[3] The average age of riders in the race was 27.56 years,[4] ranging from the 21-year-old Jean-Claude Colotti (RMO–Cycles Méral–Mavic) to the 39-year-old Hennie Kuiper (Sigma–Fina).

[6] The teams entering the race were:[7] The winner of the 1987 Tour de France, Stephen Roche, was unable to defend his title as he was coming back from knee surgeries.

[8] Remaining favourites were Pedro Delgado, who had finished in second place in 1987, and Andrew Hampsten, the winner of the 1988 Giro d'Italia, several weeks before the Tour.

[8] The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) introduced the rule that a cycling race could not span three weekends.

The Tour de France could only start on Monday 4 July, and therefore the usual prologue was removed.

[10] The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,115 m (6,939 ft) at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet mountain pass on stage 15.

Bauer lost the lead in the next stage, a Team Time Trial, to Teun van Vliet.

The individual time trial of stage six did not change that, although some outsiders (Sean Kelly and Laurent Fignon) lost two minutes.

Close to the finish, Rooks escaped and won the stage, and Delgado became the new leader of the general classification.

[8] Delgado won the next stage, an uphill individual time trial, and solidified his lead.

Philippe Bouvatier and Robert Millar,[16] who had led over the previous two cols, were in the uphill sprint to win, until Bouvatier allowed himself to be misdirected by a gendarme 200 metres before the finish (at the point where the team cars were separated from the cyclists)[17] followed by Millar, and the victory went to Massimo Ghirotto.

[8] Delgado further increased his lead in the nineteenth stage, by leaving the other cyclists behind him on the final climb of the day.

[20] Delgado admits that he took probenecid, but with the intention to assist the kidneys, not to mask anabolic steroids.

[24] The owners of the Tour de France thought that director Louy had handled the Delgado affair in the wrong way, and they fired him later that year.

[25] The most important was the general classification, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage.

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 riders under 25 years were eligible, and the leader wore a white jersey.