The Tour started with an individual time trial in Futuroscope (not an official prologue because it was longer than 8 km)[3] and ended, traditionally, in Paris.

Richard Virenque finished 8th place in the 1999 Tour despite bad preparation, and for the 2000 edition he was considered an important rider.

Fernando Escartín, Bobby Julich, Alexander Vinokourov and Alex Zülle were also considered contenders.

Three riders failed this health check; Sergei Ivanov, from Farm Frites; Rossano Brasi, from Team Polti; Andrei Hauptman, from Vini Caldirola–Sidermec; all because they had a hematocrit value above 50%.

Of the other pre-race favourites, Laurent Jalabert, Jan Ullrich and Alex Zülle all lost less than 20 seconds.

[14] Subsequent to Armstrong's statement to withdraw his fight against United States Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) charges, on 24 August 2012, the USADA said it would ban Armstrong for life and stripped him of his record seven Tour de France titles.

[15][16] Later that day it was confirmed in a USADA statement that Armstrong was banned for life and would be disqualified from any and all competitive results obtained on and subsequent to 1 August 1998, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, winnings, finishes, points and prizes.

[1] On 22 October 2012, the Union Cycliste Internationale endorsed the USADA sanctions, and decided not to award victories to any other rider or upgrade other placings in any of the affected events.

[17] 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.

[26] There was also a Souvenir in honour of Gino Bartali, winner of the 1938 and 1948 Tours, given first rider atop the Col d'Izoard on stage 14.