With Alessandro Petacchi, Eddy Merckx, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov and Mark Cavendish, he is one of only five riders to win the points classification in all three grand tours.

He moved on to the Spanish ONCE team under Manolo Saiz, where he reinvented himself as an all-rounder capable of winning one-day races and the tours.

He won the world time trial championship in 1997, and was French road champion in 1998, the year he initiated a pull-out of Spanish teams from the 1998 Tour de France in protest at treatment of riders in a police inquiry into drug-taking.

His wins on Bastille Day in Tour de France in 1995 and 2001 ensured him a place in the hearts of French fans.

Jalabert and Alex Zülle were a constant threat to other teams in the Vuelta a España, taking turns winning stages, the overall classification and the points jersey.

Besides Eddy Merckx and Tony Rominger, Jalabert is the only cyclist who has accomplished the trifecta at the grand tour level in the 1995 Vuelta a España, where he won the general, sprinters' and climbers' classifications.

[4] In June, 2008, he finished 12th overall at Ironman France in Nice, improving his swim time to 1:06 and having the second fastest bike split.

When the ambulance arrived on the scene of the crash, he was found unconscious and with multiple fractures to his left arm and leg.

[6] In June 2013, it was reported in L'Équipe that retroactive tests performed in 2004 had found evidence of EPO use in samples provided by Jalabert in 1998.

Because of these alligations on EPO usage Jalabert has been accused of hypocrisy in criticism of Chris Froome's performance in the 2015 Tour de France.

[8] His name was on the list of doping tests published by the French Senate on 24 July 2013 that were collected during the 1998 Tour de France and found positive for EPO when retested in 2004.