The Tour de France is much more than just another sporting competition. It’s woven into French culture itself. As a kid growing up in Paris, I was exposed to the Tour de France even before soccer. The brothers Louis and Jean Bobet were figures I grew up admiring, somewhere between the ages of 5 and 7. Until I was old enough to know better, thanks to my romantic mother, I was convinced that the winner’s real prize was a kiss from two beautiful women at the ceremony where he received the yellow jersey, the flowers and the winner’s mascot. Thanks to television, the Tour de France also became a magnificent showcase of the French countryside, and naturally, a powerful promoter of tourism to France and a first-rate marketing tool for all kinds of products, none of which miss the chance to cash in on the Tour’s popularity as sponsors of teams or advertisers of their goods.
The History of the Tour de France
The Tour de France is the most prestigious cycling race in the world, held every year since 1903. The race takes place once a year across France, with routes that change from year to year, always in July. In practice, the outcome of the Tour is usually decided in the mountain stages, in the Pyrenees and the Alps. Until 1950, the race always started and finished in Paris. Since then, it has always finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, but it starts from a different city every year, sometimes even outside France. Hosting the start of the race is considered a highly prestigious event, and cities across Europe compete for the honor. For several decades now, the French haven’t managed to win the overall Tour, and while that still stings, they find some comfort in the occasional stage win, and especially in winning the other jerseys: sometimes the green one, sometimes the polka-dot one, sometimes the white one, and fairly often, that frustrating red jersey, the one that marks, as I said, the Tour’s fighter: a rider who battles hard, invests everything, breaks away in front… but doesn’t win.
Every road in France that’s set to host a stage of the Tour, even the smallest and most forgotten ones, gets flooded the moment the race arrives with crowds of fans, supporters and travelers from all over the world. They line the roadsides in every color imaginable: flags of their home countries, costumes worn by all sorts of eccentrics looking to stand out, and jerseys of the teams and riders competing in this amazing race. Because this race, of course, is officially about who wins the overall title, the yellow jersey. But there are smaller victories too: the polka-dot jersey for the best climber, the green jersey for the best sprinter, the red jersey for the Tour’s most combative rider, and the white jersey for the best young rider (under 25). On top of that, the reigning world champion and various other race winners get to wear the jersey they earned. In short, it’s a celebration of color.
Beyond all this folklore, there’s still the competition itself.
Tour de France: A Race of Superhumans
This race is a truly superhuman competition, a contest of real-life “supermen.” Three weeks of a grueling race covering between 160 and 240 kilometers a day. Long stretches of climbs, descents and winding turns, a constant battle against the wind, unbearable rain and heat, hundreds of riders packed shoulder to shoulder on narrow roads, and of course, an effort that never lets up for a single moment. It’s no surprise that this superhuman sport has seen its share of doping. More than a few scandals have erupted over the years, and plenty of human dramas have unfolded because of it. Broadly speaking, the teams’ goal in this race is to protect their sprinter and get him into the best possible position for the sprint, with perfect timing. Then all the “soldiers” clear the way and the pack explodes: the sprinters, who’ve been hiding behind their teammates’ shoulders the whole time, burst forward in the final few hundred meters with an astonishing surge of energy that’s hard to explain after hundreds of kilometers of grueling riding.
Sometimes, the final sprint comes down to a photo finish. Hundreds of kilometers decided by just a few millimeters. But almost every day, someone tries their luck by breaking away from the pack to “steal” a stage win. It’s incredibly hard for a lone breakaway to hold off the peloton, which sweeps forward like a train, carrying along everyone sheltering inside it from the wind. The riders leading the peloton keep swapping out, taking their turn at the front before dropping back to shelter in its depths while others take over the lead. It’s heartbreaking to watch, time after time, how the peloton “swallows up” the breakaway riders just a few hundred meters, or a few kilometers, from the finish line, erasing the lone rider’s relentless, superhuman effort and the illusion of their shot at glory.
So my advice is to leave the TV on the race starting at 4:00 p.m., glancing over now and then at the wonderful scenery the riders pass through, but to really sit down around 5:45 p.m. and focus on the final scene: the real drama that unfolds in the last 20 kilometers. It’s tragedy and glory playing out all over again, day after day, for 21 straight days. The whole Tour is filmed by motorcycles riding alongside the pack, helicopters overhead and fixed cameras. Experts and commentators explain the scenery and walk you through everything happening during the race.
About the author
Nimrod Negev (born Norbert Felstein) was born in Paris. He grew up there, then moved on and did his military service. Early in his career he worked in civil engineering, and later studied geography, which he went on to teach in high schools and colleges. He also studied archaeology and worked in that field for about 15 years, 13 of them as a regional archaeologist.