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Since the first Tour de France in 1903, there have been 2,100 stages, up to and including the 2016 Tour de France. Since 1919, the race leader following each stage has been awarded the yellow jersey (French: Maillot jaune).
Contents
- Individual records
- Number of wearers per year
- Per country
- Yellow jersey retirees
- Yellow jersey winners without winning any stage
- Number of Tour winners in a single race
- Winning Tour de France on first occasion
- Finishing Tour de France career with victory
- References
Although the leader of the classification after a stage gets a yellow jersey, he is not considered the winner of the yellow jersey, only the wearer. Only after the final stage, the wearer of the yellow jersey is considered the winner of the yellow jersey, and thereby the winner of the Tour de France.
In this article first-place-classifications before 1919 are also counted as if a yellow jersey was awarded. There have been more yellow jerseys given than there were stages: In 1914, 1929, and 1931, there were multiple cyclists with the same leading time, and the 1988 Tour de France had a "prelude", an extra stage for a select group of cyclists. As of 2016, 2,103 yellow jerseys have been awarded in the Tour de France to 283 different riders.
Individual records
Key:
In previous tours, sometimes a stage was broken in two (or three). On such occasions, only the cyclist leading at the end of the day is counted. The "Jerseys" column lists the number of days that the cyclist wore the yellow jersey; the "Tour wins" column gives the number of days that the cyclist won the yellow jersey. The next four columns indicate the number of times the rider won the points classification, the King of the Mountains classification, and the young rider competition, and the years in which the yellow jersey was worn, with bold years indicating an overall Tour win. For example: Eddy Merckx has spent 96 days in the yellow jersey, won the general classification five times, won the points classification three times, won the mountains classification two times, and never won the young rider classification. He wore the yellow jersey in the Tours of 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 (which he all won) and 1975 (which he did not win).
Three cyclists (Jean Robic in 1947, Charly Gaul in 1958 and Jan Janssen in 1968) have won the Tour de France with only two yellow jerseys in their career.
Fabian Cancellara is, as of 2016 with twenty nine days in yellow, the rider with the most yellow jerseys ever for someone who has not won the Tour. The three active Tour de France winners Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali, and Alberto Contador rank 5th, 21st, and 53rd with forty-four, nineteen, and eleven days in yellow respectively.
Until the results of Lance Armstrong were annulled for cheating late 2012, he was ranked second in this list, leading the Tour for 83 stages from 1999 to 2005.
Number of wearers per year
The largest number of different riders wearing the yellow jersey in any year is 8. The smallest is 1.
Per country
The yellow jersey has been awarded to 23 different countries since 1903. In the table below, "Jerseys" indicates the number of yellow jerseys that were given to cyclists of each country. "Tour wins" stands for the number of tour wins by cyclists of that country, "Points" for the number of times the points classification was won by cyclist of that country, "KoM" for the number of times the mountains classification in the Tour de France was won by a cyclist of that country, and "Young rider" for the number of times the young rider classification was won by a cyclist of that country. The "Most recent" column shows the cyclist of the country that wore the yellow jersey most recently. The "Different holders" column gives the number of different cyclists of the country that wore the yellow jersey.
Yellow jersey retirees
Sixteen riders have quit the Tour while wearing the yellow jersey.
Yellow jersey winners without winning any stage
Usually the winner of the Tour de France also wins a stage, but that is not necessary. It is possible to be the winner of the Tour de France without winning a stage, because the Tour de France is decided by the total raced time. This has happened six times so far:
- Firmin Lambot (BEL) 1922
- Roger Walkowiak (FRA) 1956
- Gastone Nencini (ITA) 1960
- Lucien Aimar (FRA) 1966
- Greg LeMond (USA) 1990
- Óscar Pereiro (ESP) 2006
Of these six cyclists, Walkowiak is the only one never to win a Tour stage at all. (Firmin Lambot won stages in the 1913, 1914, 1919, 1920 and 1921 Tours), Gastone Nencini won stages in the 1956, 1957 and 1958 Tours, Aimar won a stage in the 1967 Tour, LeMond won stages in the 1985, 1986 and 1989 Tours, Pereiro won a stage in the 2005 Tour. Alberto Contador initially also belonged to this group, when he won the 2010 Tour de France; however he was later stripped of this title.
Number of Tour winners in a single race
Every Tour de France only has one winner. But a cyclist that has won the Tour de France previously can enter the race again, and a cyclist not winning the race can win the race in a later year. In almost every Tour de France, there were multiple 'former or future' Tour de France-winners in the race. Only seven times, the Tour started without any former Tour de France winner. This happened in 1903, 1927, 1947, 1956, 1966, 1999 and 2006. Only in 1903, apart from the cyclist that won the race, was there no other former or future Tour de France winner.
In 1914, a record of seven former Tour de France winners started that year's Tour:
- Louis Trousselier (FRA) (1905 winner)
- Lucien Petit-Breton (FRA) (1907 and 1908 winner)
- François Faber (LUX) (1909 winner)
- Octave Lapize (FRA) (1910 winner)
- Gustave Garrigou (FRA) (1911 winner)
- Odile Defraye (BEL) (1912 winner)
- Philippe Thys (BEL) (1913 winner, who would also win the 1914 Tour de France)
In addition to these seven cyclists, four cyclists in that year's Tour would go on to win a Tour later:
- Firmin Lambot (BEL) (1919 and 1922 winner)
- Léon Scieur (BEL) (1921 winner)
- Henri Pélissier (FRA) (1923 winner)
- Lucien Buysse (BEL) (1926 winner)
Winning Tour de France on first occasion
Eleven cyclists won the final yellow jersey of the Tour de France (and therefore the overall classification) the first time they entered the competition.
Finishing Tour de France career with victory
Five cyclists won the Tour de France the last time they entered the competition: