While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same and includes time trials,[1] passage through the mountain's chains of the Pyrenees and the Alps, and (except in 2024 due to preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics) a finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

On one hand was Le Vélo, the first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France,[11][12] on the other was L'Auto, which had been set up by journalists and businesspeople including Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, Adolphe Clément, and Édouard Michelin in 1899.

[n 2][21][22] Among the competitors were the eventual winner, Maurice Garin, his well-built rival Hippolyte Aucouturier, the German favourite Josef Fischer, and a collection of adventurers, including one competing as "Samson".

[24] The leading riders, including the winner Maurice Garin, were disqualified, though it took the Union Vélocipèdique de France until 30 November to make the decision.

It made no difference whether they finished fast or slow or separated by seconds or hours, so they were inclined to ride together at a relaxed pace until close to the line, only then disputing the final placings that would give them points.

It was then impossible to follow the frontiers, and the Tour increasingly zig-zagged across the country, sometimes with unconnected days' races linked by train, while still maintaining some sort of loop.

In 1969, he already had a commanding lead when he launched a long-distance solo attack in the mountains which none of the other elite riders could answer, resulting in an eventual winning margin of nearly eighteen minutes.

Occasionally, a rider will be given the honor of leading the rest of the peloton onto the circuit finish in their final Tour, as was the case for Jens Voigt and Sylvain Chavanel, among others.

Several attacks during the race cast doubt on the sincerity of his promise, leading to a rift between the two riders and the entire La Vie Claire team, before LeMond prevailed.

The early 1990s was dominated by Spaniard Miguel Induráin, who won five Tours from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, and last, to win five times, and the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively.

Numerous riders and a handful of teams were either thrown out of the race, or left of their own free will, and in the end Marco Pantani survived to win his lone Tour in a decimated main field.

Initially it seemed to be a Cinderella story when cancer survivor Lance Armstrong stole the show on Sestriere and kept on riding to the first of his astonishing seven consecutive Tour de France victories; however, in retrospect, 1999 was just the beginning of the doping problem getting much, much worse.

Team Sky dominated the event for several years, with wins for Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome (four times) and Geraint Thomas before Egan Bernal became the first Colombian winner in 2019.

[87][91] However they announced in November 2014 that they would not be continuing their sponsorship, and in March 2015 it was revealed that the green jersey would now be sponsored by German automaker Volkswagen AG's Škoda brand.

Already in 1908 a sort of combativity award was offered, when Sports Populaires and L'Éducation Physique created Le Prix du Courage, 100 francs and a silver gilt medal for "the rider having finished the course, even if unplaced, who is particularly distinguished for the energy he has used.

During a famous head-to-head battle between Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor on Puy de Dôme it was estimated that at least a half a million people were on hand.

With the switch to the use of national teams in 1930, the costs of accommodating riders fell to the organizers instead of the sponsors and Henri Desgrange raised the money by allowing advertisers to precede the race.

The writer Pierre Bost[n 7] lamented: "This caravan of 60 gaudy trucks singing across the countryside the virtues of an apéritif, a make of underpants or a dustbin is a shameful spectacle.

Their position is logged by GPS and from an aircraft and organised on the road by the caravan director—Jean-Pierre Lachaud[n 8]—an assistant, three motorcyclists, two radio technicians, and a breakdown and medical crew.

Radio covers the race in updates throughout the day, particularly on the national news channel, France Info, and some stations provide continuous commentary on long wave.

[163] The academic historians Jean-Luc Boeuf and Yves Léonard say most people in France had little idea of the shape of their country until L'Auto began publishing maps of the race.

[166] From 2011 to 2015, American letterpress studio Lead Graffiti experimented with handset wood and metal type to print same-day posters documenting events of each stage of the Tour de France.

In 1924, Henri Pélissier and his brother Charles told the journalist Albert Londres they used strychnine, cocaine, chloroform, aspirin, "horse ointment" and other drugs.

[178] The story was published in Le Petit Parisien under the title Les Forçats de la Route ('The Convicts of the Road')[14][179][180][181] On 13 July 1967, British cyclist Tom Simpson died climbing Mont Ventoux after taking amphetamine.

In October 2008, it was revealed that Riccò's teammate and Stage 10 winner Leonardo Piepoli, as well as Stefan Schumacher[197] – who won both time trials – and Bernhard Kohl[198] – third on general classification and King of the Mountains – had tested positive.

After winning the 2010 Tour de France, it was announced that Alberto Contador had tested positive for low levels of clenbuterol on 21 July rest day.

The report contained affidavits from riders including Frankie Andreu, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis, Levi Leipheimer, and others describing widespread use of Erythropoietin (EPO), blood transfusion, testosterone, and other banned practices in several Tours.

Including the since vacated 2008 podium finisher Bernhard Kohl, who made accusations that a team doctor instructed riders how to dope, which prompted further investigation into this matter by authorities.

[228] The fastest time-trial is Rohan Dennis's stage 1 of the 2015 Tour de France in Utrecht, won at an average of 55.446 kilometres per hour (34.453 mph).

[235][236] Following a campaign by the professional women's peloton,[237] La Course by Le Tour de France was launched by ASO in 2014 as a one-day classic held in conjunction with the men's race.