The 2020 Tour de France was the 107th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's three Grand Tours. Originally scheduled to start on 27 June 2020, it was postponed until 29 August 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in France. The race began in Nice on 29 August and concluded with its traditional run on the Champs-Élysées on 20 September. A total of 176 riders from 22 teams participated in the race. The overall general classification was won for the first time by a Slovenian, Tadej Pogačar of . His fellow countryman Primož Roglič () finished second, while Australian Richie Porte () came third.
Alexander Kristoff won the bunch sprint on stage 1 to take the first yellow jersey of the tour. Julian Alaphilippe, who led much of the previous year's tour, took the lead of the race after winning stage 2. Alaphilippe received a 20-second penalty for receiving food too close to the finish on stage 5 and lost his lead to Adam Yates. Yates held the lead for four stages before losing significant time in the mountainous stage 9, handing the lead to Roglič. Roglič held the yellow jersey for 11 stages, but was overtaken during the penultimate stage 20 time trial by Pogačar. With only the traditional procession on the Champs-Élysées remaining, Pogačar held his lead on the final stage.
The points classification was won by 's Sam Bennett, marking the first time that Peter Sagan had not won the points classification in a Tour he finished. The mountains classification and the young rider classification were both won by Pogačar, making him the first rider to win the yellow, polka dot, and white jerseys in the same year. Pogačar is the first rider to win three distinctive jerseys since Eddy Merckx in 1972, the first rider since Laurent Fignon in 1983 to win the Tour in his debut, and the first rider since Cadel Evans in 2011 to win the yellow jersey on the penultimate stage of the race.
won the team classification for the third consecutive year. Marc Hirschi of was named the overall most combative rider. Pogačar won the most stages, with three.
Postponement The 2020 Tour was in jeopardy of being cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in a virtual Tour being held using Zwift. On 14 April 2020 the International Cycling Union (UCI) announced the start of the 2020 Tour would be postponed until 29 August 2020, with the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España to follow in October.
Teams
The 2020 Tour de France peloton consisted of 22 teams. All nineteen UCI WorldTeams were entitled, and obliged, to enter the race. Additionally, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the organisers of the Tour, invited three second-tier UCI ProTeams to participate in the event. The teams were announced on 7 January 2020. With every team fielding eight riders, 176 riders started the race in Nice. As 30 riders abandoned during the race, 146 riders made it to the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Teams that participated:
UCI WorldTeams
UCI ProTeams
Pre-race favourites
Pre-race predictions in the media for the general classification changed with the postponement of the Tour. 's Egan Bernal, the defending champion, sought to win a second title. Bernal's teammates, Geraint Thomas, who won in 2018, as well as four-time Tour winner Chris Froome, both did not participate after their poor results in the Critérium du Dauphiné. 's duo of Primož Roglič, winner of the 2019 Vuelta a España, and Tom Dumoulin, were also seen as top contenders, as was their teammate Steven Kruijswijk, who finished third the previous year.
Other riders considered as contenders included: Miguel Ángel López (), Romain Bardet, Emanuel Buchmann (), who finished fourth in the previous year's Tour, Mikel Landa (), Guillaume Martin (), Daniel Martínez (winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné), Nairo Quintana (), Tadej Pogačar (), who finished third in the 2019 Vuelta a España, Richie Porte, and Bauke Mollema (). An outside contender was Julian Alaphilippe, who wore the yellow jersey for 14 days the previous year and managed to finish fifth, but the Frenchman confirmed that his focus would be on winning stages and not targeting the general classification.
For the points classification, the favourite was Peter Sagan of , who holds the record for the most wins of the points classification. Other favourites included Sam Bennett (); Giacomo Nizzolo (), who won the Italian National Road Race Championships and the European Road Race Championships; Caleb Ewan (), who won three stages the previous year; and Wout van Aert (), winner of the 2020 Strade Bianche and 2020 Milan–San Remo.
Among the contenders for the mountains classification were the past three winners: 2017 winner Warren Barguil (), 2018 winner Julian Alaphilippe, and 2019 winner Romain Bardet ().
The two main favourites for the young rider classification were defending champion Egan Bernal and Tour debutant Tadej Pogačar.
Two teams were considered the front-runners for the teams classification; who previously won the classification in 2017, and . , which had won the teams classification in four of the last five Tours, were also expected to challenge for the classification.
Route and stages
The start of the 2020 Tour (known as the Grand Départ) took place in Nice. This was the second occasion that the city has held the Grand Départ, the first being for the 1981 Tour de France. This was the 36th occasion on which the Tour de France has visited Nice, and the first time since the 2013 Tour de France. This year's race took place entirely within France.
+Stage characteristics and winners Stage Date Course Distance Type Winner 1 29 August Nice to Nice Flat stage 2 30 August Nice to Nice Medium mountain stage 3 31 August Nice to Sisteron Flat stage 4 1 September Sisteron to Orcières-Merlette Hilly stage 5 2 September Gap to Privas Flat stage 6 3 September Le Teil to Mont Aigoual Hilly stage 7 4 September Millau to Lavaur Flat stage 8 5 September Cazères to Loudenvielle Mountain stage 9 6 September Pau to Laruns Mountain stage 7 September Charente-Maritime Rest day 10 8 September Île d'Oléron to Île de Ré Flat stage 11 9 September Châtelaillon-Plage to Poitiers Flat stage 12 10 September Chauvigny to Sarran Hilly stage 13 11 September Châtel-Guyon to Puy Mary Medium mountain stage 14 12 September Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon Hilly stage 15 13 September Lyon to Grand Colombier Mountain stage 14 September Isère Rest day 16 15 September La Tour-du-Pin to Villard-de-Lans Mountain stage 17 16 September Grenoble to Méribel (Col de la Loze) Mountain stage 18 17 September Méribel to La Roche-sur-Foron Mountain stage 19 18 September Bourg-en-Bresse to Champagnole Flat stage 20 19 September Lure to La Planche des Belles Filles Mountain time trial 21 20 September Mantes-la-Jolie to Paris (Champs-Élysées) Flat stage Total
Race overview
Grand Départ and the first week
The first three stages of the Tour would begin in Nice, France, in late August due to the worldwide pandemic. Stage one was intended to be a flat sprinter's stage around the city, and began as expected with a three rider breakaway. The break was caught early in the stage, after racing for the King of the Mountains points were split equally, with the jersey won by Fabien Grellier for getting there first. With 100 km to go, an unseasonable driving rainstorm moved in causing the roads to become treacherous throughout the remainder of the day. Despite the peloton calling a truce in the interest of safety, Miguel Ángel López, John Degenkolb, Philippe Gilbert, Caleb Ewan, Rafael Valls, Julian Alaphilippe, George Bennett and many other riders were involved in crashes, causing several of them to abandon.
With 3 km to go there was a large pileup along the Promenade des Anglais in downtown Nice. The race jury decided anyone involved in this crash would receive the same time as the winner. Alexander Kristoff was involved in this crash, but because the sprinters' teams and leadout trains were not operating at top speed, as they would under normal conditions, he was able to make his way back to the front and beat the defending World Champion Mads Pedersen, as well as Bol, Bennett, Sagan and Viviani to win the stage and take the yellow jersey.Stage two saw better weather, as well as two Category 1 climbs. The previous stage, Gilbert fractured a kneecap and Valls broke his leg, and neither started the stage. Attacks began early with Cosnefroy, Asgreen, Skujiņš, Gogl, Trentin, Sagan, Postlberger and Perez forming the escape bunch, but were unable to gain more than three minutes from the peloton. Cosnefroy attacked on the Col de la Colmiane, reaching the summit alone to claim the KOM points. By the time the main field reached the summit, the gap had closed to two minutes, as many riders were dropped from the peloton including the yellow jersey of Kristoff and Mads Pedersen. By the climb of the Col d'Eze with 40 km to go, the breakaway group had been caught and Nicolas Roche was the first over the top. With 13 km to go in the stage, on the day's final climb, Alaphilippe attacked and was joined by Adam Yates and Marc Hirschi. Led by the Jumbo squad of Primož Roglič and Tom Dumoulin, the peloton chased, but the trio managed to stay away on the descent and build a small gap. During the pursuit, Michał Kwiatkowski bumped into Dumoulin, causing a violent crash and interrupting the pace Team Jumbo was setting in pursuit of the breakaway. Approaching the finish line on the Promenade des Anglais, the peloton was only two seconds behind as Alaphilippe won the day and the yellow jersey for the second time in his career, as Hirschi, Yates, Greg Van Avermaet and Sergio Higuita rounded out the top 5.
Stage three departed the Allianz Riviera en route to Sisteron. Jérôme Cousin, Perez and Cosnefroy were involved in the breakaway, with the latter two racing for the right to wear the polka dot jersey in the early stages. Perez won enough points to take the jersey from Cosnefroy and was therefore in the virtual jersey when they both fell back from the group to rejoin the peloton, leaving Cousin on his own with over a hundred kilometres to go. Perez, however, crashed into his team car, and then the side of the mountain on the descent when the car suddenly stopped in front of him and he was forced to abandon the race. Cosnefroy retained the jersey as a result and would be in good position to defend it over the next few stages. Cousin was caught with 16 km to go. The sprint finish saw Sam Bennett appear to be in very good position to claim his first ever stage in the Tour de France when a late charging Ewan came by Sagan, Hugo Hofstetter, Giacomo Nizzolo as well as Bennett to take the win.