Tour de France records and statistics


This is a list of records and statistics in the Tour de France, road cycling's premier competitive event.
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.
Twice the Tour was won 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.
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 very first edition, 1903; he repeated the feat the next year, but the results were nullified as a 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. 1935, Belgian Romain Maes took the lead in the first stage, and never gave it away. 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.
Laurent Fignon, winner in 1983, was the last rider to win the race in his first appearance.
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.

Appearances

The record for most appearances is held by Sylvain Chavanel with 18. George Hincapie had held the mark for the biggest number of consecutive finishes with sixteen, having completed every Tour de France that he participated in except his first one, before his disqualification in October 2012 from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Tour de France for the 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 held the record for the most Tour de France stages completed with 365, a record that was broken when Chavanel finished Stage 18 of the 2018 Tour de France. Chavanel's record now stands at 369.
Zoetemelk currently holds the record for most kilometers ridden in Tour history with 62,885, a record which will be difficult to break considering the shorter stage lengths in modern Tours.
Riders who are still active are indicated in bold.
ParticipationsFinishesNameNationality
18 16 Sylvain Chavanel
17 13 George Hincapie
17 15 Stuart O'Grady
17 14 Jens Voigt
16 16 Joop Zoetemelk
16 15 Haimar Zubeldia
15 15 Lucien Van Impe
15 15 Viatcheslav Ekimov
15 13 Guy Nulens
15 11 Christophe Moreau
15 15 Thomas Voeckler
14 13 André Darrigade
14 13 Erik Zabel
14 12 Sean Kelly
14 11 Raymond Poulidor
14 7 Jules Deloffre
13 13 Phil Anderson
13 12 Joaquim Agostinho
13 11 Gerrie Knetemann
13 11 Henk Lubberding
13 10 Jean Dotto
13 10 Jean-Pierre Genet
13 9 Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle
13 9 François Mahe
13 8 Marc Wauters
13 7 Didier Rous

Winning margin

In the early years of the Tour, cyclists rode individually, and were sometimes forbidden to ride together. This led to large gaps between the winner and the number two. 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 left behind the peloton. In the table below, the nine smallest margins between the winner and the second placed cyclists at the end of the Tour are given. The largest margin, by comparison, remains that of the first Tour in 1903: 2h 49m 45s between Maurice Garin and Lucien Pothier. The nine smallest margins between first and second placed riders are as follows:
Winning marginYearOpponents
8"1989Greg LeMond – Laurent Fignon
23"2007Alberto Contador – Cadel Evans
32"2006Óscar Pereiro – Andreas Klöden
38"1968Jan Janssen – Herman Van Springel
40"1987Stephen Roche – Pedro Delgado
48"1977Bernard Thévenet – Hennie Kuiper
54"2017Chris Froome – Rigoberto Urán
55"1964Jacques Anquetil – Raymond Poulidor
58"2008Carlos Sastre – Cadel Evans

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 Carcassone-Luchon, he stayed away for. It was one of seven breakaways longer than 200 km, the last being Thierry Marie's 234 km escape in 1991. Bourlon finished 16 m 30s 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 mins 50 secs in the 1976 stage Montgenèvre-Manosque. He was the fourth and most recent rider to win a stage by more than 20 minutes. Another remarkable solo effort was Fons de Wolf during stage 14 of the 1984 Tour de France. He won the stage by 17:40 and actually 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 2005 edition was the fastest Tour de France in history. Lance Armstrong rode 3,592.5 km in 86h 15' 02", thus realising an overall speed of 41.7 km/h, though his win was later annulled.
The slowest Tour de France was the edition of 1919, when Firmin Lambot's average speed was 24.1 km/h.

Stage speeds

The fastest massed-start stage was in 1999 from Laval to Blois, won by Mario Cipollini at 50.4 km/h. The fastest time-trial is Rohan Dennis' stage 1 of the 2015 Tour de France in Utrecht, won at an average of. The fastest stage win was by the 2013 Orica GreenEDGE team in a team time-trial. It completed the 25 km time-trial at 57.7 km/h.
The fastest climb of Alpe d'Huez was by Marco Pantani in 1997 Tour de France at 23.1 km/h.

Stage wins per rider

34 riders have won 10 or more stages. Riders who are still active are indicated in bold. Riders with the same number of stage wins are listed alphabetically.
RankNameCountryWins
1Eddy Merckx34
2Mark Cavendish30
3Bernard Hinault28
4André Leducq25
5André Darrigade22
6Nicolas Frantz20
7François Faber19
8Jean Alavoine17
9Jacques Anquetil16
9René Le Grevès16
9Charles Pélissier16
12Freddy Maertens15
13Marcel Kittel14
14Philippe Thys13
14Louis Trousselier13
16Gino Bartali12
16Mario Cipollini12
16Miguel Indurain12
16Robbie McEwen12
16Erik Zabel12
16Peter Sagan12
22Jean Aerts11
22Louison Bobet11
22Raffaele Di Paco11
22André Greipel11
26Maurice Archambaud10
26Charly Gaul10
26Walter Godefroot10
26Thor Hushovd10
26Gerrie Knetemann10
26Antonin Magne10
26Henri Pélissier10
26Jan Raas10
26Joop Zoetemelk10
26---

Three riders have won 8 stages in a single year:
Mark Cavendish has the most mass finish stage wins with 30 ahead of André Darrigade and André Leducq with 22, François Faber with 19 and Eddy Merckx with 18.
The youngest Tour de France stage winner is Fabio Battesini, who was 19 when he won one stage in the 1931 Tour de France.

Stage wins per country

Riders from 33 countries have won at least one stage in the Tour de France.

Detailed table

Stage towns

Some cities and towns have hosted 25 or more stage starts and finishes: