The Tour de France is road cycling's premier competitive event. Since the first event in 1903, one rider has been King of the Mountains, won the combination classification, combativity award, the points competition, and the Tour in the same year - Eddy Merckx in 1969, which was also the first year he participated. The white jersey for the best young (under 25) rider did not exist in 1969; if it had, Merckx would have won that jersey as well.

Only two other riders have approached the feat of winning the green, polka dot and yellow jerseys in the same Tour. Bernard Hinault won the race and the points classification in 1979, but finished second in the mountains competition, while Tadej Pogačar won the race and the mountains competition in 2025, but finished second in the points classification. After Merckx in 1972, no other rider won three separate jerseys in a single Tour, until Tadej Pogačar won the yellow, polka-dot and white jerseys in 2020, a feat he repeated the following year. The white jersey signifies the best young rider and was introduced in 1975.

The Tour has been won on two occasions by a racer who never wore the yellow jersey until the race was over. In 1947, Jean Robic overturned a three-minute deficit on a 257 km final stage into Paris. In 1968, Jan Janssen of the Netherlands secured his win in the individual time trial on the last day.

In addition to 1947 and 1968, in 1989 Greg LeMond overcame a +:50 deficit to Laurent Fignon on the last day of the race in Paris to win the race on the final day, however Lemond had worn the yellow jersey earlier in the race. This was the final time the last stage in Paris was held as an individual time trial.

The Tour has been won four times by a racer who led the general classification on the first stage and held the lead all the way to Paris. Maurice Garin did it during the Tour's first edition, 1903; he repeated the feat the next year, but the results were nullified in response to widespread cheating. Ottavio Bottecchia completed a GC start-to-finish sweep in 1924. In 1928, Nicolas Frantz also led the GC for the entire race, and the final podium was made up of three riders from his Alcyon–Dunlop team. Lastly, Belgian Romain Maes took the lead in the first stage of the 1935 tour, and never gave it away. Similarly, there have been four tours in which a racer has taken over the GC lead on the second stage and held the lead all the way to Paris. After dominating the ITT during Stage 1B of the 1961 Tour de France Jacques Anquetil held the Maillot Jaune from the first day all the way to Paris.

René Pottier, Roger Lapébie, Sylvère Maes, Fausto Coppi and Bradley Wiggins all won the Tour de France the last time they appeared in the race. Of these, only Coppi also won the yellow jersey on their Tour debut.

Mark Cavendish is the all-time leader in individual stage wins with 35.

Length of stages and Tour

Longest stage: Les Sables-d'Olonne – Bayonne from 1919 to 1924: Longest tour: 1926 – Shortest tour: 1903 and 1904 –

Participating riders

Largest number of starters: 210 in 1986 (132 classified at the finish) Smallest number of starters: 59 in 1903 (21 classified at the finish). Highest number of finishers: 174 in 2016 (198 starters). Smallest number of finishers: 10 in 1919 (67 starters). Largest number of riders leaving the race: 93 in 1998 (96 classified at the finish out of 189 starters)

Appearances Between 1920 and 1985, Jules Deloffre (1885 – 1963) was the record holder for the highest number of Tour de France participations, with 14, and was sole holder of this record until 1966 with the fourteenth and last participation of André Darrigade. The record for most appearances is now held by Sylvain Chavanel, with 18. George Hincapie had held the mark for the most consecutive finishes with sixteen, having completed every Tour de France that he participated in except his first one, but was disqualified in October 2012 from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 editions of the race for his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Joop Zoetemelk and Chavanel jointly hold the record for the most finishes with sixteen each, with the former having completed all 16 of the Tours that he started. Zoetemelk also held the record for the most Tour de France stages completed with 365, a tally that was surpassed when Chavanel finished Stage 18 of the 2018 edition of the Tour. Chavanel's record now stands at 369. Zoetemelk currently holds the record for most kilometers ridden in Tour de France history at 62,885, a record which will be difficult to break considering the shorter stage lengths in modern Tours. Of the riders on this list only Van Impe (1976), Zoetemelk (1980) and Geraint Thomas (2018) have won the race. Riders who are still active are indicated in bold.

+ Most appearances Participations Finishes Name Nationality 18 (2001–2018) 16 (2001–2006, 2008–2011, 2013–2018) 17 (1997–2013) 15 (1997–1999, 2001–2006, 2008–2013) 17 (1998–2014) 14 (1998–2002, 2004, 2006–2008, 2010–2014) 17 (1996–2012) 13 (1997–2003, 2007–2012)All appearances from 2004 to 2006 have been disqualified due to Hincapie's suspension for performance-enhancing drug use 16 (1970–1973, 1975–1986) 16 (1970–1973, 1975–1986) 16 (2001–2009, 2011–2017) 15 (2001–2003, 2005–2009, 2011–2017) 15 (2007–2018, 2021, 2023–2024) 8 (2009–2013, 2015, 2021, 2024) 15 (1969–1981, 1983, 1985) 15 (1969–1981, 1983, 1985) 15 (1990–1998, 2000–2004, 2006) 15 (1990–1998, 2000–2004, 2006) 15 (2003–2017) 15 (2003–2017) 15 (1980–1994) 13 (1981–1982, 1984–1994) 15 (1996–2010) 11 (1996–1997, 1999–2000, 2003–2007, 2009–2010) 14 (1953–1966) 13 (1953–1962, 1964–1966) 14 (1994–2004, 2006–2008) 13 (1995–2004, 2006–2008) 14 (2007, 2010–2011, 2013–2019, 2021–2022, 2024–2025) 13 (2007, 2010–2011, 2013–2016, 2018–2019, 2021–2022, 2024–2025) 14 (1978–1985, 1987–1992) 12 (1978–1985, 1988–1990, 1992) 14 (1962–1976) 11 (1962–1965, 1967, 1969–1972, 1974–1976) 14 (2005–2008, 2012–2021) 10 (2007–2008, 2012–2016, 2018–2020) 14 (1908–1914, 1920–1928) 7 (1909–1914, 1921) 13 (1981–1988, 1989–1994) 13 (1981–1988, 1989–1994) 13 (1969–1975, 1977–1981, 1983) 12 (1969–1975, 1977–1980, 1983) 13 (1974–1982, 1984, 1986–1988) 11 (1974–1975, 1977–1982, 1984, 1986–1987) 13 (1977–1989) 11 (1977–1985, 1987, 1989) 13 (1951–1963) 10 (1951–1952, 1954, 1956–1957, 1959–1963) 13 (1964–1976) 10 (1964–1965, 1967–1971, 1973–1974, 1976) 13 (1953–1965) 9 (1953–1955, 1957, 1959–1960, 1962–1963, 1965) 13 (1979–1983, 1985–1988, 1990–1993) 9 (1979, 1981–1983, 1985, 1987–1988, 1990–1991) 13 (2002–2014) 13 (2002–2014) 13 (1992–1997, 1999–2005) 8 (1993–1994, 1996, 2000, 2002–2005) 13 (1994–2006) 7 (1995, 1997, 2000–2001, 2003, 2005–2006) 13 (1993–1996, 1999–2005, 2009–2010) 1 (1995)All appearances since August 1, 1998 have been disqualified due to Armstrong's suspension for performance-enhancing drug use 13 (2009–2021) 7 (2009–2011, 2013–2014, 2017, 2020) 13 (2010–2022) 11 (2010–2011, 2013–2021) 13 (2009–2018, 2020–2022) 13 (2009–2018, 2020–2022) 13 (2010–2013, 2015–2023) 11 (2010–2012, 2015–2020, 2022–2023)

Smallest winning margin In the early years of the Tour, cyclists rode individually, and were sometimes forbidden from riding together. This led to large gaps between the winner and the runner-up. Since the cyclists now tend to stay together in a peloton, the margins of the winner have become smaller, as the difference usually originates from time trials, breakaways or on mountain top finishes, or from being dropped by the peloton. In the table below, the ten smallest margins between the winner and the second placed cyclists at the end of the Tour are listed, all of them under one minute. The largest margin, by comparison, remains that of the first Tour in 1903: 2h 49m 45s between Maurice Garin and Lucien Pothier.

Cadel Evans is on this list twice, losing the 2007 and 2008 races by less than a minute; and he is just off this list for the 2011 edition, which he won by overturning a deficit during the final time trial claiming the victory by just 1:34 over Andy Schleck. The smallest margins between first and second placed riders are as follows.

+Smallest winning marginRankMarginYearWinnerRunner-up18"1989 Greg LeMond Laurent Fignon223"2007 Alberto Contador Cadel Evans332"2006 Óscar Pereiro Andreas Klöden438"1968 Jan Janssen Herman Van Springel540"1987 Stephen Roche Pedro Delgado648"1977 Bernard Thévenet Hennie Kuiper754"2017 Chris Froome Rigoberto Urán855"1964 Jacques Anquetil Raymond Poulidor958"2008 Carlos Sastre Cadel Evans1059"2020 Tadej Pogačar Primož Roglič

Successful breakaways The longest successful post-war breakaway by a single rider was by Albert Bourlon in the 1947 Tour de France. In the stage Carcassonne-Luchon, he stayed away for .Tour 09, Procycling (UK) summer 2009 It was one of seven breakaways longer than 200 km, the last being Thierry Marie's 234 km escape in 1991. Bourlon finished 16:30 ahead. This is one of the biggest time gaps but not the greatest. That record belongs to José Luis Viejo, who beat the peloton by 22:50 in the 1976 stage Montgenèvre-Manosque. He was the fourth and most recent rider to win a stage by more than 20 minutes. Another major solo effort was Fons de Wolf during stage 14 of the 1984 Tour de France. He won the stage by 17:40 and came within a minute and a half of Tour favorite Laurent Fignon in the overall standings. He paid for his solo effort in the following stages, however, and fell back in the standings thereafter.

Overall speed

The 2025 edition was the fastest Tour de France in history. Tadej Pogačar rode 3,302 km in 76h 00m 32s, thus realising an overall speed of 43.4 km/h or 27.0 mph.

The slowest Tour de France was the edition of 1919, when Firmin Lambot's average speed was 24.1 km/h.

Recent overall speeds +Overall SpeedYearWinners' Average Speed201639.616 km/h201740.997 km/h201840.210 km/h201940.576 km/h202039.872 km/h202141.165 km/h202242.031 km/h202341.431 km/h202441.818 km/h202543.440 km/h202643.326 km/h

Stage speeds The fastest massed-start stage was stage 11 of the 2026 Tour de France from Vichy to Nevers (), which was won by Søren Wærenskjold at an average of . A four man break away was established after 11 kilometres, though the gap never extended beyond 1 minute 40 seconds. The break was caught 6.7km from the finish with Wærenskjold's victory coming from a bunch sprint, with 119 riders being awarded the same time. Søren Wærenskjold has the rare honour of coming in last position then first position in consecutive tour stages, having suffered a crash on stage 10.

The previous fastest massed-start stage was the flat stage 4 of the 1999 Tour de France from Laval to Blois (), which was won by Mario Cipollini at an average of .

The fastest individual time-trial is Rohan Dennis's stage 1 of the 2015 Tour de France in Utrecht, won at an average pace of .

The fastest team time-trial stage and fastest stage win was by the Orica GreenEDGE team in Stage 4 of the 2013 Tour de France. They completed the 25 km time-trial at 57.7 km/h (35.85 mph).

The fastest climb of Alpe d'Huez was by Tadej Pogacar at the 2026 Tour de France with a time of 35 minutes and 27 seconds.

Stage wins per rider

The table below shows the top 26 riders who have won the most stages (including half-stages, excluding Team Time Trials). Riders who are still active are indicated in bold. Riders with the same number of stage wins are listed alphabetically.

RankNameCountry Country Represented (Not necessarily country of birth or nationality)WinsFirst winLast win1 35 2008 20242 34 1969 19753 28 1978 1986426202020265 25 1927 19386 22 1953 19647 20 1924 19298 19 1908 19149 17 1909 192310 16 1957 1964 16 1933 1939 16 1929 193513 15 1976 198114 14 2013 201715 13 1913 1924 13 1905 191017 12 1930 1935 12 1937 1950 12 1993 1999 12 1989 1995 12 1999 2007 12 2012 2019 12 1995 200224 11 1948 1955 11 1931 1935 11 2011 2016 11 2022 2026

Three riders have won 8 stages in a single year: