The 1986 Tour de France was a cycling race held in France, from 4 July to 27 July. It was the 73rd running of the Tour de France. Greg LeMond of won the race, ahead of his teammate Bernard Hinault. It was the first ever victory for a rider outside of Europe. Five-time Tour winner Hinault, who had won the year before with LeMond supporting him, had publicly pledged to ride in support of LeMond in 1986. Several attacks during the race cast doubt on the sincerity of his promise, leading to a rift between the two riders and the entire La Vie Claire team. The 1986 Tour de France is widely considered to be one of the most memorable in the history of the sport due to the battle between LeMond and Hinault.
Thierry Marie () took the first race leader's yellow jersey after winning the prologue time trial. The lead then moved to Alex Stieda () after stage 1, only for Marie to recapture the lead after his team won the team time trial on stage 2. After short stints in the lead for Dominique Gaigne and Johan van der Velde, Jørgen V. Pedersen took the yellow jersey following a breakaway on stage 7 and retained the lead even after the first long time trial, won by Hinault. Stage 12 saw Hinault attack with Pedro Delgado (), who won the stage, while Hinault moved into the lead. Hinault attacked again the following day, but was caught and dropped. LeMond gained back significant time, but still trailed his teammate by 40 seconds.
LeMond would move into the yellow jersey after stage 17, when Hinault fell behind on the climb of the Col d'Izoard. Stage 18 to Alpe d'Huez saw LeMond and Hinault finish hand-in-hand, with the latter winning the stage. LeMond's overall victory was sealed when Hinault was unable to overcome his deficit in the final time trial on stage 20. Urs Zimmermann () finished third, and was the only rider who posed a threat to the La Vie Claire team, who also had the 4th placed rider in Andy Hampsten.
In the race's other classifications, Hinault won the mountains classification, rider Eric Vanderaerden the points classification, and 's Andrew Hampsten won the young rider classification. finished at the head of the team classification by one hour 51 minutes, after placing four riders inside the final overall top-ten placings.
One of cycling's Grand Tours, the Tour consisted of 23 stages, beginning with a prologue in Boulogne-Billancourt and concluded on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The race was organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation and was shown on television in 72 countries, with the total viewers estimated at one billion.
Teams
In June, 23 teams had requested to start in the 1986 Tour. The Tour organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), accepted 21 applications, so a total of 21 teams participated in the 1986 Tour de France. The two teams whose application was denied were Skala-Skil and Miko. Each team sent a squad of ten riders, which meant that the race would start with a peloton of 210 cyclists, a record setting total. The ASO felt that 210 starters were too many and moved to reduce the size of the squads to eight riders each, but the teams protested, and the original number remained.
became the Tour's first team from the United States, with a squad consisting of eight Americans, one Canadian and one Mexican. Jim Ochowicz, 's founder and manager, met with the ASO and persuaded them to invite his team. In the Spring, the team withdrew from competition in Europe (missing the opportunity to become the first American team in the history of the Vuelta a España) due to the United States conflict with Libya, losing out on much needed competitive racing unavailable in the United States. Joop Zoetemelk, the reigning road world champion, started and finished his 16th Tour de France, a record that stood until it was tied by Sylvain Chavanel in 2018.
The teams entering the race were:
Pre-race favourites
Five-time Tour winner and defending champion Bernard Hinault () had promised to support his teammate Greg LeMond, who had finished second in 1985, following controversy during that race when LeMond felt that a chance of potential victory had been taken from him due to team tactics. was therefore considered the squad to beat, with the team also featuring strong riders such as Andrew Hampsten, who had won the Tour de Suisse several weeks before the Tour de France. Before the start of the event, Hinault announced it would be the last Tour de France of his career. Prior to the start of the Tour, LeMond was confident of his chances, and pointed out that having Hinault, who he expected to take an early lead, would play to his advantage. Even with Hinault's assurances of support for LeMond, excitement over a possible record-breaking sixth Tour win was high in France. In a survey of 15 Dutch journalists, eight named Hinault as their main favourite for overall victory, just three chose LeMond. LeMond's season up to this point had been good, but had not yielded any major victories; he finished second at Milan–San Remo, third at Paris–Nice, fourth at the Giro d'Italia and third at the Tour de Suisse.
Laurent Fignon (), winner in 1983 and 1984, was working on his comeback, having won the La Flèche Wallonne classic in the spring. He had missed the chance to defend his title the year earlier due to surgery on an inflamed Achilles tendon. Juan Mora of El País believed that the race would be highlighted by a duel between Fignon and Hinault. He named LeMond and Frenchman Charly Mottet as potential contenders if their team captains – Hinault and Fignon, respectively – failed to perform to the level expected. Mora believed Pedro Delgado to be the best Spanish contender for the overall title citing that his should perform well in the team time trial. Gian Paolo Ormezzano of La Stampa believed that there was no Italian rider competing that could be a legitimate threat to win the race, despite the fact that three Italian based teams were invited – the most since the 1979 edition. Ormezzano also thought the favourites going into the race were Hinault and Fignon. Fignon later recalled in his autobiography that he did not share the view of himself as a favourite, writing: "I felt terrible physically. [...] My body — and perhaps my mind as well — was registering deep fatigue rather than an urge to get on with it." Stephen Roche (), third overall the year before, had injured his knee in a crash at the Paris Six-Day event in the winter, necessitating surgery in April, which meant that he arrived at the Tour out of form. Five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil named Luis Herrera () as his main favourite. Herrera himself declared: "If I do not lose more than ten minutes before the mountains, I can win."
Sean Kelly () was considered the main favourite for victory in the points classification, having won the trophy a record-equalling third time the year before. However, a crash on the last stage of the Tour de Suisse prevented Kelly from starting. In his absence, Adri van der Poel () was given the best chances to win the classification.
Route and stages
The race route for the 1986 edition of the Tour de France was unveiled on 8 October 1985 by both Jacques Goddet and Félix Lévitan. The race was pushed back a week from its normal date in order to prevent overlap with the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and therefore started on 4 July. Covering a total of , it included four time trials (three individual and one for teams) and ten stages deemed as flat. The race included four stages that featured a summit finish: stage 13 to Superbagnères; stage 17 to Col du Granon; stage 18 to Alpe d'Huez; and stage 21 to Puy de Dôme. The race took a counter-clockwise route around France. Following the prologue and opening stages in the Hauts-de-Seine region, the race moved north towards the Belgian border, before turning west to Brittany. The Tour then traveled south to Bordeaux, where a train transfer brought the riders to Bayonne, at the foot of the Pyrenees. From there, transition stages led the race to the Alps, before the final stages in the Massif Central and further north towards Paris.
The 1986 Tour de France had one rest day, after the finish on the Alpe d'Huez. The highest point of elevation in the race was at the summit of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 18. The longest road-race stage was stage 11, at .
Tour director Levitan felt after the 1985 Tour de France that the race had been too easy, and made the course in 1986 extra difficult, including more mountain climbs than before. This angered Hinault, who threatened to skip the 1986 Tour. Before the race started, an avalanche deposited a large amount of dirt and rock on the slopes of the Col du Tourmalet, prompting Goddet to consider rerouting the course through the Col d'Aubisque.
+Stage characteristics and winners Stage Date Course DistanceType Winner P4 July Boulogne-Billancourt Individual time trial 15 July Nanterre to Sceaux Plain stage 25 July Meudon to Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Team time trial 36 July Levallois-Perret to Liévin Plain stage 47 July Liévin to Évreux Plain stage 58 July Évreux to Villers-sur-Mer Plain stage 69 July Villers-sur-Mer to Cherbourg Plain stage 710 July Cherbourg to Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët Plain stage 811 July Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët to Nantes Plain stage 912 July Nantes Individual time trial 1013 July Nantes to Futuroscope Plain stage 1114 July Futuroscope to Bordeaux Plain stage 1215 July Bayonne to Pau Stage with mountain(s) 1316 July Pau to Superbagnères Stage with mountain(s) 1417 July Superbagnères to Blagnac Plain stage 1518 July Carcassonne to Nîmes Plain stage 1619 July Nîmes to Gap Plain stage 1720 July Gap to Serre Chevalier Stage with mountain(s) 1821 July Briançon to Alpe d'Huez Stage with mountain(s) 22 July Alpe d'Huez Rest day 1923 July Villard-de-Lans to Saint-Étienne Plain stage 2024 July Saint-Étienne Individual time trial 2125 July Saint-Étienne to Puy de Dôme Plain stage 2226 July Clermont-Ferrand to Nevers Plain stage 2327 July Cosne-sur-Loire to Paris (Champs-Élysées) Plain stage Total
Race overview
Opening stages
The prologue was won by Thierry Marie (), with Hinault in third place, just two seconds slower. Fignon and LeMond placed seventh and eighth, both four seconds back. On stage 1, Alex Stieda () attacked from the finish and collected time bonuses at the intermediate sprint, which would move him into the race lead. He was then joined in his breakaway by five other riders. The sextet held a small margin until the finish, with Pol Verschuere () taking the victory. Stieda, a Canadian, became the first rider from North America to wear the race leader's yellow jersey.
The same afternoon, the team time trial was held. The attempt at defending Stieda's race lead by his team proved unsuccessful. A crash by Eric Heiden slowed the team and forced several riders to take evasive action in order not to run into him, in the process scraping their tyres at the street curbing, which caused several punctures. In addition, Stieda was tired by his morning effort and fell back, getting in danger of missing the time limit. Chris Carmichael and Jeff Pierce had to fall back to lead him to the finish, which he reached in time but the yellow jersey was lost. It was regained by Marie, whose team won the time trial, while lost almost two minutes. Hinault personally instructed the team to wait for Niki Rüttimann and Guido Winterberg, who were nursing the after-effects of crashes during the morning stage, accounting for 's comparatively poor performance. lost significant time and four of the team's riders were eliminated because they missed the time limit.