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Tour de France 2023 prize money: How much does the yellow jersey win?

Jonas vingegaard will collect his second yellow jersey in paris and a big winners’ cheque for topping the general classification, article bookmarked.

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The 2023 Tour de France is coming to an end, as Jonas Vingegaard prepares to celebrate winning his second yellow jersey in Paris.

Vingegaard beat his closest rival Tadej Pogacar on the stage 16 time trial before crushing the Slovenian on the following day, the queen stage of this year’s Tour which finished in Courchevel. That effectively secured the Dane his triumph and he stands to collect another small fortune when he stands on top of the podium on Sunday.

Riders secure bonuses from their teams for their exploits on the bike during the Tour, but there is plenty of prize money on offer from race organisers ASO too.

• Tour de France – stage 20 latest updates LIVE

Tour de France prize money

The total prize pot of the 2023 Tour de France is €2.5m and the overall winner of the general classification receives 20% of that figure, taking home €500,000.

Every other finisher up to 160th place receives €1,000 in Paris.

Individual stage prize money

Winning a stage of the Tour nets €11,000.

Green & polka dot jersey prize money

The winner of the points classification for the best sprinter takes home €25,000, as does the King of the Mountains.

Polka dot jersey prize money

The best young rider at the end of the Tour (aged 25 and under) takes away €20,000.

There are other prizes to be won throughout the Tour de France. The daily combativity award comes with a €2,000 purse, and the overall combativity award earns the winner €20,000.

There is €800 for the first rider over the top of each hors categorie climb , €600 for category one , €400 for category two , €300 for category three and €200 for category four ascents.

The leader of each classification receives €300 per day, except for the general classification who receives €500.

The winner of the Souvenir Henri Desgrange – the first rider over the top of the highest point of the race – earns €5,000. This year that was Austria’s Felix Gall, who also went on to win the stage, collecting a healthy pay day.

You can see the full standings here by clicking on the ‘stopwatch’ tab:

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What to know about the 2023 tour de france: route, teams, rules, prize money.

Since 1903, the Tour de France has encaptured the beauty, rigor and passion of cycling. The race that embarked over a century ago, however, bears many differences to the 2023 Tour de France we will see shortly.

The Tour de France has catapulted to popularity since its early days, becoming the pinnacle of the sport of cycling and inspiring riders for generations to come. The 110th Tour de France is mere weeks away, with NBC and Peacock providing full coverage of the thrilling event. See below for everything you need to know about the highly anticipated 2023 Tour de France.

RELATED: Tadej Pogačar, Jai Hindley among cyclists to watch at 2023 Tour de France

When is the 2023 Tour de France?

The 2023 Tour de France will take place from July 1-23. The riders will embark on the first stage in Bilbao on Saturday, July 1, with coverage on NBC Sports and Peacock from start to finish.

As the riders venture along the difficult course, the race will find its finish as it has since 1975, on the street of Champs-Élysées in Paris.

What is the Tour de France schedule and route?

How long is this year’s route.

This year’s Tour route is a total of 3,404 km (2,115 miles) that is spread out over a span of three weeks. The riders will complete one stage per day, with two rest days on July 10 (between stages 9 and 10) and July 17 (between stages 15 and 16).

What are the rules of the Tour de France?

While the Tour de France is an event known well by most, fully understanding how the race works can sometimes pose a challenge.

The Tour de France is a team race, featuring a total of 198 cyclists from 22 different teams competing over a span of 21 days. Across these 21 days, riders will complete 21 stages: 6 flat, 6 hilly, 8 mountain and 1 individual time trial.

This year’s race will be the first year since 2015 that the Tour has only one individual time trial rather than two, with just 14 miles of time trial racing on the route.

Each stage winner receives €11,000, with every rider in the top 20 from each stage receiving a cash prize as well.

While the general classification champion of the Tour de France is the rider wearing the yellow jersey as the race concludes, there are numerous accolades to be granted to cyclists throughout the race and at the Tour’s end.

Aside from the yellow jersey, the most notable of these accolades are the green, polka-dot and white jerseys. These achievements all hold different meanings and are accompanied with a cash prize. It is possible for one rider to earn numerous jerseys at the conclusion of the Tour, such as last year’s winner Jonas Vingegaard, who took home both the yellow and polka-dot jerseys.

RELATED: 2023 Tour de France Jerseys: What do the yellow, green, white and polka dot jerseys mean?

What does the winner receive?

Throughout the years, the prize awarded to the winner of the Tour de France has varied. The first Tour de France ever staged in 1903 granted a prize of 20,000 francs, which amounts to approximately $22,280.

For 2023, a grand total of €2,308,200 is on offer ($2,526,735). This number, however, is not all given to one rider, but rather split among top general classification riders, stage winners, top sprinters and winners of other minor awards.

The largest share of the prize is granted to the winner of the maillot jaune (general classification), who will take home €500,000. The runner-up receives €200,000, third gets €100,000 and fourth is awarded €70,000.

If a rider is donning the green jersey ( maillot vert), however, the prize is divided as follows:

Other prizes are granted to riders, such as those wearing the “King of the Mountains” jersey and the white jersey, along with the cyclist dubbed “Most Aggressive Rider”. Numerous other small prizes will be distributed throughout the tour.

One of the most sought after prizes, however, is the team award. The team who wins the Tour de France is the group that contains the three fastest cumulative finishers on each stage. The amount granted to each team on the podium is as follows:

Last year’s winner was the group hailing from Denmark in Team Jumbo-Visma.

How many teams are in the Tour?

22 teams will make up the peloton of the Tour de France. Of these teams are the 18 UCI WorldTeams that received an automatic invite and four UCI ProTeams.

UCI WorldTeams

• AG2R Citroën Team (Fra)
• Alpecin Deceuninck (Bel)
• Astana Qazaqstan Team (Kaz)
• Bora-Hansgrohe (Ger)
• EF Education-Easypost (Usa)
• Groupama-FDJ (Fra)
• Ineos Grenadiers (Gbr)
• Intermarché-Circus-Wanty (Bel)
• Jumbo-Visma (Ned)
• Movistar Team (Esp)
• Soudal Quick-Step (Bel)
• Team Arkea-Samsic (Fra)
• Team Bahrain Victorious (Brn)
• Team Cofidis (Fra)
• Team DSM (Ned)
• Team Jayco AlUla (Aus)
• Trek-Segafredo (Usa)
• UAE Team Emirates (Uae)

UCI ProTeams

• Lotto Dstny (Bel)
• TotalEnergies (Fra)
• Israel-Premier Tech (Isr)
• Uno-X Pro Cycling Team (Nor)

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Tour de France prize money: how much did Jonas Vingegaard win in 2023?

There's more than the yellow jersey up for grabs in the Tour de France

Daniel Cole - Pool/Getty Images

Colin Henrys

While the Tour de France yellow jersey is one of sport’s most fabled prizes, there is more than just prestige up for grabs at the 111th edition of the race in 2024.

Alongside the yellow, green, polka dot and white jerseys , the Tour de France had a €2,295,200 prize pot to give out in 2023.

This included a €500,000 overall prize for champion Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a bike). In total, the Dane received €535,220 through the course of the race, including prizes for stage wins, placings on stages and climbs.

Riders can earn money from all the main categories, as well as on categorised climbs, intermediate sprints and for finishing within the first 160 classified riders in the race.

All Tour de France teams have different formulas for sharing the prize money, but usually it's put into a pot and divided between every rider (and often staff) on the team at the end of the race. Cycling is a team sport with individual winners, after all.

Here’s how the 2023 Tour de France prize money was broken down.

Tour de France stage winner prize money

The winner of each stage earned €11,000 in 2023, as well as a place on the podium at the end of the day.

Second place was worth €5,500, while the rider in third raked in €2,800.

In fact, every rider down to 20th place (€300) earned a share of the €28,650 on offer each day.

Here’s the full breakdown for each individual stage.

Tour de France yellow jersey prize money

If winning the stage also put a rider into the yellow jersey, there was an extra €500 up for grabs, with the same prize on offer for each day a rider wore the maillot jaune.

That, however, is small fry compared to the main prize pot for the general classification.

The rider in the yellow jersey on the final podium in Paris in 2023 won €500,000, with Vingegaard taking the spoils. The prize increased back in 2016 and has remained the same since.

Second place went to Tadej Pogačar, earning him €200,000, with Adam Yates taking home €100,000 in third.

Each rider from fourth to 19th on the general classification steadily receives less money, and everyone from 20th place to 160th is awarded €1,000 for completing the roughly 3,500km course.

Here’s a full breakdown of the prize money awarded to the 10 overall fastest riders in 2023.

• €500,000 (Jonas Vingegaard)
• €200,000 (Tadej Pogačar)
• €100,000 (Adam Yates)
• €70,000 (Simon Yates)
• €50,000 (Carlos Rodriguez)
• €23,000 (Pello Bilbao Lopez)
• €11,500 (Jai Hindley)
• €7,600 (Felix Gall)
• €4,500 (David Gaudu)
• €3,800 (Guillaume Martin)

Tour de France King of the Mountains prize money

A day in the King of the Mountains jersey was worth €300 in 2023, while the top eight in the final mountains classification were rewarded at the end of the race.

The overall winner in 2023, Giulio Ciccone, received €25,000, while second place got €15,000.

Here’s a full breakdown of the prize money awarded to the top eight finishers in the mountains classification in 2023.

• €25,000 (Giulio Ciccone)
• €15,000 (Felix Gall)
• €10,000 (Jonas Vingegaard)
• €4,000 (Neilson Powless)
• €3,500 (Tadej Pogačar)
• €3,000 (Simon Yates)
• €2,500 (Tobias Johannessen)
• €2,000 (Jai Hindley)

Tour de France climbs prize money

It’s not all about the general classification and the polka dot jersey – each climb at the Tour de France has a prize on offer at the top.

For hors catégorie and first-category climbs, the first three over the summit earn prize money; on second-category ascents, it's the top two, and on third and fourth-cat climbs it's just the first rider over.

The 2023 Tour de France contained 30 climbs categorised as second category or above – with six HC ascents and summit finishes.

The HC climbs and summit finishes were worth €800 to the first across, €450 to the second and €300 to the third. The 10 category-one mountains offered €650, €400 and €150 respectively.

For second-category mountains or hills, the first rider across received €500 and the second €250, while it was €300 to cross a third-category climb first and €200 to be the first over a fourth-category ascent.

Riders can also boost their pay packets further by being the first across the highest point of the race. In 2023, the Souvenir Henri Desgrange , as the prize is known, was awarded to the first rider to crest the 2,304m Col de la Loze. That added €5,000 to the kitty of Felix Gall (Decathlon–AG2R La Mondiale) last year.

The Souvenir Jacques Goddet (€5,000) is given to the first rider to reach the top of the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees. The prize went to Pierre Latour in 2021 (the Pyrenean peak didn't feature in the 2023 Tour de France).

Tour de France points classification prize money

As with the polka dot jersey, a day in the green jersey in 2023 was worth €300 – so that’s a lot of prize money that has headed Peter Sagan’s way in his Tour de France career.

Even more so when you consider the €25,000 top prize for winning the points classification overall, which Sagan managed in seven of the eight years from 2012 to 2019.

However, Irish sprinter Sam Bennett ended Sagan's run in the green jersey in 2020. Mark Cavendish made a triumphant return to green in 2021.

Wout van Aert topped the classification in 2022 and Jasper Philipsen won the green jersey last year.

The top eight in the final points classification all win prizes. The 2023 ranking looked as follows:

• €25,000 (Jasper Philipsen)
• €15,000 (Mads Pedersen)
• €10,000 (Bryan Coquard)
• €4,000 (Tadej Pogačar)
• €3,500 (Jonas Vingegaard)
• €3,000 (Kasper Asgreen)
• €2,500 (Jordie Meuss)
• €2,000 (Matej Mohorič)

That’s exactly in line with the mountains classification.

Each intermediate sprint – one on each of the 19 road stages – was worth €1,500, €1,000 and €500 for the first three riders through.

These prizes are often swallowed up by the breakaway, with the sprinters keeping their powder dry for the stage finishes – the prize money for the top 20 on each stage is detailed at the top of this article.

Tour de France young rider classification prize money

A €300 prize is also up for grabs for each day in the white jersey of best young rider (in other words, for the 2024 race, those riders born on or after 1 January 1999).

In addition, the highest-placed young rider on each stage can claim a €500 daily prize.

The top four riders in the final young-rider classification also win prizes. In 2022, €20,000 was up for grabs for the winner, with the prize money decreasing by €5,000 for each position in the top four.

In 2020, at 21 years old, Pogačar became the youngest Tour de France winner since 1904, as well as securing the white and polka-dot jerseys. He won the same three jerseys in 2021, but was only the best young rider in 2022 and 2023.

• €20,000 (Tadej Pogačar)
• €15,000 (Carlos Rodriguez)
• €10,000 (Felix Gall)
• €5,000 (Thomas Pidcock)

Tour de France team classification prize money

The top-placed team on each stage – calculated by the cumulative time of each team’s three fastest finishers – claims a further €2,800 in prize money.

Those daily times are all added up to form the overall team classification, and the top five teams at the end of the race also win cash prizes.

Here’s a full breakdown of the prize money awarded to the five highest-ranking teams at the end of the Tour de France in 2023.

• €50,000 (Visma–Lease a bike)
• €30,000 (UAE Team Emirates)
• €20,000 (Ineos Grenadiers)
• €12,000 (Bahrain Victorious)
• €8,000 (Groupama–FDJ)

Most aggressive rider classification (combativity prize)

There is one final prize at the Tour de France, with race judges picking their most aggressive rider in each of the first 18 road stages (so every stage except the two time trials and the final stage) to win the combativity prize.

The previous day’s winner can be spotted by their red race number on the following stage. They will also be €2,000 richer.

At the end of the race, a Super Combatif award is handed out – worth €20,000.

Wout van Aert added the most aggressive rider award to his green jersey in 2022 and Victor Campanaerts won the 2023 combativity prize.

How does Tour de France prize money compare to other sports events?

While €500,000 (approximately £432,500) for winning the yellow jersey is nothing to be sniffed at, the amount on offer for winning cycling’s greatest race is low compared to other sports.

Wyndham Clark earned $3.6 million for winning golf's 2023 US Open.

In horse racing, the Saudi Cup winner is awarded $10 million. Most of that goes to the horse's owner, but the winning jockey can expect a 10 per cent share.

The men’s and women’s singles tennis champions at Wimbledon received £2 million each in 2022.

At sea angling's 2022 White Marlin Open, Jeremy Duffie netted a world-record-setting $4,536,000 for landing a 77.5lb white marlin.

Still, the most fabled prize in cycling is not something to turn your nose up at – prize money or not.

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Prize Money Tour de France 2024 - Full guide to how €2.573.202 will be split between teams

The 2024 Tour de France will be a special edition, with it's Grand Depart in Florence and Emilia-Romagna over the border in Italy, and for the first time in many years, a finale away from Paris as the riders will head into Nice for the race finale. It will take place from the 29th June to the 21st of July. We take a look at how over €2 million euros will be distributed in the most popular race in the world!

A grand total of €2.573.202 euros will be distributed between the teams present in the 2024 Tour de France , who will be racing for not only very prestigious glory on the road, but also for a very important financial benefit from the race that provides the most sponsor exposure all year long. You may be thinking how will the money distribution be organized - look no further, below you can look at the full guide of the Tour de France 2024 prize money . You can also see last year's list .

Discover the startlist of the 2024 Tour de France! Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Primoz Roglic, Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish and more

The GC classification winner will be receiving 500.000, whilst the rest of the podium gets 200.000 and 100.000 respectively. Points, KOM and Youth (€20.000) classification winners win €25.000, whilst the victor of the team's classification wins €50.000. Everyday the stage winner takes home an extra €11.000. You can find the exact details, as well as several other classifications and special awards, in the following list.

Order - Prize Money (Each Stage Classification)

Order - Prize Money (Final overall classification)

20th and all remaining riders - €1000

Order - Prize Money (Daily GC leader)

Profiles & Route Tour de France 2024 | Italian start, Galibier on stage 4, gravel, two time-trials, brutal Pyrenees and finale in Monaco

Order - Prize Money (Final Points Classification)

Order - Prize Money (Daily Points Leader)

Order - Prize Money (Intermediate Sprints)

Order - Prize Money (Final KOM Classification)

Order - Prize Money (Daily KOM Leader)

Order - HC - 1st - 2nd - 3rd - 4th (Prize Money for each climb category)

1 €800 €650 €500 €300 €200

2 €450 €400 €250

3 €300 € 150

Order - Prize Money (Final Youth Classification)

Order - Prize Money (Daily Youth Classification Leader)

Order - Prize Money (Daily Best Youth Rider)

Order - Prize Money (Final Teams Classification)

Order - Prize Money (Daily Best Team)

Order - Prize Money (Best Team Weekly)

Order - Prize Money (Daily Combativity Award)

Order - Prize Money (Tour de France Super Combativity Award)

Order - Prize Money

1st Souvenir Henri Desgrange (Col du Galibier) - €5000

1st Souvenir Jacques Goddet (Col du Tourmalet) - €5000

An extra 11.82%, leading to €272.002 will be given out as the result of conversion tax and will also be going towards rider associations.

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The prize money of the 2022 Tour de France

There's over €2 million up for grabs this July, and plenty of ways to earn a slice of it

While the jerseys of the Tour de France , such as the famous yellow overall leader's jersey, may be the most visible of the prizes on offer during the Grand Tour, there's plenty more up for grabs in July.

Riders will spend the three weeks battling it out for the yellow, green, polka dot, and white jerseys, as well as several minor competitions. But there's also over €2 million up for grabs throughout the race, spread across the numerous competitions.

To be precise, the prize pot totals €2,282,000 at this year's race, to be doled out among the jersey competitions, stage winners, team classification, and the most aggressive riders.

By far the biggest portion of this pot – almost half – goes to the GC race for the yellow jersey. All riders finishing in Paris will take home at least €1,000, though the overall winner will receive €500,000.

How to watch the Tour de France – live TV and streaming How long is the Tour de France? Tour de France 2022 route revealed

Add to that the €200,000 and €100,000 for the remaining podium places and then the sharply descending awards on offer further down the ranking (only the top seven finishers win over €10,000) and the total prize money on offer for the GC battle amounts to €1,128,000, with the daily race leader also taking home €500 per day.

Daily prizes for the stage winners, runners-up, and in fact all the placings down to 20th (15th down take €500 each) total €601,650 through the race. Each stage winner is awarded €11,000, while second and third place each day get €5,500 and €2,800.

Rather than the other major jerseys, it's the team prize which is the next richest competition in the Tour with a total of €178,800 up for grabs, including €50,000, €30,000, and €20,000 for the top three. 

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The top five teams take home cash, while the best team on each individual stage gets €2,800 – another €58,800 in the prize pot.

The race for the green points jersey sees prizes of €1,500, €1,000 and €500 for the first three over each intermediate sprint of the race. The leader each day takes home €300, while the top eight in Paris share out €65,000, with the top three in the competition winning €25,000, €15,000, and €10,000.

The mountain classification also hands out the same monetary rewards in Paris, though there's less money on the line along the way. A total of €36,550 is spread across the climbs of the race, with the first over HC-rated climbs taking €800 and the money diminishing to €200 for the leader over a fourth-category hill. The first man over the highest climb of the race (the Col du Galibier on stage 11) will win the Souvenir Henri Desgrange and take €5,000. 

Like the green jersey holder, the daily polka dot jersey holder receives €300. The total prize pot for green is slightly larger though, at €128,000 compared to the polka dot jersey's €107,250.

The white young rider's jersey is next in line. The best U-25 rider on each stage grabs €500 and the leader each day takes €300. In Paris, €20,000 goes to the winner with second, third, and fourth in the competition also awarded for a grand total of €66,500 in the battle for white. 

Last but not least, there's the combativity prize. On each road stage, the rider judged to be the most combative will earn €2,000, with the super-combatif award winner in Paris winning €20,000 for a total of €56,000 in the prize pot.

That all adds up to the headline figure of €2,282,000, then. It's some job to organise and spread the money around, and then it happens once again after its awarded.

Riders traditionally pool all their prize money, with one rider in each designated as the team accountant. A share of prize money is also given to the hard-working team staff.

Teams and sponsors also award special performance bonuses, but the amounts are rarely made public. Success in the Tour de France is rewarded by bigger and better contracts for the following seasons with a Tour de France winner often set to earn between three and five million per season – among the richest contracts in the sport.

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Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired full-time. Prior to joining the team, they had written for numerous major publications in the cycling world, including CyclingWeekly and Rouleur.

Dani has reported from the world's top races, including the Tour de France, World Championships, and the spring Classics. They have interviewed many of the sport's biggest stars, including Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Demi Vollering, and Anna van der Breggen.

As well as original reporting, news and feature writing, and production work, Dani also oversees How to Watch guides and works on The Leadout newsletter throughout the season. Their favourite races are Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix and their favourite published article is from the 2024 edition of the latter: 'Unless I'm in an ambulance, I'm finishing this race' – Cyrus Monk, the last man home at Paris-Roubaix

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Kylian Mbappe returns to France’s starting eleven in their Euro 2024 Group D match against Poland at Dortmund on Tuesday after breaking his nose in their opening match versus Austria.

Tour de France 2024 preview: Full schedule, teams and how to watch live

The Tour de France 2024 is almost upon us with the world’s most prestigious cycling race getting underway on Saturday 29 June.

All eyes are on the duel between Slovenian rider Tadej Pogačar and defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark. The pair have won the last four titles between them with each aiming to win a third Tour de France.

After his emphatic victory in the Giro d'Italia, Pogačar goes into the event as favourite to add to his two wins from 2020 and 2021. It could be an incredible few weeks for the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist with the Tour de France ended just days before the Olympic Games Paris 2024 .

Meanwhile, Vingegaard has made a late comeback from injury to be fit for the Tour as he seeks to become the sixth rider - and the first Scandinavian - to win three consecutive yellow jerseys.

This year’s race is unique for a number of reasons. It will be the first edition to begin in Italy , marking 100 years since Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian winner of the Tour de France.

The 'Grand Départ' is in Florence with the field traversing the Italian Alps before crossing the border into France during Stage 4. This will also be the first Tour to finish outside of Paris - due to its proximity to the Olympic Games - with the final stage an individual time trial from Monaco to Nice which will decide overall victory.

Here is everything you need to know about this year’s Tour de France.

• How to qualify for road cycling at Paris 2024. The Olympics qualification system explained
• Giro d'Italia 2024: Pogacar claims the title in Rome - daily stage and general classification results

Riders to watch at the Tour de France 2024

As well as the big two - Pogačar and Vingegaard - other challengers for the yellow jersey include Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič .

Evenepoel has played down his chances of general classification success on his Tour debut, but his pedigree suggests he will be a threat. The Belgian has some impressive results to his name including winning the 2022 road race world title, and GC at the 2022 Vuelta a España in 2022. He also boasts two Liège-Bastogne-Liège victories.

Roglič, the 2020 runner-up behind compatriot Pogačar, will take some confidence from his overall victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Jasper Philipsen is the favourite to retain the sprinters' green jersey after winning Milan-San Remo and finishing second at Paris-Roubaix. Denmark's Mads Pedersen , road race world champion five years ago, is among his main challengers while Mark Cavendish needs just one stage win to break his tie with Eddy Merckx (both on 34) for the most stage victrories in race history.

Old cyclocross rivals Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert will also be in the mix for stage wins. The latter is back as one of Vingegaard's chief lieutenants in the Visma Lease a Bike team after sustaining multiple fractures in a crash at March's Dwars door Vlaanderen.

The 2024 Tour features seven mountain stages, including four summit finishes, and will suit the climbers. Pogačar (2020, 2021) and Vingegaard (2022) are past winners of the King of the Mountains' polka-dot jersey and are likely contenders once more.

Tour de France 2024 route and important stages

Also among the 21 stages of the 2024 Tour de France are two individual time trials and gravel sectors covering a total distance of 3,492km.

Starting from Florence, the 2024 Tour will complete three full stages in Italy traversing the Italian Alps before crossing the border into France from Pinerolo.

With no Alpe d'Huez or Mont Ventoux on this year's route, the Queen stage is the penultimate stage - a testing 132km cycle from Nice to the summit of the Col de la Couillole .

In recent years, the final individual time trial has been held on the penultimate day with the finale a procession on the Champs-Elysées on the Sunday. But, due to preparations for Paris 2024, this year's race will conclude with a 33.7km time trial from Monaco to Nice.

That means the yellow jersey could potentially be decided on the final day. The last time the Tour ended with a time trial was in 1989 when Greg Lemond overturned a 50-second deficit to Laurent Fignon to take victory by just eight seconds, still the smallest winning margin in race history.

Day-by-day route of the 2024 Tour de France

• Saturday 29 June: Stage 1 - Florence - Rimini (206 km)
• Sunday 30 June: Stage 2 - Cesenatico - Bologne (199.2 km)
• Monday 1 July: Stage 3 - Plaisance - Turin (230.8 km)
• Tuesday 2 July: Stage 4 - Pinerolo - Valloire (139.6 km)
• Wednesday 3 July: Stage 5 - Sant-Jean-de-Maurienne - Saint-Vulbas (177.4 km)
• Thursday 4 July: Stage 6 - Mâcon - Dijon (163.5 km)
• Friday 5 July: Stage 7 - Nuits-Saint-Georges - Gevrey-Chambertin (25.3 km, individual time trial)
• Saturday 6 July: Stage 8 - Semur-En-Auxois > Colombey-les-Deux-Églises (183.4 km)
• Sunday 7 July: Stage 9 - Troyes - Troyes (199 km)
• Monday 8 July: Rest Day
• Tuesday 9 July: Stage 10 - Orléans - Saint-Amand-Montrond (187.3 km)
• Wednesday 10 July: Stage 11 - Évaus-les-Bains - Le Lioran (211 km)
• Thursday 11 July: Stage 12 - Aurillac - Villeneuve-sur-Lot (203.6 km)
• Friday 12 July: Stage 13 - Agen - Pau (165.3 km)
• Saturday 13 July: Stage 14 - Pau - Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d'Adet (151.9 km)
• Sunday 14 July: Stage 15 - Loudenvielle - Plateau de Beille (198 km)
• Monday 15 July: Rest Day
• Tuesday 16 July: Stage 16 - Gruissan - Nîmes (188.6 km)
• Wednesday 17 July: Stage 17 - Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux - Superdévoluy (177.8 km)
• Thursday 18 July: Stage 18 - Gap - Barcelonnette (179.5 km)
• Friday 19 July: Stage 19 - Embrun - Isola 2000 (144.6 km)
• Saturday 20 July: Stage 20 - Nice - COl de la Couillole (132.8 km)
• Sunday 21 July: Stage 21 - Monaco - Nice (33.7 km, individual time trial)

Tour de France 2024 - Teams: Provisional list (subject to change)

Team visma | lease a bike.

• Jonas Vingegaard (DEN)
• Sepp Kuss (USA)
• Tiesj Benoot (BEL)
• Matteo Jorgenson (USA)
• Christophe Laporte (FRA)
• Jan Tratnik (SLO)
• Wout van Aert (BEL)
• Wilco Kelderman (NED)

Alpecin - Deceuninck

• Jasper Philipsen (BEL)
• Mathieu van der Poel (NED)
• Gianni Vermeersch (BEL)
• Silvan Dillier (SUI)
• Robbe Ghys (BEL)
• Soren Kragh Andersen (DEN)
• Axel Laurance (FRA)
• Jonas Rickaert (BEL)

Astana Qazaqstan Team

• Mark Cavendish (GBR)
• Michael Mørkøv (DEN)
• Davide Ballerini (ITA)
• Cees Bol (NED)
• Alexey Lutsenko (KAZ)
• Yevgeniy Fedorov (KAZ)
• Harold Tejada (COL)
• Michele Gazzoli (ITA)

BORA - hansgrohe Team

• Jay Hindley (AUS)
• Aleksandr Vlasov
• Danny van Poppel (NED)
• Nico Denz (GER)
• Matteo Sobrero (ITA)
• Primoz Roglic (SLO)
• Bob Jungels (NED)
• Marco Haller (AUT)

EF Education - EasyPost

• Richard Carapaz (ECU)
• Neilson Powless (USA)
• Ben Healy (IRL)
• Marijn van der Berg (NED)
• Alberto Bettiol (ITA)

INEOS Grenadiers

• Thomas Pidcock (GBR)
• Geraint Thomas (GBR)
• Carlos Rodriguez (ESP)
• Michal Kwiatkowski (POL)
• Egan Bernal (COL)
• Laurens De Plus (BEL)
• Ben Turner (GBR)
• Jonathan Castroviejo (ESP)

Lidl - Trek

• Carlos Verona (ESP)
• Giulio Ciccone (ITA)
• Jasper Stuyven (BEL)
• Julien Bernard (FRA)
• Mads Pedersen (DEN)
• Ryan Gibbons (RSA)
• Tim Declercq (BEL)
• Toms Skujinš (LAT)

Soudal Quick-Step

• Remco Evenepoel (BEL)
• Mikel Landa (ESP)
• Ilan van Wilder (BEL)
• Louis Vervaeke (BEL)
• Casper Pedersen (DEN)
• Yves Lampaert (BEL)
• Gianni Moscon (ITA)

Team Jayco AlUla

• Dylan Groenewegen (NED)
• Luka Mezgec (SLO)
• Simon Yates (GBR)
• Elmar Reinders (NED)
• Luke Durbridge (AUS)
• Chris Harper (AUS)
• Christopher Juul-Jensen (DEN)
• Michael Matthews (AUS)

Israel - Premier Tech

• Guillaume Boivin (CAN)
• Jake Stewart (GBR)
• Jakob Fuglsang (DEN)
• Stephen Williams (GBR)
• Pascal Ackermann (GER)
• Derek Gee (CAN)
• Hugo Houle (CAN)
• Krists Neilands (LAT)

Uno-X Mobility

• Magnus Cort (DEN)
• Johannes Kulset (NOR)
• Rasmus Tiller (NOR)
• Odd Christian Eiking (NOR)
• Alexander Kristoff (NOR)
• Soren Waerenskjold (NOR)
• Tobias Halland Johannessen (NOR)
• Jonas Abrahamsen (NOR)

Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team

• Felix Gall (AUT)
• Dorian Godon (FRA)
• Oliver Naesen (BEL)
• Sam Bennett (IRL)
• Nicolas Prodhomme (FRA)
• Paul Lapeira (FRA)
• Bruno Armirail (FRA)
• Nans Peters (FRA)

Arkea - B&B Hotels

• Arnaud Demare (FRA)
• Kevin Vauquelin (FRA)

Bahrain - Victorious

• Matej Mohoric (SLO)
• Wout Poels (NED)
• Pello Bilbao (ESP)
• Phil Bauhaus (GER)
• Santiago Buitrago (COL)
• Jack Haig (AUS)
• Fred Wright (GBR)
• Nikias Arndt (GER)
• Bryan Coquard (FRA)
• Guillaume Martin (FRA)
• Piet Allegaert (BEL)
• Axel Zingle (FRA)
• Alexis Renard (FRA)
• Simon Geschke (GER)
• Jesus Herrada (ESP)
• Ion Izagirre (ESP)

Groupama - FDJ

• David Gaudu (FRA)
• Valentin Madouas (FRA)
• Romain Gregoire (FRA)
• Stefan Kung (SUI)

Intermarche - Wanty

• Louis Meintjes (RSA)
• Biniam Girmay (ERI)
• Laurenz Rex (BEL)
• Hugo Page (FRA)
• Mike Teunissen (NED)
• Georg Zimmermann (GER)
• Kobe Goossens (BEL)
• Gerben Thijssen (BEL)
• Vito Braet (BEL)
• Lorenzo Rota (ITA)
• Rein Taaramae (EST)
• Gijs van Hoecke (BEL)
• Adrien Petit (FRA)

Movistar Team

• Enric Mas (ESP)
• Oier Lazkano (ESP)
• Nelson Oliveira (POR)
• Davide Formolo (ITA)
• Alex Aranburu (ESP)
• Fernando Gaviria (COL)
• Javier Romo (ESP)
• Gregor Mühlberger (AUT)

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL

• Fabio Jakobsen (NED)
• Romain Bardet (FRA)
• Warren Barguil (FRA)

UAE Team Emirates

• Tadej Pogacar (SLO)
• Juan Ayuso (ESP)
• Joao Almeida (POR)
• Adam Yates (GBR)
• Pavel Sivakov (FRA)
• Marc Soler (ESP)
• Tim Wellens (BEL)
• Nils Politt (GER)

Lotto Dstny

• Arnaud De Lie (BEL)
• Victor Campenaerts (BEL)
• Maxim van Gils (BEL)
• Cedric Beullens (BEL)
• Brent Van Moer (BEL)
• Jarrad Drizners (AUS)
• Harm Vanhoucke (BEL)
• Sebastien Grignard (BEL)

TotalEnergies

• Mathieu Burgaudeau (FRA)
• Steff Cras (BEL)
• Anthony Turgis (FRA)
• Jordan Jegat (FRA)
• Thomas Gachignard (FRA)
• Matteo Vercher (FRA)
• Sandy Dujardin (FRA)
• Fabien Grellier (FRA)

How to watch the 2024 Tour de France live

The Tour de France will be shown live in 190 countries. Here is a list of the official broadcast partners across different territories.

• Basque Country - EiTB
• Belgium - RTBF and VRT
• Czech Republic - Česká Televize
• Denmark - TV2
• Europe - Eurosport
• France - France TV Sport and Eurosport France
• Germany - Discovery+ and ARD
• Ireland - TG4
• Italy - Discovery+ and RAI Sport
• Luxemburg - RTL
• Netherlands - Discovery+ and NOS
• Norway - TV2
• Portugal - RTP
• Scandinavia - Discovery+
• Slovakia - RTVS
• Slovenia - RTV SLO
• Spain - RTVE
• Switzerland - SRG-SSR
• United Kingdom - Discovery+ and ITV
• Wales - S4C
• Canada - FloBikes
• Colombia - CaracolTV
• Latin America & Caribbean: ESPN
• South America - TV5 Monde
• United States - NBC Sports and TV5 Monde

Asia Pacific

• Australia - SBS
• China - CCTV and Zhibo TV
• Japan - J Sports
• New Zealand - Sky Sport
• South-East Asia - Global Cycling Network and Eurosport

Middle East and Africa

• The Middle East and North Africa - BeIN Sports and TV5 Monde
• Subsaharan Africa - Supersport and TV5 Monde

Related content

The Biggest Champions in Tour de France History

While we anticipate who will rise to glory this year, let’s look at the legends who have already cemented their place in Tour history.

Can Tadej go for back-to-back Grand Tours? Will Jonas be able to defend his double titles? Is 2024 finally the year that Primož Roglič—at the front of a new team—can exorcize the demons of the Super Planche des Belles Filles? Will Remco finally deliver on all of the promise and raw talent he’s long exhibited? Or will some sleeper pounce on a golden opportunity and surprise us all the way Sepp Kuss did in last year’s Vuelta?

All of these questions will be answered in just a few days. But for now, instead of looking forward, let’s look back. Rather than speculate on the unknown, let’s remember the known. Let’s talk about some of the most famous (and at least one infamous) winners in the history of the Tour de France, men whose names and exploits have become synonymous with Le Tour.

The Classic Era

Maurice garin – 1903.

Any list of Tour de France winners has to include Garin for no other reason than the Frenchman won the first-ever. In 1903, Garin won the six-stage Tour, covering its 1,509 miles in under ninety-five hours. But don’t let those six stages fool you, as the race averaged over 250 miles each day. Garin defended his title the following year, only to be stripped of the win following allegations that he was transported by a car or a horse at some point during the race.

Phillipe Thys – 1913, 1914, 1920

Thys’s first Tour victory wasn’t without issue, as the Belgian won the 1913 race despite suffering a broken fork. He was penalized ten minutes after it was discovered he repaired the fork at a bicycle shop, yet still won the race by nine minutes. He repeated this in 1914, again overcoming a major penalty. This time, he was hit with a thirty-minute deduction for an unauthorized wheel change. As the race was not run between 1915 and 1918 due to the First World War, Thys had to wait until 1920 for his third and final Tour victory. Following that win, Tour de France founder Henri Desgrange wrote of Thys, “France is not unaware that, without the war, the crack rider from Anderlecht would be celebrating not his third Tour, but his fifth or sixth.”

Gino Bartali – 1938, 1948

Though Coppi was perhaps better known for his trio of wins at his native Giro d’Italia (which included seven King of the Mountains wins), he was twice the winner of the Tour de France. After withdrawing from his first Tour in 1937, where he wore the leader’s jersey for a time, Bartali returned the following year and won, immediately becoming an icon in Italy. A decade later, Bartali returned to the Tour, leaving a nation of people to choose between him and his countryman Fausto Coppi. Bartali won seven stages en route to both the yellow jersey and the KOM classification. Years later, it was discovered that Bartali secretly used his training rides to shuttle documents back and forth between Florence and Assisi in order to aid Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis.

The Golden Era

Fausto coppi – 1949, 1952.

Fausto Coppi kicked off what many call cycling’s Golden Age and is perhaps most well-known for the fact that he won the Giro/Tour double twice. Coppi was the first to achieve the double. Only eight other riders have achieved the result. Coppi’s early career was interrupted due to the Second World War, leaving generations of pundits to wonder what he might have done in the early 1940s. However, he did win five Giris d’Italia and scores of classics in addition to his pair of Tours. He frequently clashed with his biggest rival, Gino Bartali, dividing a nation of fans down into “Coppiani” and “Bartaliani.”

Jacques Anquetil – 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964

Over the course of eight years, Jacques Anquetil won the race five times. His first victory came on debut, just months after he was discharged from military service. Following a rocky few years spent chasing an elusive Giro/Tour double, Anquetil returned to the top of the podium in 1961. He repeated as Tour champion the following year doubled up the next two years, with the Tour and the Vuelta a España in 1963 and the Tour and the Giro in 1964.

Eddy Merckx – 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974

There might be no more famous bicycle racer than Eddy Merckx. The Belgian legend remains forty-five years after his retirement, as the name to which everyone else is compared. “Is he the next Mercxk?” is asked every few years. And to this point, everyone has fallen short of the mark. And though he’s tied with three other riders on this list with five Tours de France on his resume, his name rises above all due in large part to the rest of his palmarés, which includes victories at virtually every other race of import. And for all of his yellow jerseys, he’s equally known for his thirty-four stage wins at the Tour, matched only by Mark Cavendish, and six stage wins clear of the next closest racers (Bernard Hinault with twenty-eight).

Bernard Hinault – 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985

In Mercxk’s final year, his heir apparent was coronated when Frenchman Bernard Hinault won his first Tour de France. He won again the following year and was leading the race in 1980, expected by many to three-peat. However, “The Badger” was forced to abandon due to a knee injury. He came back the following year and the year after that, again going back-to-back. His final Tour victory came in 1985 thanks in large part to the work of his teammate, a young Greg LeMond.

The New Era

Greg lemond – 1986, 1989, 1990.

Greg LeMond finished his first-ever Tour de France in third place. The following year, he took one step further on the podium, finishing second after he spent the race working in service of his La Vie Claire team leader Hinault. The year after that, in 1986, the reins came off, and LeMond entered Le Tour as La Vie Claire’s co-leader. He won that race, besting Hinault by just over three minutes. After being shot in a hunting accident, LeMond missed the next two Tours de France, only to return in 1989, winning what many call the greatest Tour of all time. LeMond entered the race with little hype or expectation. He hoped for a top-twenty finish. However, over the course of the Tour, LeMond’s strength and position grew as he battled back and forth with his French rival, Laurent Fignon. LeMond headed into the race’s final stage, a time trial fifty seconds short of Fignon. He finished it eight seconds clear of the Frenchman, winning the race in what remains the smallest margin of victory ever. Later that year, he won his second World Championship (his first came in 1983) and followed up his performance with a repeat Tour de France victory the next summer.

Miguel Indurain – 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995

There was a time when it was presumed that no one would top Eddy Mercxk’s record of four consecutive Tour de France wins (1969-1972). But then came Miguel Indurain, who unseated LeMond in 1991 (LeMond finished second), snatching his first of a then-record five straight Tour de France victories. In addition to his stretch of Tour wins, Indurain twice doubled up, winning the Tour and the Giro in 1992 and 1993.

Marco Pantani – 1998

Unlike most of the others on this list, Marco Pantani’s renown doesn’t come from repeated success at the Tour de France. In fact, Il Pirata only won the yellow jersey once, in 1998 (after a pair of third-place finishes in 1994 and 1997). However, that year, he doubled up, winning his home race, the Giro d’Italia. Much of Marco Pantani’s legacy is couched in legend and lore, owing in large part to his elusiveness while racing and untimely death at just thirty-four years old.

The Modern Era

Lance armstrong – 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (all vacated).

Sadly, Lance Armstrong cheated, had all seven of his Tour de France titles stripped, and received a lifetime ban from all sports that follow the World Anti-Doping Code.

Alberto Contador – 2007, 2009

Alberto Contador is one of just seven riders to have won all three Grand Tours more than once. He’s also a four-time winner of the Vélo d’Or, the only person to win the award for the year’s best rider four times. He was the first man in the twenty-first century not named Lance Armstrong to win the Tour de France. However, after being implicated in a doping scandal (he was later cleared), Contador didn’t even have a pro contract going into the 2007 season. He went on to win that race by just twenty-three seconds over Cadel Evans (who would go on to win the Tour in 2011). Two years later, he notched his second Tour victory, beating Andy Schleck by just over four minutes.

Bradley Wiggins – 2012

Like Marco Pantani, Bradley Wiggins has just one Tour de France victory. That win came in 2012 after the British track champion fully committed to road racing. Wiggo won over many European fans after a fan threw carpet tacks onto the course during stage 14. Unaffected, Wiggins commanded the peloton to slow down and wait for his competitors—namely Cadel Evans, who suffered a puncture—to catch up. Since his 2012 victory, Wiggins has remained in the spotlight as a pundit, a rower, a published author, and lately, an advocate for mental health awareness.

The Contemporary Era

Chris froome – 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017.

After displaying strong form as a super domestique during the 2012 season, riding in support of Bradley Wiggins, Froome entered 2013 with massive expectations. He took on the leader’s role in some early-season races and headed into the Tour de France as the heavy favorite, fulfilling bets with a four-plus-minute win over Nairo Quintana. The following year, he crashed out of the race on stage 5. However, Froome returned with a 2015 victory, the first in three consecutive Tour de France wins.

Tadej Pogačar – 2020, 2021

In his short career, Tadej Pogačar has won just about everything there is to win. And he’s often done as much with aplomb and style, with many experts saying his versatility, pure strength, and insatiable will win make Pogačar the closest thing we’ve seen to Eddy Merckx since the real thing. His first Tour de France victory came in 2020 after he snatched the win from fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič. It was there that he won on the race’s penultimate stage, going from fifty seconds down on Roglič to one minute up in the span of one final climb. The following year, he defended with relative ease, beating then-newcomer Jonas Vingegaard by more than five minutes.

Jonas Vingegaard – 2022, 2023

Jonas Vingegaard’s backstory is already the stuff of legend. While working in a Danish fish factory, he was discovered after posting a ride to Strava. Within a few years, he won his first Tour de France, beating the seemingly invincible Tadej Pogačar. The following year, he went head-to-head with Tadej, winning his second-straight Tour on the back of one of the greatest time trials in the history of the Tour (and arguably ever). He then put the final nail into the coffin by doing what was then unthinkable: cracking Tadej Pogačar up a brutal climb.

Michael Venutolo-Mantovani is a writer and musician based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He loves road and track cycling, likes gravel riding, and can often be found trying to avoid crashing his mountain bike. 

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Tour de France jerseys: Yellow, green, white and polka dot explained

We explain what the yellow, green, polka dot and white jerseys worn by riders in the Tour de France represent

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• Yellow jersey
• Green jersey
• Polka dot jersey
• White jersey
• Other classifications

The Tour de France sees the very best cyclists in the world battle it out for the yellow, green, white and polka dot jerseys, based on the general, points, mountains and young rider classifications. 

The jersey for each category is awarded to the leader of that classification at the end of every stage, and the recipient earns the right to wear it during the following day's racing. When a rider has the lead in multiple classifications, the yellow jersey is prioritised, then green, the polka dot, and white - the next person on the ranking wears the kit in the leader's stead.

Here we take a brief look at what they are and how they are won. 

Tour de France yellow jersey - GC leader

Also called the maillot jaune , the Tour de France yellow jersey is the most coveted piece of kit in professional cycling. The wearer is the rider who has completed the race in the least amount of time, and as such tops the overall or general classification (GC) of the race.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) dominated the GC in 2020 and 2021, wearing the yellow jersey almost throughout the 2021 edition, before Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) took it off him halfway through the 2022 race, wearing it until the end of the race. He went on to win it again in 2023.

Before that, in 2012, Bradley Wiggins became the first British rider to finish in Paris in the Yellow Jersey - with Chris Froome following up in 2013, 2015-2017. Geraint Thomas took the 2018 race, becoming the third British rider to win the race.

The yellow jersey is sponsored by LCL, a French bank, and it is yellow, because the Tour's original organiser, L'Auto , was a newspaper printed on yellow paper. 

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A time bonus of 10, six and four seconds will be awarded to the first three riders across the finish line each day (not including TTs). These bonus seconds are taken off their stage and therefore overall time. Bonus seconds of eight, five and two seconds are also awarded on certain, strategically placed climbs on stages one, two, five, 12, 14 and 17.

Last 10 winners of the Tour de France general classification:

• 2014: Vincenzo Nibali 
• 2015: Chris Froome
• 2016: Chris Froome
• 2017: Chris Froome
• 2018: Geraint Thomas
• 2019: Egan Bernal
• 2020: Tadej Pogačar
• 2021: Tadej Pogačar
• 2022: Jonas Vinegaard
• 2023: Jonas Vinegaard

Tour de France green jersey - points classification

The green jersey relates to points awarded to riders according to the position they finish on each stage, with additional points for intermediate sprints during some stages also on offer.

The number of points on offer will vary depending upon the type of stage. More are on offer during pure flat, sprint days, while on hilly and mountain stages there are fewer points available. The points are then tallied up after each stage and added to points won in all previous stages. The green jersey ( maillot vert) is awarded to the rider with the most points. Sometimes it is a sprinter's game, sometimes more of an all-rounder - like Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma).

The jersey took its colour because the initial sponsor was a lawn mower manufacturer - though the colour was changed once in 1968 to accommodate a sponsor. It is now sponsored by Škoda, and has a new shade for this year .

Both Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault successfully won both the general classification and the points classification with Merckx achieving the biggest sweep in 1969 with the points, mountain and general classifications to his name. Over the last ten years, Peter Sagan has triumphed in the points classification on no less than seven occasions. 

The following points are on offer:

Flat stage (stages 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16): 50, 30, 20 points (descending to 15th place) 

Hilly stage (stages 1, 11, 17, 18): 30, 25, 22 points (descending to 15th place)

Mountain stage and ITTs (4, 7, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21): 20, 17, 15, (descending to 15th place)

Intermediate sprint: 20, 17, 15, (descending to 15th place)

Last 10 winners of the Tour de France points classification:

• 2014: Peter Sagan
• 2015: Peter Sagan
• 2016: Peter Sagan
• 2017: Michael Matthews
• 2018: Peter Sagan
• 2019: Peter Sagan
• 2020: Sam Bennett
• 2021: Mark Cavendish
• 2022: Wout van Aert
• 2023: Jasper Philipsen

Tour de France jerseys: Polka dot - King of the Mountains classification leader

Tour de france polka dot jersey - mountains classification.

Mountains points are awarded to riders who manage to summit classified climbs first. Points vary depending on the category of each ascent, with more difficult climbs awarding more mountains points.  

Climbs are divided into five categories: 1 (most difficult) to 4 (least difficult) - then there's the ' Hors Categorie ', denoted by HC which represents the most challenging of ascents. The tougher the category, the more points on offer, and to more riders - a HC climb will see points awarded down to the first eight over the summit, while a fourth category climb results in points for just the first rider over the top.

The organisers decide which mountains or climbs will be included in the competition, and which category they fall into. If the stage features a summit finish, the points for the climb are doubled.

The points are tallied up after each stage and added to points won in all previous stages. The distinctive white-with-red-dots jersey ( maillot à pois rouges ) is given to the rider with the most mountains points. The first climber's award was given out in 1933, and the jersey arrived on the scene in 1975. It is now sponsored by Leclerc, a supermarket.

Points awarded as follows:

HC: 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2pts  

1st cat: 10, 8, 6, 7, 5, 1pt 

2nd cat: Five, three, two.

3rd cat: Two and one points 

4th cat: One point 

The souvenir Henri Desgrange is awarded to the first rider over the race’s highest point, the Cime de la Bonnette, with a bonus of  40, 30, 24, 20, 16, 12, 8, 4 points, on stage 19.

Last 10 winners of the Tour de France mountains classification:

• 2014:  Rafał Majka
• 2015:  Chris Froome
• 2016: Rafał Majka
• 2017: Warren Barguil
• 2018: Julian Alaphilippe
• 2019: Romain Bardet
• 2023: Giulio Ciccone

Tour de France white jersey - best young rider

The plain white, young rider classification jersey is awarded to the fastest rider born after 1 January 1998, meaning 25 or under. It is sponsored by Krys, an opticians

First introduced in 1975, riders such as Marco Pantani, Alberto Contador, Egan Bernal and Tadej Pogačar have all won the young rider classification, helping propel them onto bigger and better things during their careers.

Pogačar has been dominant in the white jersey competition in recent years, but this is the first year he is not eligible.

Last 10 winners of the Tour de France young rider classification:

• 2014:  Thibaut Pinot
• 2015: Nairo Quintana
• 2016:  Adam Yates
• 2017: Simon Yates
• 2018: Pierre Latour
• 2022: Tadej Pogačar
• 2023: Tadej Pogačar

Other Tour de France classifications - team and combativity

There are two further classifications that do not earn the winner(s) a coloured jersey - the most aggressive rider award and Team Classification .

While not necessarily a classification, the Combativity Award is given to the rider who has shown the most fighting spirit during each individual stage, as chosen by the race jury. They will wear a gold race number during the following day's stage. A 'Super Combativity' award is handed out on the final stage for the most aggressive rider during the whole race.

The Team Classification is based on the collective time of the three highest-placed riders from each squad. Leaders of the team classification get to wear race numbers that are yellow with black digits, and the right to wear yellow helmets. The latter is not compulsory.

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Adam is Cycling Weekly ’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

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Defending champ Jonas Vingegaard fit to compete at Tour de France

FILE -Tour de France winner Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey, lifts his bicycle after the twenty-first stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 115 kilometers (71.5 miles) with start in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and finish on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris, France, Sunday, July 23, 2023. Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has recovered in time to defend his title next week although there are still doubts about his ability to be competitive. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

FILE - Sepp Kuss of the U.S. rides during the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) with start in Passy and finish in Combloux, France, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has recovered in time to defend his title next week although there are still doubts about his ability to be competitive. Matteo Jorgenson of the U.S. is also part of the squad alongside countryman Sepp Kuss, Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot, Wilco Kelderman and Jan Tratnik. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

FILE - Matteo Jorgenson of the U.S. rides the last kilometers of the ninth stage of the Tour de France cycling race over 182.5 kilometers (113.5 miles) with start in Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat and finish in Puy de Dome, France, Sunday, July 9, 2023. Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has recovered in time to defend his title next week although there are still doubts about his ability to be competitive. Matteo Jorgenson of the U.S. is also part of the squad alongside countryman Sepp Kuss, Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot, Wilco Kelderman and Jan Tratnik. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

FILE - Belgium’s Wout Van Aert rides during the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France cycling race, in Combloux, France, on July 18, 2023. Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has recovered in time to defend his title next week although there are still doubts about his ability to be competitive. His trusted teammate Wout van Aert, who broke his collarbone and several ribs in March in another crash, will also race in support of Vingegaard. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole, File)

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BRUSSELS (AP) — Two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard has recovered in time to defend his title next week although there are still doubts about his ability to be competitive.

Vingegaard was seriously injured in a crash in April but will be on the starting line next week when the race kicks off from Italy, the Danish rider’s Visma-Lease a Bike team said on Thursday.

His trusted teammate Wout van Aert, who broke his collarbone and several ribs in March in another crash, will also race in support of Vingegaard.

The three-week Tour starts on June 29 in Florence.

“I am excited to start the Tour. The last few months have not always been easy,” Vingegaard said. “We have worked together to get to this moment and, of course, I am very excited to see where I stand. I feel good and very motivated.”

Vingegaard was hospitalized for nearly two weeks in Spain in April following the multi-rider, high-speed crash in the Tour of the Basque Country. He sustained a broken collarbone and ribs and a collapsed lung.

Before the crash, Vingegaard was considered one of the Tour de France favorites alongside Tadej Pogacar, who won the Giro d’Italia and is aiming for a rare double next month.

“I am very proud of Jonas and the coaching team,” his team sporting director Merijn Zeeman said. “He is coming back from a serious injury. In the last few weeks, he has shown what a champion he is, both mentally and physically. Of course, we don’t know how far he can go yet. We are being cautious because he has not been able to race, and his preparation has been less than ideal, to say the least. But he will be there, healthy and motivated.”

Van Aert crashed during the Dwars door Vlaanderen in Belgium. He has been training at altitude in the French ski resort of Tignes with Vingegaard.

“Of course, this was not the plan initially, but after my development in the last weeks, I really wanted it, and the team agreed,” the Van Aert said. “Our main goal is, of course, to ride a top classification with Jonas. I want to contribute to that with an excellent team.”

Van Aert is widely considered one of the world’s best and most versatile riders. The three-time cyclocross world champion is also the winner of nine Tour stages and the points classification. He’s major race wins include Milan-San Remo, Strade Bianche, Gent-Wevelgem and the Amstel Gold Race.

Matteo Jorgenson of the U.S. is also part of the squad alongside countryman Sepp Kuss, Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot, Wilco Kelderman and Jan Tratnik.

“Matteo Jorgenson has already become one of the strongest riders in the team this year, with wins in Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen, and his second place in the Dauphiné,” Zeeman said. “Sepp Kuss proved last year that he is a great climber, an important domestique, and a leader in his own right with a victory in the Vuelta a España.”

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

2024 Tour de France begins June 29 and includes historic firsts. Everything to know

The Paris Olympics and Paralympics will not be the only prestigious international sporting event held in France this summer. 

The Tour de France, the preeminent event on the men’s cycling calendar, will return for its 111th edition from June 29 to July 21. During the three-week ride, 176 cyclists, representing 22 teams of eight, will complete 21 stages across hilly, flat and mountainous terrain. The course includes a grueling 52,230 meters (over 170,000 feet) of elevation gain and is 3,492 kilometers (2,170 miles) long. The taxing schedule includes only two rest days. 

This year’s race will start in Florence, Italy, and conclude at the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. It will be the first time the finish line is not in or near Paris because the city will be hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And the first time since 1975 the race will not finish on the Champs-Élysées.

The final stage will also break from tradition as it will be one of two time trial stages, which means the leader could be determined in the final leg. The last time the Tour de France ended with a time trial was in 1989.

In addition to Italy and France, the route passes through San Marino and Monaco. The route is famous for its picturesque scenery, from quaint rural villages to the towering Alps. 

Each stage is timed, and the rider with the lowest cumulative time across all stages wins the acclaimed maillot jaune, or yellow jersey, to signify the general classification winner. Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, 27, hopes to seek a coveted three-peat but is still working his way back from a serious crash that hospitalized him for 12 days in April. If he does race, he will face fierce competition from a talented field that includes 2020 and 2021 winner Tadej Pogača of Slovenia.

Separate awards are also given to the best sprinter, climber and young cyclist. 

Sepp Kuss, who finished as the top American in 12th place at last year’s Tour de France, is also set to return. Like last year, he will race on the same team as Vingegaard. 

How to watch the 2024 Tour de France live

All stages of the Tour de France, as well as pre- and post-race coverage, will be available to stream live on Peacock. USA Network will also stream some of the stages. 

NBC will simultaneously broadcast select stages of the event. 

Stage 1 will begin June 29 at 6 a.m. ET. The rest of the stages typically start between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. ET. 

Full Schedule:

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How much do riders and teams make at the Tour de France?

The tour de france is cycling's biggest race – but does the prize money match the prestige.

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The Tour de France is the glittering jewel in the cycling crown, the sport’s most polished and prestigious production. Each year it is broadcast around the world to an audience of countless millions. It is cycling’s World Cup, Eurovision Song Contest, and Grand Final rolled into one.

But does that vast global audience equate to vast prize money? 

It depends how you look at it.

The 2021 Tour de France has a total prize pool of €2,228,450 (US$2,642,340 / AU$3,516,770) – around €60,000 less than it has been in the last two editions. 

For mere mortals like you and me, that is a considerable sum. But compared to other major sports, it’s pretty modest prize money. Take as an example the Wimbledon tennis tournament, with a prize pool of £35,000,000 (€40,799,650), from which the men’s and women’s singles winners will each pocket a novelty-sized cheque for £1,700,000 (€1,981,697).

As for the Tour? For three weeks of exertion, the general classification winner will take home €500,000, a snazzy bowl-shaped trophy, and a soft toy in the shape of a lion. 

The prize money drops off sharply from there, divided between the rest of the riders in the race. The second-place finisher gets €200,000, but by the time you get down to 19th on the general classification, the winnings are just €1,100  – enough for a pair of titanium eeWings cranks and a round of Domino’s pizza (but only from the extra-value range – nothing fancy) for the whole team. Riders from 20th to 160th are rewarded with €1,000 each; €47 for each day of the race.  

But it’s not just that final big (or small) payday in Paris that the riders are jostling for.

The total prize pool is sliced and diced across the entire race, in intermediate sprints and stage wins, mountain summits and combativity prizes. Euros are an abstract thing, but tangible real life items are not, so CyclingTips has helpfully decided to provide real-life comparisons of what riders could buy with their prize money for each of these.

A stage win at the Tour de France is good for €11,000 – not quite enough for an S-Works Aethos. Tenth on a stage will net a rider a more modest €600 – enough for a pair of titanium CeramicSpeed jockey wheels – while 15th to 20th place is, in financial terms, no different: €300, or not quite enough for the shoes on the riders’ feet. 

The points on a sprint stage, meanwhile, contribute toward the green jersey, the wearer of which pockets €300 per day, with the eventual winner of that classification taking home €25,000. Likewise, if a rider places at an intermediate sprint, there’s a financial incentive in addition to the points. The winner scores €1,500, and the third-place finisher earns more than just the fleeting admiration of their peers: they pick up €500, which is enough for a very well-soiled 2002 Renault Twingo (with €10 spare for service station snacks on the way back from collecting it in Marseilles).

Like the green jersey winner, the final holder of the King of the Mountains Classification is also rewarded with €25,000, with monetary prizes for every single categorised climb in the race. These vary from €5,000 for the Souvenir Henri Desgrange – the highest point of the race, at the Port d’Envalira on stage 15 – all the way down to €200 for a fourth category climb. If a rider strings together a couple of those, they might be able to put it toward a discreet altitude tent for the head (a steal at €360).

All of this prize money is tallied up over three weeks, pooling in the team’s piggy bank. As cycling is a team sport, it’s customary for the total to be split among riders and staff, meaning Tadej Pogačar (to choose one entirely hypothetical winner of this year’s race off the top of my head) won’t take the full half-mil home to Slovenia. 

As of the first rest day, it’s team classification leader Bahrain Victorious that is heading the running prize money tally, courtesy of a couple of stage wins and some busy bees in various breakaways. Way down the other end of the spectrum is poor Qhubeka-NextHash, which has brought on a cryptocurrency sponsor for the event but pocketed little real-world cash. At present, they’re sitting on enough for a team-bonding RyanAir trip to Zagreb for the Tour squad and 10 staff.

As for the riders contributing to those team pools? Perhaps predictably, it’s Pogačar – with a stage win, a brief but growing stint in yellow, and an extended stint in white – leading that tally, doing most of the heavy lifting for UAE Team Emirates’s kitty.

Of course, the riders and team staff are paid a wage  – so these figures are more like a performance bonus rather than a direct reflection of what their exertions are worth.

By Tour’s end – especially if you are hypothetical future-Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar – these prize money tallies will have kept on rising. When the curtain comes down on the Champs-Élysées, the teams and the riders will disperse to their distant corners of the world, deep tanlines etched into their skin, covered in healing, peeling roadrash.

Some will have made their name and their fortune. Others will have made enough for a mildly sordid night out at a Parisian nightclub, some overpriced Heinekens, and a late-night kebab on the stumble back to the Ibis.

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The tour de france is mystifying; so is the business of cycling.

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Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images

The Tour de France, the most elite bike race in the world, kicks off this Saturday. 176 of the best cyclists in the world will race nearly 2,200 miles across 21 stages and climb over 170,000 feet of elevation into the clouds of the highest mountains in the Pyrenees and Alps. The effort involved can be mind-boggling. So can the business side of cycling.

The Regulator and the Promoter

There are numerous actors and entities involved in professional cycling and their complex interrelationships underlie races like the Tour.

The sport of cycling is regulated by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), a non-governmental, non-profit association, based in Switzerland, which is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the governing body for cycling. The UCI, like all international governing bodies in sports, is governed by a complex hierarchy of committees and executives from around the world.

The UCI is responsible for organizing, regulating, and sanctioning cycling events of various kinds for both men and women of different ages all over the world. The WorldTour is the UCI’s elite professional men’s road cycling tour. Teams and riders participate in races on the WorldTour calendar and earn points and are ranked based on their performance. The Tour de France, as one would expect, is a major contributor to those rankings.

The Tour itself is put on by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), a French sports marketing and event management organization. The ASO’s crown jewel is the Tour de France but it organizes 29 other cycling events, including several important preparatory races for the Tour (such as the Critérium du Dauphiné), the Vuelta a España (another Grand Tour), as well as the Paris Marathon. It also operates the week-long Tour de France Femmes for women in August.

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To be clear, the ASO and UCI are separate entities with sometimes divergent interests. The ASO organizes nine of the 35 races on the WorldTour calendar and understandably seeks to maximize interest and revenue associated with its events, most of which take place in France. Of particular note, the ASO controls and sells the broadcast rights to the Tour to networks around the world. While the specifics of those deals are not clear, they certainly bring in tens of millions of dollars a year to the ASO. Perhaps not surprisingly, the ASO and UCI have long-standing disputes over who controls the sport and reaps any related financial benefits.

Aside from the Tour, the remaining WorldTour events are organized by a variety of parties, including the UCI and organizers in the many countries where races take place.

The WorldTour calendar does not include any events in the United States. The Tour of Utah (2004-19), Tour of California (2006-19), and USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado (2011-15) were former races that attracted some of the best riders in the world. Nevertheless, the organizers ultimately found them financially unsustainable.

The next group worth mentioning are the teams. To the uninitiated, it might be confusing that cycling has teams, since only a single rider can win a race. However, teams are just as essential to victory in cycling as they are in soccer, football, or any other team sport.

Professional cycling teams consist of approximately 30 riders, eight of whom are chosen to be a part of the Tour de France roster. The composition of that roster will depend on the team’s goals. A handful of teams will have a rider they believe capable of winning the Tour de France’s General Classification (GC), signified by the yellow jersey. So the roster will be constructed toward that goal, including by stocking the roster with elite climbers and other riders (collectively known as domestiques) who can support the leader in a variety of ways.

The best teams protect their elite riders by encircling them and keeping them near the front of the race to minimize the chances of crashes. Elite domestiques will lead their stars up the mountains, breaking the wind and chasing down any attacks from competitors.

Other teams are formed around sprinters who try to win flat stages and win the green (points) jersey. Here too the team is tremendously important. In the closing miles of flat stages, the teams with the best sprinters push to the front, often hitting speeds of 40-50 miles per hour. The team’s riders will “lead-out” the sprinter by giving their maximum effort before dropping off and unleashing the sprinter toward the finish line. The Manx sprinter Mark Cavendish has 34 all time Tour de France stage wins, tied for the most all time, in large part due to the incredible lead-out teams he has had in his career.

If your team has neither a GC rider or a sprinter, it might try to win the King of the Mountains polka dot jersey or to win individual stages via creative and aggressive racing strategies.

There are 18 WorldTour teams and 17 ProTour teams. ProTour teams have smaller budgets, staffs, and schedules than their WorldTour counterparts. Beginning with the 2022 season, every three years the two lowest performing WorldTour teams are relegated to the ProTour and the top two ProTour teams are promoted to the WorldTour.

The idea of a “team” though is often remarkably in flux. Teams are identified by their corporate sponsors, which fund the vast majority of a team’s budget, ranging from about $ 10 to $40 million . Sponsorship contracts with teams are often only one or two years and renewals are closely tied to team performance. Consequently, on an annual basis, some teams are desperately looking to retain or find new sponsors in order to keep the team going another year or to avoid being relegated. Inevitably, some teams fold or merge with other teams. Team finances have historically been so shaky that the UCI Regulations require each WorldTour team to obtain a guarantee from a bank to fund its operations.

Additionally, the teams conduct some joint efforts through an organization known as the Association Internationale des Groupes Cyclistes Professionnels (AIGCP), discussed further below. Nevertheless, the AIGCP has no role in organizing races and has minimal influence. Moreover, teams operate out of numerous countries and thus often have cultural differences of opinion on various issues (doping being a notable historical example).

Finally, we get to the riders. Cyclists are represented by the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), a non-profit association, but not a labor union under the law of any country.

The CPA negotiates “ Joint Agreements ” with the AIGCP setting forth some minimum terms and conditions of employment, including various insurance coverages. Cycling is a physically grueling sport, where the term “ suffering ” is a point of pride. Unfortunately, most cyclists are not terribly well-paid for their efforts.

The current agreement sets the 2024 minimum salary for a WorldTeam rider at € 68,957 (about $74,300) for veterans and € 55,793 ($60,100) for rookies. ProTeam veterans and rookies are entitled to a minimum of € 55,279 ($59,600) and € 46,234 ($49,800), respectively.

Of course, the stars of the sport make considerably more. Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar earns a reported € 6 million ($6.47 million) from his team, UAE Team Emirates.

Yet, like the AIGCP, the CPA has little control over the sport, with minimal leverage to negotiate with the ASO or UCI. Indeed, the height of rider authority has been the occasional instance in which the riders “ neutralize ” a race stage due to unsafe conditions, meaning that they collectively agree to ride to the finish line at a moderate pace without contest.

Pogačar is favored to win this year’s Tour, with steep competition expected from fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic of Bora-Hansgrohe and Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (also a two-time Tour winner) of Visma-Lease a Bike if he is able to overcome recent injuries. Otherwise, some of those involved in the Tour will win more than others.

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