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The year of the Irish: Remembering Stephen Roche's triumph at the 1987 Tour de France

The latest of our trips down memory lane, as the 2023 Tour de France nears, sees us look back at the 74th edition of the race as Stephen Roche brought the luck of the Irish to take Yellow in one of the most memorable battles of all time.

The 1987 Tour de France, the 74th edition of the world's most prestigious cycling race, provided fans with exhilarating moments and an intense competition between two formidable rivals. Irish cyclist Stephen Roche emerged as the ultimate victor, securing his place in history as the first and only Irish rider to conquer the Tour de France.

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Roche's main contender for the yellow jersey was Spanish cyclist Pedro Delgado , who represented the PDM team. Throughout the Tour, Delgado held the coveted yellow jersey as the overall leader, presenting a formidable challenge for Roche. The battle between these two riders would define the outcome of the 1987 Tour de France.

The turning point of the Tour came during the penultimate stage, which featured an individual time trial. Roche, representing the Carrera team, delivered a stellar performance, surpassing expectations and narrowing the gap between himself and Delgado. In a breathtaking display of determination and skill, Roche managed to overturn a significant deficit, ultimately winning the Tour by a mere 40 seconds.

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No Tour de France is complete without the iconic climb up Alpe d'Huez. During stage 18 of the 1987 edition, Roche encountered mechanical issues while ascending the challenging mountain. Undeterred by the setback, he displayed true grit and borrowed a bike from a supportive spectator to continue the race. Roche's determination and resilience limited his time loss and kept him firmly in contention for the Maillot Jaune.

Stage 19 of the 1987 Tour de France was marred by controversy. The mountain time trial up the Col du Granon was shortened due to adverse weather conditions, including heavy rain and fog. Several riders, including Roche, protested the decision and refused to continue racing. Consequently, the stage results were nullified, adding an element of controversy to an already gripping Tour.

Route Analysis | Profiles & Route Tour de France 2023

In addition to Roche's overall victory, other notable achievements emerged from the 1987 Tour de France. Jean-Paul van Poppel from the Netherlands, representing the Superconfex team, claimed the green jersey for the best sprinter. Luis Herrera from Colombia, riding for the Café de Colombia team, secured the polka dot jersey for the best climber. The white jersey for the best young rider was awarded to Raúl Alcalá from Mexico, competing for the PDM team.

The 1987 Tour de France will forever be etched in cycling history as the year Stephen Roche overcame tremendous odds to secure a memorable victory. His battle with Pedro Delgado, the thrilling Alpe d'Huez drama, and the controversy surrounding stage 19 contributed to the race's enduring legacy. Roche's triumph marked a significant milestone for Ireland, and for himself, as he added the Tour de France to the Giro d'Italia he had won earlier that year before later adding the World Championship. His remarkable achievement continues to inspire cyclists and fans alike.

Final startlist Tour de France with BIB | Vingegaard, Pogacar, Cavendish, Van der Poel, Van Aert, Alaphilippe, Bernal, Pidcock, Sagan and Girmay

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Tue 18 Jun 2024

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Ireland's history of Tour de France stage winners

WHEN HE CROSSED the line yesterday after a gruelling day in the Pyrenees, Dan Martin became just the fifth Irishman to claim a stage win in the world’s greatest bike race, and the first since 1992.

Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche you’ve probably heard of but what about Shay Elliott and Martin Earley?

Here’s a brief breakdown of Irish success on le Grand Tour.

1. Shay Elliott

YouTube:  ZampanoProductions

Elliott had an illustrious cycling career, with stage wins in the  Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España. However, after winning stage three in 1963, he earned the distinction of becoming the first Irish rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

His professional career was to end in shame though and Elliott died just eight years after pulling on the ‘maillot jaune’.

2. Sean Kelly

In terms of stage wins, Sean Kelly is the most successful Irish rider in the Tour de France with five. The first of those came in 1978 when Kelly, the first Irishman to compete in the race in 14 years, sprinted to victory on stage six.

While five victories is impressive, Kelly could have won so much more. In 1985 alone he finished second five times and third on four stages.

Kelly's other stage wins came in 1980 (stages 19 and 21), 1981 (stage 17) and 1982 (stage 13).

3. Stephen Roche

YouTube: VeloNationCycling

The only Irish winner of the Tour, Roche claimed his first stage win in 1985 when he crossed the line first during stage 18 before finishing third overall in the race.

In 1987, on his way the triple crown of Tour, Giro and World Road Race victories, Roche won the tenth stage of the Tour, an 85km individual time trial.

Despite accusations of doping clouding the latter part of his career, his victory on the 16th stage of the 1992 Tour was the last by an Irishman until his nephew crossed the line in first place on Sunday.

4. Martin Earley

YouTube: chickasmith

Not only was Earley part of the team that helped Roche to his 1987 World Road Race win, but the Dublin native was also an accomplished rider in his own right, picking up stage victories in the Giro and the prestigious Tour of the Basque Country.

However, the highlight of Martin's career was undoubtedly the eighth stage of the 1989 Tour when he sprinted towards the finish line in Pau to become just the fourth Irish stage winner.

Earley switched to mountain bikes later in his career and competed for Ireland at the 1996 Olympic Games.

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Martin becomes first irishman to win tour de france stage in 21 years.

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What Irishman Won the Tour de France?

It’s one of Ireland’s greatest ever sporting accomplishments but very few, outside of the cycling and sporting world, will know the name of the victor.

Ask an Irishman or woman, walking down any street in the country, to name Ireland’s greatest sporting heroes and chances are they’ll name the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Sonia O’Sullivan, Roy Keane, Pat Spillane, Henry Shefflin and George Best.

Maybe it’s the niche nature of cycling, when compared to other sports, but very few will ever mention Stephen Roche… Yet this is a man who has done something no other Irish sports star has come close to replicating! 

The Toughest Race

To set the scene, lay back and try to imagine the most gruelling three weeks of your life. 21 days where every muscle in your body aches, where you battle lack of sleep, where you deal with the physical challenges of what’s ahead, and the mental challenges of everyone around you, including potentially teammates, vying for what you’ve got. 

That, in a nutshell, is the Tour de France.

The Tour de France is the greatest, and most famous, cycling race in the world and since 1903 the best cyclists from every corner of the globe have battled it out across 21 stages in the Pyrenees and Alps.

The French are the most successful nation in the competition with 23 separate winners but to put it into context, since its inception at the turn of the 20th century, only two British cyclists, one from the US (excluding Lance Armstrong) and one from Ireland have won the entire thing.

That one Irish winner’s name? Stephen Roche. 

Stephen Roche, Champion

Stephen Roche, a County Dublin native from Dundrum, was born in 1959 and over the course of a 13-year cycling career, from 1980 to 1993, managed to do it all…and then some!

From a famous win at the one-day Paris-Roubaix to representing Ireland in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and a triple crown of victories in 1987 to 58 career wins in total, Roche had the kind of journey most professional cyclists can only dream of.

That triple crown of victories in 1987 was the cherry on top and our focus today. 

During that year, and despite chronic knee problems stemming from an injury the year before, Roche managed to win the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and World Road Race Championships all in the one season!

His victory in the Tour de France, considered the most difficult road race in the sport, was the culmination and then-Taoiseach Charles Haughey joined Roche on the podium on the Champ-Elysees in Paris to celebrate. 

Since then Roche has helped coached the new generations to follow, lives on the Cote d’Azur in France, and boasts two professional cyclists in the family in the form of son Nicolas and nephew Dan Martin.

Not a bad life to date!  

So, next time a random person stops you in the street to ask, or you’re fighting for points in a quiz, and the question “what Irishman won the Tour de France” pops up, you’ll be able to answer!

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Irish cycling hero Dan Martin explains the reasons why he retired as he backs L'Étape

The two-time Tour de France stage winner says it's "crazy" that is it 26 years since the world's most famous bike race was last in Ireland but describes it as a "huge undertaking"

• 06:00, 22 FEB 2024

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Dan Martin has opened up on his retirement just a year after achieving his best ever finish in a Grand Tour.

Martin had just turned 34 when he called time on his cycling career in September 2021.

He had finished fourth in La Vuelta in 2020 and, in his final year as a pro on the bike, finished 10th in the Giro d'Italia and seventh in the Tour of Britain.

READ MORE: Kelly Murphy says she's the 'scaredy cat' of her Ireland cycling team as they chase Olympic dream

Still, the time had come for the two-time Tour de France stage winner who is Nicholas Roche's cousin and Stephen Roche's nephew.

Martin admitted: "The reason I stopped when I did was because I felt that love of cycling was starting to split.

"It was becoming a chore and I never wanted that. I wanted to quit while it was still fun and I could still be passionate about the sport that has been my life and been my passion since I don’t know how old. That was important to me.

"The natural competitor in me sits at home and thinks, ‘ah, I’d be in the front now’.

"And you always have that question, 'how good are they now, would I still be up there, how good could I be', especially when you see peers that I was still beating, are doing well.

"You think, 'I could still be there'.

“But the cost to myself and my life was becoming unsustainable. It just came to the point I felt like I was missing out on other things in my life, my kids growing up.

“I could have continued and maybe got results here and there, but that wasn’t in my personality. I was either going to be all in or out.

"The year just before I retired was probably one of the most successful of my career, fourth in the Vuelta.

"But to get to that level, mentally, it was so difficult to make those sacrifices day after day. To the point I was never actually leaving home unless it was on a bike.

“You’re not taking your kids to the park, those normal things. So you think, 'wait a minute', and it becomes less enjoyable.

"Before you could live more of a normal life, could eat out in a restaurant once a week, have a bit of down time, whereas it takes full focus to be anywhere near the front now.

“You see that in the performances - the speeds are higher than ever because of the commitment, the training at altitude camps now all the time.

“But there’s no regrets. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different - and I feel very fortunate to have got some decent results in my career.”

His love of the sport does remain intact. For now, he is heavily involved in the first-ever staging of the L'Étape by Tour de France in the Kerry mountains on September 7.

He is also a Tour de France ambassador - last year he spent 10 days imparting to guests the story of each stage and what to expect to unfold over the day ahead.

"Being on that side of the fence, I was beside the podium most days and got a few strange looks from some of the riders," grinned Martin.

"Suddenly I was in the beige trousers and light blue shirt of the organisation. It was like a double-take from a lot of them, so that was a lot of fun."

Road safety, he stresses, was also a factor in his decision to retire.

"Even when we’re fortunate to live in Andorra, Girona, Spain, there are so many vehicles on the road now," he said.

"Going out on the bike every day, you do have near misses constantly in cycling, and that's scary.

“Everyone seems to be in such a rush now to get anywhere.

"It comes from both sides because cycling safety comes from the cyclist and the motorist. But there does seem to be a misunderstanding that a cyclist is a human being as well.

“The event in September is going to be on closed roads. That’s going to be a fantastic experience, probably the first time most people have ridden on closed roads.

“Obviously you can’t do that all the time but I do believe the more people we get on bikes, the safer the roads will become."

Martin says it is "crazy" that 26 years have passed since the Tour de France's Grand Départ was in Ireland.

Martin, a two-time Tour stage winner during his riding career, was 12 and wasn't in the country when the event landed here.

"All I remember is Chris Boardman crashing, in the yellow jersey, and then obviously what happened after (with the Festina doping affair)," he said.

"But it was certainly one of my earliest memories of cycling. But my first experience of the Tour was the year afterwards, so maybe it inspired me to go that year. It's crazy to think it's that long since."

Martin is heavily involved in the L'Étape de Tour cycling sportive that is coming to Ireland - and to the Kerry mountains - for the first time on September 7 as part of a hugely popular worldwide series, and over 3,000 enthusiasts are expected to take part.

But could it be the precursor for a return of the Grand Départ? The proposal to bid for a cross-border start for Le Tour in 2026 or '27 has been shelved.

"That's a huge undertaking to have the Grand Départ," said Martin. "There's a lot of competition for that now, because this is the biggest bike race and biggest sporting events in the world.

"So to just give Ireland a taste of what the Tour de France is about is important, and I think this is a great place to start.

"And then just being a great event in itself on Irish roads, they don’t have the obvious huge mountains that make it hard.

"But the gritty up and down nature of the roads around Kerry, and just having this whole concept of awarding the same jerseys that are awarded in the Tour...it's bringing that bit of French culture and a taste of the race.

"Obviously we're all hoping that can lead to the Grand Départ and the race coming back to Irish soil. But that's easier said than done."

The L'Étape, he points out is, open to all and to riders at all levels. There will be a pop up Tour de France museum and other attractions. There will be two different distances to cycle and a family route as well.

"It’s about enjoying the day and the scenery and the experience," Martin said.

“It’s all about the atmosphere, about bringing a little bit of the Tour de France to Kerry.

“It’s a destination, people will be coming from all over the world to ride this event, and so it's also about creating an experience over the weekend rather than just a one day event.”

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Home > Events > Cycling > Tour de France > Winners > List

Tour de France Winners List

The most successful rider in the Tour de France was Lance Armstrong , who finished first seven times before his wins were removed from the record books after being found guilty of doping by the USADA in 2012. No rider has been named to replace him for those years.

> see also more information about how they determine the winners of the Tour

General Classification Winners

* footnotes

• 1904: The original winner was Maurice Garin, however he was found to have caught a train for part of the race and was disqualified.
• 1996: Bjarne Riis has admitted to the use of doping during the 1996 Tour. The Tour de France organizers have stated they no longer consider him to be the winner, although Union Cycliste Internationale has so far refused to change the official status due to the amount of time passed since his win. Jan Ullrich was placed second.
• 1999-2005: these races were originally won by Lance armstrong, but in 2012 his wins in the tour de france were removed due to doping violations.
• 2006: Floyd Landis was the initial winner but subsequently rubbed out due to a failed drug test.
• 2010: Alberto Contador was the initial winner of the 2010 event, but after a prolonged drug investigation he was stripped of his win in 2012.

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TOUR History: Ireland’s Best Tour Riders

The best of ed.

“I’m never happier than when I’m writing.” ~ Ed Hood, as spoken to Martin Williamson from the passenger seat, driving along a stage route at the Tour de France.

Dear Readers – Our beloved colleague and friend Ed Hood suffered a serious stroke in February.  We don’t expect Ed will make it back into our bunch, so we’ve started a GoFundMe page to help Ed with his future.  Read the full post here – and please consider donating.

** Click this link to donate to the GoFundMe page to help Ed **

We’ll be posting a selection of Ed’s work from the past 16 years, because great story-telling never gets old.

Irish Tour Riders: After Ed Hood’s look at his home Scottish Tour riders, he has tuned his eye on to the Irish pros who tackled the race around France. The men from the Emerald Isle have been very successful with stage, overall and points wins.

We recently covered Scots who had ridden le Tour so it’s only fair we have a look at our Celtic Brothers across the Irish Sea who have ridden the world’s biggest race – and we should remember that it was the Irish Saints who brought Christianity to Scotland. Well, at least some of it. . .

Sam Bennett: Surprisingly, last year’s maillot vert isn’t with le Tour, a very public but one sided spat with Deceuninck boss, Patrick Lefevere leaves us wondering if the man from Carrick-on-Suir really does have an injured knee, or as Lefevere alludes to his going through a crisis of confidence?

But back to his record at La Grande Boucle. He first rode the race with BORA in 2015 posting a DNF but cracking the top 10 on Stage Seven. He returned a year later, got round in 174th spot and again cracked the top 10 on a stage, this time ‘the sprinters’ world championship’ Stage 21. It was last year before he returned having developed into one of the most accomplished sprinters around – but was denied le Tour by BORA who feared his presence would compromise the team effort for green jersey-chasing Peter Sagan.

Backed by Lefevere’s mighty Deceuninck Armada and with the best ‘pilot fish’ in the business – Michael Mørkøv – to take him up, he bagged five podiums with two stage wins – including the prestigious Stage 21 on the Champs Élysées and the maillot vert – Carrick-upon-Suir’s second son to do so. . .

Martin Earley: Earley started eight Tours, finishing in five of them; as a team mate of Sean Kelly at Kas and PDM, he spent a lot of time ‘in service of’ but had his own opportunities which saw him win two stages in the Tour of the Basque Country, a Giro stage and a Tour stage in 1989 when he triumphed over hard men Eric Caritoux and Micheal Wilson into Pau on Stage Eight. His palmarès also include a fine top 10 ride in the savagely hard 1989 Worlds at Chambery which saw Greg Lemond prevail.

Seamus Elliott: We now go into the realms of legend. The first English speaking rider to win Het Volk, in 1959 – it was 2014 before Ian Stannard matched that feat. The first ‘Anglo’ to win a stage in and lead the Vuelta, a race where he finished third in 1962. And in 1963 he became only the second ‘Anglo’ – after Tom Simpson wore it for one stage in 1962 – to wear the maillot jaune, Elliott won stage into Jambes and held the coveted garment for three days before the inevitable ‘Maitre Jacques’ Anquetil chrono win with Gilbert Desmet of Belgium doing enough in the time trial to divest Elliott of the lead. No matter, history was made. In all, Elliott rode le Tour on six occasions, finishing three times.

Sean Kelly: Another Legend follows. Kelly’s Tour debut came in 1978 immediately announcing that he was ‘special’ with a stage win. He rode a total of 14 Tours, finishing 12 of them with best GC placings of seventh in 1983, fifth in 1984, fourth in 1985 and ninth in 1989. Despite his case hardened constitution there was always a ‘jour sans’ in the high mountains and his pursuit of the green points jersey which inevitably required efforts which would compromise GC ambitions.

Albeit there was one day in yellow for him in the 1983 race, 20 years after Elliott to become the second of only three Irish riders to wear the precious garment. He won the points competition in the Tour on four occasions, ’82, ’83, ’85 and ’89 and was second twice – to Rudi Pevenage in 1980 and was pipped by four points in the last sprint of the 1984 race by Frankie Hoste.

In total he wore the green jersey for a total of 67 days during his career. Despite his maillot vert successes Kelly ‘only’ won five Tour stages during his career whilst he won 16 in the Vuelta and 14 in Paris-Nice; but his amazing consistency saw him rack up 120 top 10 and podium stage finishes in the Tour over the years including 21 second places and 17 third places, a record. Whilst an overall Tour win eluded him, he won seven Paris-Nice, three Tours of the Basque Country, two Tours of Catalonia, two Tours of Switzerland and the Vuelta, which along with his brilliant Classics record cement his place as an all-time great.

Paul Kimmage: Kimmage rode three Tours, finishing his first one, the 1986 edition in 131st place with a top 10 placing on Stage Seven. The following year, the 1987 epic with the start in Berlin and 25 stages, he was DNF on Stage 21 to La Plagne. The 1988 saw another DNF on Stage 12 to Montpelier. As one of only 11 Irishmen who have ridden le Tour he deserves to be remembered for more than ‘that book.’

Dan Martin: Birmingham’s finest Irishman got things right from the start; the sports physiologists tell you to; ‘choose your parents wisely.’ Mum is Tour winner Stephen Roche’s sister whilst dad is a former British Amateur Road Race Champion in 1984, Neil Martin. British Cycling weren’t interested in the lanky young climber so he took up his mother’s nationality and British Cycling’s loss was Irish Cycling’s gain.

He rode his first Tour de France in 2012, finishing in 35th spot, he was back a year later to take a stage win but be denied a potential high ranking GC finish by a crash, 33rd say the stats. He was next back at le Tour in 2015 when he finished in 39th spot. The 2016 race saw him with QuickStep after his long spell with Garmin, he placed ninth on final GC and a year later had moved up to sixth in the final rankings, this would be his best finish in the race.

In 2018 he was with UAE and took the win on the feared Mur de Bretagne stage, finishing eighth on GC and nominated most combative rider of the race. The 2019 race wasn’t so successful with an 18th place finish on GC; whilst 2020, now in the Israel colours saw him in 41st spot but set him up nicely for the Vuelta where he won stage and finished fourth on GC. In summary, eight starts, eight finishes, three top 10’s on GC and two stage wins – not a bad record.

Ian Moore: The only rider from the North of Ireland to ride le Tour, which he did in 1961 but was DNF on Stage Three to Charleroi. A brief sentence which doesn’t do the man justice, he won the Tour of Scotland in 1959 and the tough Essor Breton in 1962 handling continental pro life for some five seasons, tough for an ‘Anglo’ back then.

Laurence Roche: Stephen’s younger brother rode the Tour in 1991 in the colours of Tonton Tapis – ‘Uncle Carpets,’ the team with my all-time favourite jersey, albeit detractors liken the image on the jersey to Saddam Hussein with a Bazooka. But I digress, Laurence finished that Tour in 153rd spot in a race which saw brother Stephen eliminated for missing his start in the Stage Eight TTT. Laurence finished the race strongly, in the break on the Champs Élysées. With Tonton Tapis folding at the year end his pro career was over at 23 years-of-age.

Nicolas Roche: It’s always tough to be the son of a legend but Stephen’s son, ‘Nico’ has forged a long and respected career as a solid support rider who has ‘had his moments’ – including two Vuelta stage wins and the GC in the Route du Sud – in a pro career stretching back to 2004 and Cofidis. Since then he’s been with Credit Agricole, AG2R, Saxo, Sky, BMC and Sunweb where he remains in the team’s current incarnation of DSM.

He’s ridden 10 Tours and finished all of them with best GC finishes of 14th in 2010 and 12th in 2012. Second to Russian hard man Sergei Ivanov on Stage 14 of the 2009 Tour is as close as he’s been to a stage win.

Stephen Roche: Roche rode his first Tour in 1983, finishing 13th on GC and third best young rider behind a certain Laurent Fignon. His best finish was second to climbing legend Lucien Van Impe in the Stage 19 mountain time trial. In 1984 he finished 25th overall with La Redoute having left Peugeot with whom he rode his first Tour. Season 1985 saw him emerge as a real contender, third on points, third on GC and stage win on the mighty Aubisque.

But the ’86 race in the colours of Carrera, despite placing third behind Hinault and Lemond in the 61.5K time trial, saw him in a lowly 48th overall in a season plagued by a knee injury sustained in the Paris Six Day – a fall which would plague the whole of the rest of his career. The next year, 1987 saw him enter legend with his fabulous Giro – Tour – Worlds treble. The Tour win was built on the solid foundation of a win in the huge 87.5 K time trial but he displayed such consistency throughout the race that he placed second on points at the end of his epic 25 stage duel with Pedro Delgado. An all-time great Tour.

There was no Tour in his injury compromised ’88 season with the shambolic Fagor team. The ’89 race saw him start the race but post a DNS for stage 10 due to more problems with his knee. In ’90 he ‘got round’ for Histor Sigma in 44th place. The ’91 race saw him OTL [outside time limit] when he missed his start in the TTT; his brother Laurence explained it like this to me; “It was so easily done; there was a 120 kilometre road stage in the morning then a 60km TTT in the afternoon. The TTT starting order was on a spread sheet with no lines on it and our guy made a mistake when he scanned across the page, saying we were off at 15:20 – but it was actually 15:12. Stephen wanted to time it so he would turn up at the last minute – he didn’t want hassled by journalists before the start. We arrived at the start 15 minutes before the start but Stephen was still away on his ‘loosener’ ride. There were no mobile phones back then so there was no way to contact him; we wanted to wait but we were told; ‘go! or go home!’ We set off at a leisurely pace hoping Stephen would catch up – but again they said; ‘race! or go home !'”

For 1992 he was back with Carrera and back to something like his best with a stage win and ninth on GC. His final Tour was 1993, still with Carrera, finishing with a fourth place on Stage 16 and a final 13th GC. From 10 starts then, Roche finished eight with a third on GC, an overall win, three stage wins and a place in the legends of the Tour.

Mark Scanlon: One of a very few ‘Anglos’ to win the Junior World Road Race Championships, ahead of no less a figure than Pippo Pozzato in 1998 from a field which contained Fabian Cancellara and Bradley Wiggins, Scanlon rode the 2004 Tour in the colours of AG2R finishing 89th on GC. Despite some strong performances such as a stage win and race leadership in the Tour of Denmark, he called time on his career at just 27 years-of-age.

It was November 2005 when Ed Hood first penned a piece for PEZ, on US legend Mike Neel. Since then he's covered all of the Grand Tours and Monuments for PEZ and has an article count in excess of 2,150 in the archive. He was a Scottish champion cyclist himself - many years and kilograms ago - and still owns a Klein Attitude, Dura Ace carbon Giant and a Fixie. He and fellow Scot and PEZ contributor Martin Williamson run the Scottish site www.veloveritas.co.uk where more of his musings on our sport can be found.

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Tour de France - How Ireland sprint sensation Sam Bennett ended Peter Sagan's green jersey dominance

Updated 20/09/2020 at 23:11 GMT

Sam Bennett won the points classification at the Tour de France, becoming only the second Irish cyclist in history to win the green jersey at the world’s biggest bike race. Bennett finished his Grand Tour in style with victory on the Champs Elysees, extending his lead over second-placed Peter Sagan.

Stage winner Team Deceuninck rider Ireland's Sam Bennett wearing the best sprinter's green jersey celebrates as he crosses the finish line during the 21st and last stage of the 107th edition of the Tour de France

Image credit: Getty Images

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Points Classification standings

• 1. Sam Bennett (Ire) Deceuninck-Quickstep - 380 points
• 2. Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe - 284 points
• 3. Matteo Trentin (Ita) CCC Team - 260 points
• 4. Bryan Coquard (Fra) B&B Hotels - Vital Concept - 181 points
• 5. Wout van Aert (Bel) Team Jumbo Visma - 174 points
• 6. Caleb Ewan (Aus) Lotto Soudal - 170 points
• 7. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Deceuninck Quick-Step - 150 points
• 8. Tadej Pogacar (Svn) UAE Team Emirates - 143 points

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Tour de France: Jasper Philipsen powers to fourth sprint win of the race on stage 11

Jonas vingegaard finished safely in the peloton and retains a 17 seconds lead over tadej pogacar..

Jasper Philipsen (second from right) sprints to the finish line ahead of Dylan Groenewegen (right) and Phil Bauhaus (centre) to win the 11th stage of the Tour de France between Clermont-Ferrand and Moulins, in central France. Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images

Jasper Philipsen took his fourth stage of the 2023 Tour de France, winning stage 11 from Clermont Ferrand to Moulins, after sprinting clear of closest rival, Dylan Groenewegen in the final 100 metres.

The Belgian, already a winner in Bayonne, Nogaro and Bordeaux, mastered the fast finish with ease, despite the absence of steadfast lead-out man Matthieu Van der Poel, who was dropped by the bunch, due to illness.

“I can win without Matthieu, but of course, he makes it more easy,” Philipsen said. “I had to find my wheel [to follow] and it’s also finding the space. It’s hectic and dangerous, but I’m happy I could find a good wheel. Groenewegen opened up early, and I could go over [the top].”

The Tour’s defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard finished safely in the peloton and retains a 17 seconds lead over Tadej Pogacar.

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A stage earmarked by both the sprinters and the baroudeurs, or breakaway artists, stuck to the script, with a three-man move dominating the proceedings until the last of the trio, Daniel Oss, was finally swept up with 13km to race.

The speed increased as the riders sped over the Pont Regemortes, bridging the Allier river, despite the steady rain falling in the closing kilometres. But Philipsen was always in control and unleashed his power in the final 100 metres to secure a comfortable victory. He now leads the points classification by 150 points.

With the peloton moving steadily towards the Rhone, before crossing towards the Jura and Friday’s next summit finish, on the Grand Colombier, speculation continues on how high Yorkshire’s Tom Pidcock can finish in this year’s general classification.

“You can’t say he couldn’t podium,” Rod Ellingworth, Ineos Grenadiers deputy principal said. “I think it’s in reach. He’s in that ballpark.”

Pidcock is eighth overall, almost five and a half minutes behind race leader Vingegaard. “He wouldn’t want to lose any more time to the group below the leading two,” Ellingworth said, “but I think [a top-three finish] is possible. I definitely think top five is very realistic.”

“He’s got that ability to raise his game on the day,” Ellingworth said of Pidcock. “You could see that when he won Strade Bianche. All the guys I know who have that ability, who have won Olympic and World titles, they don’t crumble.”

Meanwhile the uncertainty over Mark Cavendish’s future continues, fuelled by the suggestion from his Astana Qazaqstan team that he postpone his planned retirement until the end of 2024, in order to compete in next year’s Tour.

According to his sprint consultant and former team-mate, Mark Renshaw, Cavendish is now at home in Essex, awaiting surgery on his fractured collarbone. No decision has yet been taken on postponing his retirement, although it is thought that the 38-year-old will wait a couple of months before making a final call on his future.

But while Cavendish ponders his plans, the evergreen Geraint Thomas, second overall in this year’s Giro d’Italia and third overall in the 2022 Tour, is expected to sign a new two-year contract with the Ineos Grenadiers team.

“I think we’re getting there,” Ellingworth said of negotiations with Thomas. “Even without results, his presence is massive. “You can’t underestimate what Geraint brings to the team, on the bus, in training camps. The bigger the competition, the better he gets.”

Vingegaard may retain the race lead, but his post-race press conferences are becoming increasingly surreal, as the media continues to chisel at his aloof exterior. Asked to respond to French newspaper Liberation’s suggestion that he struggled with the “impossibility of being in the world” the Dane looked flummoxed.

“‘The impossibility of being in the world?’” he repeated after a long pause. “I don’t even know what that means. That’s a very deep question,” he said, before adding, “I guess we all are.” – Guardian

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First full 2024 Tour de France squad announced as Uno-X Mobility target stage wins

Norwegian ProTeam target sprints with veteran Kristoff as Tobias Halland Johannessen leads climbing ambitions

Uno-X Mobility have become the first team to announce their full eight-man Tour de France squad for the 2024 edition, with Magnus Cort and Alexander Kristoff as headline riders.

Joining them at the Florence Grand Départ on June 29 will be Jonas Abrahamsen, Tobias Halland Johannessen, Rasmus Fossum Tiller, Søren Wærenskjold, Johannes Kulset and Odd Christian Eiking.

It’s the second appearance at the Tour for the Norwegian team. A combative first attempt in 2023 saw them take 11 top 10 finishes and finish in the top three on two occasions thanks to great breakaway efforts.

They will again target stages in the sprints through veteran and four-time stage winner Alexander Kristoff, while riders like Cort will seek opportunities elsewhere. 

“The team was well noticed during last year's Tour de France, achieving 11 top-ten finishes. We have now assembled a team that we believe can take another step up from last year,” said team General Manager Thor Hushovd in a team release.

“Our focus in the team selection has been to find a good combination of lead-out skills, climbing skills, and general riding strength. The riders we have selected complement each other very well, and I am confident that we will make our mark on several stages throughout the race.”

Uno-X Mobility are approaching the Tour in a rich vein of form after doubling their win tally on the season from five to ten in June. New signing for 2024 Cort also took the team to new heights and netted their first WorldTour victory on stage 2 of the Critérium du Dauphiné with a powerful uphill sprint ahead of Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe).

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This was preceded by Kristoff and Abrahamsen taking wins at Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl and the Brussels Cycling Classic respectively and backed up by Wærenskjold taking a stage and overall victory at the Baloise Belgium Tour.

Abrahamsen, Tiller, Cort and Wærenskjold will make up the core of the lead-out train for Kristoff, while the climbing is led by Johannessen.

Johannessen was their most impressive rider in the mountains at the 2023 race with four top ten finishes, one of which was third on stage 6 to Cauterets-Cambasque from the break behind only Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).

The former Tour de l’Avenir winner will be backed up by 20-year-old climbing talent Kulset and Eiking, a previous wearer of the Vuelta a España leader’s red jersey. 

“The sporting results in the spring season show that Uno-X Mobility belongs on the biggest stage in cycling. We are ready to show the world what we are made of, and I am really looking forward to following this year's Tour de France,” said Ole Robert Reitan, CEO and co-owner of Reitan Retail, which Uno-X Mobility Cycling is part of.

“The goal is undoubtedly that we will stand on the top of the podium in at least one stage of the Tour de France this year.” 

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James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.

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Tour de France 2024 – Comprehensive team-by-team guide

A s the 2024 Tour de France rolls out from Florence, Italy on June 29, there will be 176 riders competing across 22 teams – some with a target on overall victory, others looking for stage wins and more still pleased with any opportunity that comes along their way to gather publicity on the biggest cycling stage in the world. 

All 18 WorldTour teams, plus the two best-ranked ProTeams – Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto-Dstny – got their automatic invitations to race while organisers ASO handed out wild card entries to Uno-X Mobility and TotalEnergies.

Crashes, form and Olympic goals have shaped the selections and ambitions for the teams but regardless all will be fighting to make an impression as the 21 days of racing over 3497.3km from Tuscany to Nice in the south of France unfolds.

Cyclingnews has pored through every squad, assessing their leaders, objectives and chances of success to bring you this comprehensive team-by-team guide.

Alpecin-Deceuninck

• Team leader: Jasper Philipsen
• Objective: Stage wins, points classification
• Rider to watch: Mathieu van der Poel

In the bunch sprints of the Grand Tours of recent years, one team has stood out above the rest as masters of the lead-out train: Alpecin-Deceuninck .

They were a prominent presence throughout the bunch finishes at the recent Giro d’Italia, but Kaden Groves wasn’t able to ride them to victory. However, at the Tour de France, the team will have Jasper Philipsen , the quickest sprinter in the peloton.

Philipsen was one of the stars of last year’s Tour, storming to four stage wins (as many as any sprinter has managed at a single Tour since the 2011 edition), as well as riding consistently enough to claim the green jersey. He didn't slow down this spring, either, with victories at Milan-San Remo and the Classic Brugge-De Panne, as well as a second place at Paris-Roubaix, among his very impressive results.

Not only is Philipsen the quickest sprinter in the race, but he’ll also have the quickest lead-out man riding for him in Mathieu van der Poel . The pair work brilliantly together, as seen not just at last year’s Tour sprints, but also during the spring, when Van der Poel helped Philipsen to triumph at Milan-San Remo, and vice versa at Paris-Roubaix.

Van der Poel will also go hunting for stage wins on appropriate stages, most likely on days with punchy parcours too hard for sprinters but not hard enough for climbers. For a man so untouchable in the Classics, it’s perhaps surprising that he only has one stage win to his name from three Tour appearances, but he has often ridden here with a future goal in mind, as will be the case this year as he builds towards the Olympics.

Arkéa-B&B Hotels

• Team leader: Arnaud Démare
• Objective: Stage wins
• Rider to watch: Kévin Vauquelin

With Warren Barguil having followed Nairo Quintana out the door, Arkéa-B&B Hotels are going in a fresh direction for the 2024 Tour with sprinter Arnaud Démare as their new talisman.

Having grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of opportunities provided him by his former Groupama-FDJ team, who selected him for only one Tour de France start in the last five years, Démare has moved to a team where he won’t just be picked but will command unified support behind him.

It’s hoped that as a winner of two Tour stages in the past, Démare can deliver the team their long-awaited first-ever following ten winless Tours, but does the Frenchman have the shape to do so? He hasn’t made the top ten of any race for almost four months, and recently fractured a finger at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque, plunging his Tour preparations into doubt.

It could therefore be up to others in the line-up to deliver, from which Kévin Vauquelin has shown particular potential. The 23-year-old has done everything this year, from making the top 10 at both Itzulia Basque Country and Tirreno-Adriatico, finishing second on the Mur de Huy at La Flèche Wallonne and winning a time trial at Etoile de Bessèges. He could be a contender for a variety of different stages though specialises in climbing hills and mountains.

Astana Qazaqstan

• Team leader: Mark Cavendish
• Rider to watch: Alexey Lutsenko

At last, it's nearly time for the race that Astana Qazaqstan 's whole season has been building up towards.

Since signing Mark Cavendish in January 2023, they've made it their foremost mission to deliver the Manxman to the elusive win number 35, move clear of Eddy Merckx, and thereby become the outright record holder for most stage wins at the Tour de France.

It had initially been intended as a one-year plan, but after the heartbreak of last year’s race, where Cavendish crashed out at the end of the first week , he and the team have decided to have one last shot at history this July.

Unlike last year, when he went into the Tour off the back of a final-day victory in Rome at the Giro d’Italia, Cavendish has shown only sporadic signs of form this season, confined to smaller races. He won a stage during his first race of the season at the Tour of Colombia in February but had to wait another three months for a first victory on European roads at the Tour of Hongrie.

The Astana team is set to be built entirely around him. Veteran lead-out master Michael Mørkøv was signed exclusively to deliver him in the sprints, while Cees Bol and Davide Ballerini will sacrifice their own sprinting ambitions to form part of his lead-out train.

One rider who might be granted some freedom to ride for himself is Alexey Lutsenko . He showed great form by winning Il Giro d’Abruzzo before abandoning the Giro d’Italia and finishing seventh and eighth on GC in 2021 and 2022, respectively. He has two Tour de France GC top 10s, as well as a stage win in 2020, on his palmarès, so another top showing isn't out of the question.

Bahrain Victorious

• Team leaders: Pello Bilbao
• Objective: GC, stage wins
• Riders to watch: Santiago Buitrago, Matej Mohorič

What Bahrain Victorious lacks in a single stand-out GC contender, they make up for in strength in depth. Following Antonio Tiberi’s fifth place at the Giro d’Italia, they’re hoping to extend their run of top-six finishes on GC to a fifth consecutive Grand Tour and have several riders potentially capable of doing so.

Their best candidate is Pello Bilbao , based on his performance at the Tour last year and in stage races so far in 2024. He was sixth place last year and has been building nicely towards that level again this year with sixth-place finishes at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Itzulia Basque Country, plus third at the UAE Tour in between.

Santiago Buitrago is poised to make his Tour debut. He brings with him considerable expectations off the back of his stage wins and top-ten finish at the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, respectively, as well as his impressive showing at Paris-Nice earlier this year.

It’s also hoped that Jack Haig can rediscover some form ahead of the race, while even veteran Wout Poels could post a high GC finish based on his recent third and sixth-place finishes at the Tour de Hongrie and Tour of the Alps, respectively.

Poels and Bilbao were two of the three different riders to win a stage at last year’s Tour, along with Matej Mohorič, who will again be using his nous and engine to target breakaways. The Slovenian has three Tour stage wins on his career palmarès and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him add another win here.

With Phil Bauhaus , a debutant last summer, also posing a threat in the bunch sprints, Bahrain Victorious has the resources to target a win on almost every stage.

• Team leaders: Guillaume Martin
• Riders to watch: Bryan Coquard, Ion Izagirre.

For the first time in many years, Cofidis can go into a Tour de France without being badgered about questions of whether this will be the year they at last manage to claim a stage win.

By triumphing on stage 2 of last year’s edition, Victor Lafay ended the team’s 15-year drought and then Ion Izagirre added another stage a week later.

Lafay has since left for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale but Izagirre remains and is set to ride, with stage wins on hilly and mountainous days again likely to be the target.

Guillaume Martin will ride his eighth consecutive Tour de France and will be the team’s leading GC hope. He’s placed eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th in past appearances, but has never won a stage, so he may prioritise trying to take one from a breakaway.

Bryan Coquard is another rider without a Tour stage win to his name despite many near misses, including a couple of fourth-place finishes last year. He’ll be the team’s man for the bunch sprints, especially on hillier days that weaken the specialists.

While these riders bring experience, 25-year-old Axel Zingle has form and potential. He’s been consistently in contention for multiple semi-Classics over the last few months and could win from a breakaway if he picks the right move.

Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale

• Team leader: Felix Gall
• Rider to watch: Sam Bennett, Benoît Cosnefroy

In the middle of an exceptional season, in which they have already racked up more victories than they managed in the last two seasons combined, expectations are high for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale as they head into the biggest race of the year.

Although the men who delivered stage wins (Valentin Paret-Peintre and Andrea Vendrame) and fourth overall (Ben O’Connor) at the Giro d’Italia will sit this one out as they rest and recover, the core of the other names who have made 2024 such a success are set to be present.

Benoît Cosnefroy has been the team’s biggest contributor with seven of their 23 wins (as of the end of May) and will target the hilly stages, while Dorion Godon will be a candidate in reduced bunch sprints, having won two sprint finishes at the Tour de Romandie in late April.

In the pure flat finishes, Sam Bennett will still be their main candidate, having recently shown signs of returning to form with a haul of wins and GC at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque.

Felix Gall might have had a quieter season to date, but he'll still be the team’s main man for the mountains and their GC candidate.  He finished eighth overall last year after breaking through with a series of good performances in the spring, while he'll also be hoping to replicate his breakaway stage win at Courchevel.

DSM-Firmenich PostNL

• Team leader: Fabio Jakobsen, Romain Bardet
• Rider to watch: Warren Barguil

For the Tour de France, DSM-Firmenich PostNL are making the unusual move of deploying the same two leaders as they did at the Giro d’Italia.

In the bunch sprints, Fabio Jakobsen will again line up as he continues to rediscover his mojo. The Dutchman still only has one win to his name (at the Tour of Turkey) since signing for the team this year, and he failed to get involved in the Giro bunch sprints before abandoning during the second week. However, the team still retains faith that he can reach the level that saw him win a stage on his Tour debut two years ago.

Romain Bardet fared better at the Giro than Jakobsen, finishing ninth overall while coming close to a stage win on Bocca della Selva. Though he has made the top 10 in all but two of the eight Tours he has finished throughout his career, his excursions in Italy may mean he targets stage wins this time instead.

With 11 wins to their name – including just one WorldTour race and only three outside the Tour of Turkey – DSM need some big results. That means that another French climber, Warren Barguil , will likely be given the freedom to attack and get into breakaways.

EF Education-EasyPost

• Team leader: Richard Carapaz
• Rider to watch: Neilson Powless, Ben Healy

Last season was the first in EF Education-Easy Post ’s 16-year history that they did not place a rider in the top 10 of any of the Grand Tours. That run continued at the Giro d’Italia last month, where they aggressively targeted stage wins rather than GC via constant attacks, and were eventually rewarded in the final week with success from Georg Steinhauser in the Dolomites.

Nevertheless, they intend to strive to finish as high as possible at the Tour with Richard Carapaz as their leader. The 2021 podium finisher and 2019 Giro champion was signed in 2023 to do precisely that but he endured an under-par season last year and is only just showing signs of some form recently, with a stage win and seventh overall at the Tour de Romandie. 

With Carapaz’s form still uncertain, there ought to be plenty of scope for the rest of the line-up to chase their own personal ambitions. Neilson Powless , for instance, could either chase GC as he did in 2023 (when he finished 12th), or stage wins and the polka-dot jersey as he did last year.

Irish puncheur Ben Healy is set to make his Tour debut, and if his Giro debut from last year and performances in the Classics are anything to go by, we can expect him to attack at every opportunity.

Alberto Bettiol ’s form during the spring suggests he could add a Tour stage win to the one he managed at the 2021 Giro, while Marijn van den Berg has also earned a spot on the team thanks to his impressive early season performances.

Groupama-FDJ

• Team leader: David Gaudu
• Rider to watch: Stefan Küng

A new dawn awaits Groupama-FDJ as they embark upon the first Tour de France of the post-Thibaut Pinot era. Before retiring at the end of last year, Pinot had been the fulcrum of the team, appearing for them in all but two of the last 12 editions — sometimes with great success, other times with great heartbreak.

David Gaudu will seek to fill the void left by Pinot, as he has for several years now. Fourth overall in 2022 remains his highest finish at any Grand Tour, and though a repeat of that looks ambitious given his stuttering form this year, he’s still dreaming of a podium finish.

If Gaudu doesn’t have the legs to mount a serious GC challenge, targeting stage wins may be the team’s optimum approach, and they have plenty of riders capable of delivering on that front.

Rising star Lenny Martinez misses the race in favour of the Vuelta a España, but 21-year-old Romain Grégoire is set to make his Tour debut on the back of some very impressive results this year, including a stage win at Itzulia Basque Country

Valentin Madouas has become a recognisable face from recent Tours without quite winning a stage, though he certainly has the talent to do so. Stefan Küng will, as ever, be a candidate for both the time trials as well as select breakaways.

Ineos Grenadiers

• Team leaders: Carlos Rodríguez
• Objective: GC
• Rider to watch: Tom Pidcock, Egan Bernal

Last year was only the second time in the last decade that Ineos Grenadiers failed to put a rider on the GC podium at the Tour de France. Even since their run of yellow jersey-winning Tours came to an end in 2020, up until then they had still managed to crack the podium through Richard Carapaz (in 2021) and Geraint Thomas (in 2022), but last year their highest finisher, Carlos Rodríguez , finished further down in fifth place.

Still, that result means Rodríguez is the obvious choice to lead the team’s 2024 GC bid, and the 23-year-old has bolstered his status with overall victory at the Tour de Romandie and second place behind Juan Ayuso at Itzulia Basque Country.

Also in the squad are other, more wildcard options for GC. Geraint Thomas would usually be a dependable candidate, but it’s unclear how fresh he will be, having dug deep to seal third place at the Giro d’Italia , while Tom Pidcock has stated that he intends to concentrate on the GC rather than stage wins, despite failing to make the top ten last year.

And what of Egan Bernal ? The 2019 champion has for the first time since his horror crash two and a half years ago shown form approaching his best, with third overall at Volta a Catalunya and top tens at Paris-Nice and the Tour de Romandie, but it remains to be seen if he can manage a sustained GC bid over three weeks.

Michał Kwiatkowski and Laurens De Plus will be on hand to help the aforementioned trio achieve their GC goals, even if the Belgian could harbour ambitions of his own after racing to an unexpected and impressive fifth overall at the Critérium du Daupihiné. 

Intermarché-Wanty

• Team leader: Biniam Girmay, Louis Meintjes
• Rider to watch: Georg Zimmermann

Biniam Girmay returns to the Tour de France hoping for a positive turn in fortunes. So far his season has been blighted by interruptions, with promising form in the early spring classics halted by a crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, and another crash spelling the end of his Giro d’Italia one day after finishing third in Fossano.

He’s since returned to winning ways with victory at the Circuit Franco-Belge , and looks on course to arrive at the Tour in form. As Intermarché-Wanty ’s star, the onus is on the Eritrean to make an impact and he has the chance to make history as the first-ever Black African to win a stage of the Tour de France. His consistency and versatility also make him a candidate for the green jersey.

Like Girmay, who failed to show his best self at last year’s Tour, Louis Meintjes will be hoping to return to the form that saw him finish seventh overall in 2022 rather than crash out last year.

Meintjes will be the team’s GC leader, but the rest of the line-up will have the freedom to get into break and chase stage wins, much as Georg Zimmermann (who was second on stage 10) did last year. Rouleurs like Laurenz Rex and Hugo Page might fancy their chances of winning a stage this way, too.

Israel-Premier Tech

• Team leader: Stephen Williams
• Rider to watch: Derek Gee, Pascal Ackermann

Israel-Premier Tech 's high ambitions from 2021, when they gambled on signing Chris Froome in the hope that he could recover from his horror crash two years earlier and revive his Tour-winning form of old, have since been significantly tempered.

Now no longer a WorldTour team, they've instead depended upon a wildcard to earn entry into the Tour de France, and their hopes are limited to chasing stage wins rather than mixing it up in the battle for the yellow jersey.

Froome himself is still fighting for selection. He’s eager to avoid a repeat of last year when he was left out of the Tour line-up, but his hopes of proving himself worthy were compromised when a fractured wrist sustained during Tirreno-Adriatico forced him to miss almost three months of racing.

His compatriot Stephen Williams is enjoying a terrific season, winning both La Flèche Wallonne and the Tour Down Under. He'll therefore be a top contender for stage wins in the hilly terrain.

The team should have a presence in the sprints, where Tour debutant Pascal Ackermann aims to add to his Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España stage wins and complete the Grand Tour clean sweep.

The rest of the line-up will be made up of stage hunters such as Dylan Teuns (who won here in both 2019 and 2021), and Derek Gee . The Canadian, who last year burst onto the scene with a series of breakaway second places at the Giro d'Italia, makes his Tour debut in the form of his life after scoring a stage win and third overall at the Critérium du Dauphné .

Jayco-AlUla

• Team leader: Simon Yates, Dylan Groenewegen
• Riders to watch: Michael Matthews

For a second successive season, Jayco-AlUla leader Simon Yates has foregone his usual Giro d’Italia participation in order to concentrate more committedly on the Tour de France.

Last year, this approach turned out to be a success, as he came to the Tour with some of the best legs of his career, eventually finishing fourth overall, and only missing out on a podium finish by 87 seconds to his brother Adam. His build-up to this year’s Tour isn’t so encouraging, however, having not shown much form since winning the AlUla Tour in the winter.

Jayco-AlUla aren’t putting all their eggs in the single basket of Yates’ GC bid. Dylan Groenewegen will be led out in the sprints by the likes of Luka Mezgec to see if he can add to his five Tour career stage wins, having come close last year with a second and third-place finish at Moulins and Paris, respectively.

On days too hilly for Groenewegen, Michael Matthews will step up, and may also try to get into some breakaways as he did to win a stage in 2022. He looked in fantastic form this spring, placing second at Milan-San Remo and, before being relegated for deviating from his line, third at the Tour of Flanders.

• Team leader: Mads Pedersen, Tao Geoghegan Hart
• Rider to watch: Giulio Ciccone

As a team boasting a diverse range of talent, Lidl-Trek could feasibly compete for all three of the major jerseys.

For the yellow jersey, they have Tao Geoghegan Hart . He’s only done the Tour de France once in his career and is eager to target GC here while still in his prime years. Victory might seem implausible, but that was also the case when he triumphed at the Giro d’Italia in 2020.

Mads Pedersen finished a distant second to Jasper Philipsen in the points classification last year, though he did score his second stage win in as many years. He's shown the kind of excellent form throughout this year to suggest he could bridge that gap, as well as add to his stage win tally.

As for the king of the mountains, Giulio Ciccone won that classification last year and will now be present to potentially defend that title after saddle sore surgery forced him to skip the Giro d’Italia.

Lidl-Trek might even have had a prime candidate for the white jersey if Matias Skjelmose had opted to ride, but he plans to skip the Tour and save himself for a Vuelta a España overall bid instead.

Lotto-Dstny

• Team leader : Arnaud De Lie
• Rider to watch: Maxim Van Gils

Compared to other teams, Lotto-Dstny have a laser-focussed approach when it comes to the Tour de France. Not only will it be their first Grand Tour of the season, having opted out of the Giro d’Italia, but they have also narrow down their ambitions to focus exclusively on stage wins, having not placed a rider in the top 10 for 14 years.

They haven’t had success on these terms recently, though, with no stage win to their name since Caleb Ewan’s victories in the sprints during the 2020 edition. The Australian has led the team for the past five Tours, bringing much success initially with multiple stage wins in 2019 and 2020, but nothing in the three editions since then.

He’s now left the team for Jayco-AlUla, and taking his place as Lotto’s leader will be Arnaud De Lie . Much is hoped from the 22-year-old debutant based on his rapid rise over the past two years, and he'll be especially threatening on hillier days where the pure sprinters will struggle.

However, the Tour will be a big step up from the level of competition he’s used to, and he’s only recently r eturned to form after suffering from Lyme disease during the spring.

De Lie might be the most hyped name, but another young Belgian, Maxim Van Gils , has been the team’s best performer so far this season. He finished second on the stage to Grand Colombier last year and has since established himself as one of the very best puncheurs in the world following podium finishes at Strade Bianche and La Flèche Wallonne, and a fourth place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

2023 super-combativity winner Victor Campanaerts is also set to ride again, though his season to date has been a quiet one.

• Team leader: Enric Mas
• Rider to watch: Rémi Cavagna

2024 has so far been another difficult season for Movistar , with Pelayo Sánchez’s stage victory at the Giro d’Italia their only win at WorldTour level all year.

That doesn’t bode well for their prospects at the Tour de France, where they have, in recent years, laboured to reach the levels of the past. They’ve now gone two successive Tours without placing a rider in the top 10, having done so in eight of the nine previous editions.

If any of their roster is to break that duck, it’ll be Enric Mas . The Spaniard has generally been one of the most dependable GC riders of his generation, making the top six in six of his last eight Grand Tour appearances.

However, he has been forced to abandon both of his last two Tours de France, with his participation last summer ending on the first day following a crash.

So far, Mas has enjoyed a solid season without causing too much of a stir, finishing fifth overall at Volta a Catalunya and sixth at the Tour de Romandie. Considering that he normally ups his game for the Grand Tours, that’s encouraging.

New signing Rémi Cavagna is a dependable name in the time trials, breakaways and in helping team leaders on the flat, though the Frenchman hasn't scored a WorldTour win of his own since 2021. Returning star Nairo Quintana won't make the race, meanwhile, after breaking his hand in a crash at the Tour de Suisse.

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe

• Team leaders: Primož Roglič
• Riders to watch: Jai Hindley, Aleksandr Vlasov

For the 2024 season, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe signed Primož Roglič with the primary objective of winning the Tour de France.

The team might never before have made the podium at any previous edition in their 10-year history, but Roglič has the calibre to challenge for yellow, as well as the desire, having moved from Visma-Lease a Bike for that specific purpose.

The Slovenian has left it to the last minute to show the kind of form he'll need to challenge for the yellow jersey, with his Critérium du Dauphiné victory his best showing of 2024 so far. The week-long warm-up race marked his first race since the heavy crash suffered by him, Remco Evenepoel, and Jonas Vingegaard at Itzulia Basque Country.

His two stage wins at the late summit finishes at Le Collet d'Allevard and Samöens 1600 were his first since the opening day at Itzulia, though a shaky final stage showing – where he shed almost a minute to Matteo Jorgenson and only held onto yellow by eight seconds – could provoke some cause for concern. 

Roglič’s presence means last year’s leader Jai Hindley — who enjoyed a day in the yellow jersey after winning stage five in Laruns before back pain contributed to a slip down to seventh on GC — will be demoted to the role of super-domestique.

While Hindley’s form has tailed away since his impressive third-place finish at Tirreno-Adriatico, Aleksandr Vlasov might believe he has the results to justify potential co-leadership status. With a second place at Tour de Romandie, sixth at Volta a Catalunya and fifth at Paris-Nice, he has been among the team's top performers this year. At the Dauphiné, he proved a reliable and strong deputy for Roglič.

Elsewhere, the rest of the team is geared exclusively towards targeting the yellow jersey, with Champs-Elysées-winning sprinter Jordi Meeus missing out on selection as the team looks to domestiques Danny van Poppel , Nico Denz , Marco Haller , Matteo Sobrero , and Bob Jungels .

Soudal-QuickStep

• Team leader: Remco Evenepoel
• Rider to watch: Mikel Landa, Ilan Van Wilder

In a drastic change of approach, Soudal-QuickStep have abandoned their usual Tour de France strategy of targeting bunch sprints and stage wins, and instead are going all in on Remco Evenepoel ’s push for GC.

This is set to be Evenepoel’s debut Tour, and it’s a hugely anticipated one, given the already enormous star profile he’s built for himself through many superb performances and major results including two Liège–Bastogne–Liège victories, the world title in 2022, and the GC at the Vuelta a España that same year.

His build-up has been compromised after a crash and fractured collarbone at Itzulia Basque Country stalled the momentum that had already seen him win Volta ao Algarve and finish second at Paris-Nice, but the plan remains the same.

His first race back, the Critérium du Dauphiné, saw him score a dominant time trial win, though he faded hard in the closing three mountain stages, losing 2:58 to Primož Roglič. That will be a major cause for concern heading into July.

As part of the team building around Evenepoel, Mikel Landa has been signed up as a super-domestique. The Spaniard has performed this role in the past – at Sky to help Chris Froome win the 2017 Tour de France, and at Movistar for Richard Carapaz’s 2019 Giro d’Italia triumph. Second at Volta a Catalunya and 10th at the Dauphiné suggests he has the legs to do something similar this year, too

Landa will be joined by Evenepoel’s familiar right-hand man, Ilan Van Wilder . The Belgian has ridden in support of Evenepoel many times, most notably during his triumphant Vuelta a España effort two years ago and should be in solid form, too, having placed fourth at the Tour de Romandie.

The team’s focus on GC means there will be no room for in-form sprinter Tim Merlier, despite his success at the Giro d’Italia, nor even home favourite Julian Alaphilippe, as the remaining spots instead go to domestiques including Yves Lampaert , Casper Pedersen , Louis Vervaeke and Gianni Moscon .

TotalEnergies

• Team leader: Mathieu Burgaudeau
• Rider to watch: Steff Cras

When TotalEnergies signed Peter Sagan for the 2022 season, they hoped the Slovakian would be the star name to make them protagonists at the Tour de France. His first edition for them was typically consistent, finishing in the top six of five different stages, but lacking the edge of his heyday; by the following year his powers had seriously waned, and he only made the top ten once.

Sagan now having retired, the team must embark on a new direction. They’ve struggled at the Tour in recent years, and haven’t won a stage since Lilian Calmejane in 2017.

It will be hard for them to break that duck this year. Of the four non-WorldTour entries, they probably have the weakest roster, as reflected by the fact that they’d only won three races this season as of the beginning of June.

Consequently, they’re strategy will be to buy daily tickets in the lottery that is getting into the breakaway. Mathieu Burgaudeau is a particular specialist at this, having finished second and third on stages of last year’s race, and placed second in the King of the Mountains classification at this year’s Paris-Nice riding similarly aggressively.

The likes of Pierre Latour, Anthony Turgis, Geoffrey Soupe and Alexis Vuillermoz all provide experienced options for TotalEnergies to potentially select. And though the team don’t tend to target GC anymore, Stef Cras ’ 11th place finish at the Vuelta a España last year suggests he could become their first rider to crack the top ten since Pierre Rolland in 2015 — although his participation remains up in the air due to his involvement in the horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country.

UAE Team Emirates

• Team leaders: Tadej Pogačar
• Rider to watch: Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso

Phase one of UAE Team Emirates ’ great ambition to win the Giro/Tour double this year with Tadej Pogačar was a success, with the Slovenian waltzing to an enormous victory at the first Grand Tour . Now, it’s time for the hard part.

Pogačar won the Giro at a canter, almost 10 minutes clear of second place as he won a staggering six stages without ever appearing to have to stretch himself. But at the Tour, he’ll be up against a much stronger field of GC candidates, none of whom have the accumulated fatigue of having already completed a Grand Tour this season – even if Evenepoel, Roglič, and Vingegaard are all making comebacks from that brutal Itzulia crash.

UAE Team Emirates provided ample support to him at the Giro, with Rafał Majka and Vegard Stake Laengen impressing in particular, but the team is set to ring in the changes with an all-new line-up at the Tour.

On paper, it’s a much stronger group of riders. In Adam Yates , they have the man who finished third last summer, even if his form this year is in more doubt having performed only in patches since winning the UAE Tour in February. Juan Ayuso provides another potential GC option, making his Tour debut on the back of a podium finish at the Vuelta a España and overall victory at Itzulia Basque Country earlier this year. 

More climbing firepower will come from João Almeida , another rider who would slot in as a GC leader at most of the other teams in the peloton. Elsewhere, Pavel Sivakov and Marc Soler bolster the climbing line-up along with Tim Wellens and Nils Politt , the latter pairing set to feature in the engine room during flatter stages.

The team will be hoping Ayuso, Sivakov, Wellens, and Politt recover well from a mass spill at the Critérium du Dauphiné, with Ayuso forced out of the race with pain in both hips as a result.

Uno-X Mobility

• Team leader: Alexander Kristoff
• Riders to watch: Andreas Leknessund, Magnus Cort

After making a successful Tour de France debut last year, Uno-X Mobility have been invited back by ASO as a wild card entry again.

Last year, they impressed by being active in the breakaways, with Tobias Halland Johannessen enjoying particular success with three top-six finishes. He’s set to return this year and on the back of some good form, too, having finished sixth at La Flèche Wallonne during the spring.

This time, they’ll have more strings to their bow. In new signing Andreas Leknessund , they have a rider capable of challenging for GC, even if he hasn’t yet shown the form this season that saw him finish eighth overall at the Giro d’Italia last year. And Magnus Cort brings considerable experience as a two-time former stage winner at the Tour, and will be dangerous from an intermediate stage break or reduced bunch sprint.

They will also again have Alexander Kristoff for the bunch sprints, who, though poised to turn 37 during the Tour, has been winning regularly this past month or so and could have it in him to add to his four career Tour stage wins. 

But they are also sure to be one of the main presences in the breakaways, with Jonas Abrahamsen posing a particular threat, having recently won the Brussels Cycling Classic that way.

Visma-Lease a Bike

• Team leader: Jonas Vingegaard
• Rider to watch: Sepp Kuss, Wout van Aert

As the Tour approaches, Visma-Lease a Bike are still sweating on the fitness of Jonas Vingegaard . The defending champion’s participation was plunged into doubt when he crashed out of Itzulia Basque Country in April and hasn’t raced since. He has recently returned to training at high altitude, though his exact racing level won't become apparent before the Tour.

Given the severity of that fall, the fact he has a genuine chance of returning in time feels miraculous, but doing so with the form to win the yellow jersey again will be an even bigger ask.

Prior to that crash, Vingegaard had started the season in intimidatingly good form, triumphing at both Tirreno-Adriatico and O Gran Camiño while claiming five stage wins in total, and would surely be the overwhelming favourite for yellow were it not for his fitness and form doubts. 

Should the Dane fail to recover in time, it might be up to Sepp Kuss to fill his boots. The peerless climbing super-domestique proved himself as a Grand Tour GC rider by winning the Vuelta a España last year, though he hasn’t shown anything like that form so far this year. On top of that, he abandoned the Critérium du Dauphiné before the final day of racing as he wasn't feeling 100% .

Like Vingegaard, Wout van Aert , too, is a doubt as he tries to recover in time from the injuries that ruled him out of both the Giro d’Italia and the major spring Classics, though he has returned to racing at the Tour of Norway.

He hopes to join other stalwarts of the previous yellow jersey-winning campaigns Tiesj Benoot , Dylan van Baarle and Christophe Laporte . Matteo Jorgenson will make for a very useful addition to the line-up, bringing a diverse range of talents that has this year seen him win Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen and score a surprising second overall at the Dauphiné.