In the end only Lucien Van Impe, Robert Alban and Joop Zoetemelk were able to finish inside 20:00 of the now three time champ.

Late 1980, there were plans to make the tour "open", which meant that amateur teams would also be allowed to join.

[3] The teams entering the race were:[3][4] Bernard Hinault, the winner of the 1978 and 1979 Tour de France and reigning world champion, was the main favourite.

[5][6] His main rivals were 1980 Tour de France winner Joop Zoetemelk, 1976 Tour de France winner Lucien Van Impe and Joaquim Agostinho, although they had never been able to beat Hinault when he was in form, and of these rivals only Zoetemelk was ever able to keep Hinault within striking distance.

[8] The 1981 Tour de France started on 25 June, and had two rest days, in Nantes and Morzine.

[9] The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,000 m (6,600 ft) at the summit of the Col de la Madeleine mountain pass on stage 19.

The second part was a team time trial, won by TI–Raleigh, which put Gerrie Knetemann in the lead of the race.

[6] For the last mountain, Hinault was the lead group, together with Lucien Van Impe and Phil Anderson.

Anderson, who finished in third place, became the new leader, the first Australian cyclist to wear the yellow jersey.

The time trial in stage 20 was also won by Hinault, who increased the margin to Van Impe to more than 14 minutes.

The cyclist with the most points lead the classification, and wore a white jersey with red polka dots.

This was decided the same way as the general classification, but only cyclists younger than 24 were eligible, and the leader wore a white jersey.

Anderson was the first non-European cyclist to lead the Tour de France, and more would follow in the coming years.

[40] The plans to make the Tour de France open to amateurs were not forgotten, and it happened in 1983.

It had happened before that a cyclist won a Tour stage as a world champion, most recently in 1979 with Gerrie Knetemann and in 1980 with Jan Raas, but after 1981 it became a rare occurrence.

Jacques Boyer became the first American to ride in the Tour de France, acting as a domestique for Hinault.