever you wear, you are a good cyclist in our standards!

3- The unlucky

And then you have the ones that consistently got the 2nd place or 3rd place.

Raymond Poulidor was the public favourite and managed to always lose to Anquetil and Merckx in the late 60s and 70s. He can’t claim any Tour victory but was the subject of 4000 newspapers articles and numerous sociology studies in those years.

Laurent Fignon was also one to lose out, by 8 seconds after 3 weeks of racing, against Greg Lemond, the first (and only official!) american to have won the Tour.

8- The Australians

Cadel Evans is the first (and only so far) Australian to have won the Tour in 2011.

From this year, there will be a Tour de France in Australia. In 2016, it will take place on Saturday 3rd December in Snowy Mountains in NSW.

It is called l’Etape Australia and provides the closest experience an amateur rider can get to competing in the Tour de France, with fully closed roads in a mountainous landscape.

You can choose to ride 157 or 126km. And you can get to wear the real Tour de France jerseys, yellow for the overall winner, the green and the polka dot.

To know more and register, look here.