Felice Gimondi, Joop Zoetemelk, Greg LeMond, Miguel Induráin, Laurent Fignon, Egan Bernal, and Tadej Pogačar won the Tour de l'Avenir and went on to win 16 Tours de France, with an additional 10 podium placings between them.

The race was created in 1961 by Jacques Marchand, the editor of L'Équipe,[2] to attract teams from the Soviet Union and other communist nations that had no professional riders to enter the Tour de France.

Until 1967, it took place earlier the same day as some of the stages of the Tour de France and shared the latter part of each stage's route, but moved to September and a separate course from 1968 onwards.

[2] Since 2007 it is for riders aged 18 to 22 inclusive, and is held part of the UCI Nations Cup.

From 2023, a women's edition of the race (Tour de l'Avenir Femmes) was held following the men, taking place over 5 days.