The Tour de France is one of the most famous bicycle races in the world. However, it began as an audacious plan to sell newspapers.
The Tour de France is one of the world’s most famous sporting events, but it began as an audacious plan to sell newspapers. At the start of the twentieth century, the French sports paper L’Auto was losing readers to its rival, Le Vélo. Journalist Géo Lefèvre suggested organising an enormous bicycle race around France. Editor Henri Desgrange was doubtful, but eventually agreed.
The first Tour began on the 1st of July 1903 outside a café near Paris. Sixty cyclists entered a six-stage race covering about 2,428 kilometres. Some stages continued through the night. The bicycles were heavy, the roads were poor and riders received almost no organised support. They repaired their own equipment and found food and water during the journey.
Maurice Garin, a former chimney sweep, won by almost three hours. The event increased the sales of L’Auto, so it returned the following year. However, the 1904 Tour was filled with scandal. Riders were accused of using trains and cars, while supporters blocked roads and attacked competitors. Garin appeared to win again, but he and several others were later disqualified. Nineteen-year-old Henri Cornet was declared the winner.
Early editions were designed to be extremely difficult. Riders continued through hunger, exhaustion, bad weather and mechanical problems. The race was often decided through attrition. Victory did not always belong to the fastest cyclist, but to the rider who could continue while others gave up.
Mountain stages made the race even more dramatic. In 1910, cyclists entered the Pyrenees and climbed the Col du Tourmalet on rough roads. Many had to push their bicycles. French rider Octave Lapize reportedly called the organisers criminals after finishing the stage. The Alps were added in 1911. The mountains soon became the Tour’s greatest stage, where a cyclist could become a hero or lose everything within one climb.
The First World War stopped the Tour between 1915 and 1918. When it returned in 1919, it introduced the yellow jersey, worn by the overall leader. Yellow was chosen because L’Auto was printed on yellow paper. Eugène Christophe became its first official wearer. Although he never won the Tour, stories of his courage and bicycle problems helped mythologise the early riders.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Tour developed into a national summer festival. In 1930, organisers introduced the publicity caravan, a procession of advertising vehicles that travelled ahead of the cyclists and distributed free products. It became an important mixture of sport, entertainment and business.
The Second World War interrupted the race again, and it did not return until 1947. Television later brought the Tour to an international audience. Viewers saw riders pass through mountains, vineyards and historic towns, turning the race into an advertisement for France.
Several riders became legends. Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx each won five Tours, while Miguel Induráin won five consecutive editions between 1991 and 1995.
One of the closest finishes occurred in 1989. Greg LeMond began the final stage fifty seconds behind Laurent Fignon. LeMond used aerodynamic handlebars, which were unusual at the time, and won by only eight seconds. His victory showed how technological ingenuity could change a race.
The Tour has also been damaged by doping. In 1998, the Festina scandal revealed organised drug use within a leading team. Lance Armstrong later won seven Tours between 1999 and 2005 after recovering from cancer. His story was celebrated as an inspiring comeback, but investigations proved that he had used banned substances. He was stripped of all seven titles and banned for life. His fall into infamy became the greatest scandal in the Tour’s history.
Modern cycling now uses stricter testing and biological monitoring. Riders also depend heavily on teammates, who collect food, protect leaders from the wind and help during mountain stages.
Women were excluded from most of the Tour’s history. Several women’s races appeared in the past but often disappeared because of limited support. In 2022, the Tour de France Femmes was launched as a major annual event, giving female cyclists a much larger international platform.
More than a century after its creation, the Tour de France is far more than a bicycle race. It is a sporting competition, a television spectacle, a major business and a celebration of French landscapes. What began as a plan to sell newspapers became a global tradition built on endurance, ambition, teamwork, scandal and unforgettable human stories.
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