depart tour de france 1998

1998 Tour de France

85th edition: july 11 - august 28, 1998, results, stages with running gc, map, photos and history.

1997 Tour | 1999 Tour | Tour de France database | 1998 Tour Quick Facts | Final GC | Individual stage results with running GC | The Story of the 1998 Tour de France

Quick Facts about the 1998 Tour de France :

The Golden Saying of Epictetus are available as an audiobook here. For the Kindle eBook version, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

3,875 kilometers ridden at an average speed of 39.983 km/hr

The race started in Ireland, where the prologue and first two stages were held. Then the race transferred to Brittany for a counter-clockwise trip around France, finishing in Paris.

189 riders started, 96 finished.

The 1998 Tour was marred by the Festina doping scandal that turned into the greatest crisis in the Tour's history.

1997 winner Jan Ullrich arrived in poor form, allowing 1998 Giro winner Marco Pantani to take huge amounts of time in the mountains, in particular, stage 15 to Les Deux Alpes.

Marco Pantani is the last man to do the Giro-Tour double.

• Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno): 92hr 49min 46sec
• Jan Ullrich (Telekom) @ 3min 21sec
• Bobby Julich (Cofidis) @ 4min 8sec
• Christophe Rinero (Cofidis) @ 9min 16sec
• Michael Boogerd (Rabobank) @ 11min 26sec
• Jean-Cyril Robin (US Postal) @ 14min 47sec
• Roland Meier (Mapei-Bricobi) @ 15min 13sec
• Daniele Nardello (Mapei Bricobi) @ 16min 7sec
• Giuseppe Di Grande (Polti) @ 17min 35sec
• Axel Merckx (Polti) @ 17min 39sec
• Bjarne Riis (Telekom) @ 19min 10sec
• Dariusz Baranowski (US Postal) @ 19min 58sec
• Stéphane Heulot (FDJ) @ 20min 57sec
• Leonardo Piepoli (Saeco) @ 22min 45sec
• Bo Hamburger (Casino) @ 26min 39sec
• Kurt Van Wouwer (Lotto) @ 27min 20sec
• Kevin Livingston (Cofidis) @ 34min 3sec
• Jörg Jaksche (Polti) @ 35min 41sec
• Peter Farazijn (Lotto) @ 36min 10sec
• Andreï Teteriouk (Lotto) @ 37min 3sec
• Udo Bolts (Telekom) @ 37min 25sec
• Laurent Madouas (Lotto) @ 39min 54sec
• Geert Verheyen (Lotto) @ 41min 23sec
• Cedric Vasseur (Gan) @ 42min 14sec
• Evgeni Berzin (FDJ) @ 42min 51sec
• Thierry Bourguignon (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 43min 53sec
• Georg Totschnig (Telekom) @ 50min 13sec
• Benoit Salmon (Casino) @ 51min 18sec
• Alberto Elli (Casino) @ 1hr 13sec
• Philippe Bordenave (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 1hr 5min 55sec
• Christophe Agnolutto (Casino) @ 1hr 11min 3sec
• Oscar Pozzi (Asics) @ 1hr 14min 54sec
• Maarten Den Bakker (Rabobank) @ 1hr 16min 21sec
• Patrick Joncker (Rabobank) @ 1hr 16min 49sec
• Pascal Chanteur (Casino) @ 1hr 19min 32sec
• Massimiliano Lelli (Cofidis) @ 1hr 20min 32sec
• Massimo Podenzana (Mercatone Uno) @ 1hr 20min 47sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov (US Postal) @ 1hr 22min 40sec
• Denis Leproux (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 1hr 25min 5sec
• Beat Zberg (Rabobank) @ 1hr 26min 8sec
• Lylian Lebreton (Big Mat-Auber) @ 1hr 28min 19sec
• Andrea Tafi (Mapei) @ 1hr 29min 22sec
• Rolf Aldag (Telekom) @ 1hr 29min 27sec
• Koos Moerenhout (Rabobank) @ 1hr 29min 37sec
• Peter Meinert (US Postal) @ 1hr 29min 52sec
• Riccardo Forconi (Mercatone Uno) @ 1hr 30min 33sec
• Fabio Sacchi (Polti) @ 1hr 31min 53sec
• Marty Jemison (US Postal) @ 1hr 34min 27sec
• Nicolas Jalabert (Cofidis) @ 1hr 38min 45sec
• Massimo Donati (Saeco) @ 1hr 38min 59sec
• Tyler Hamilton (US Postal) @ 1hr 39min 53sec
• Simone Borgheresi (Mercatone Uno) @ 1hr 40min 4sec
• George Hincapie (US Postal) @ 1hr 40min 39sec
• Stuart O'Grady (Gan) @ 1hr 46min 4sec
• Filippo Simeoni (Asics) @ 1hr 47min 19sec
• Jens Heppner (Telekom) @ 1hr 50min 43sec
• François Simon (Gan) @ 1hr 52min 41sec
• Frankie Andreu (US postal) @ 1hr 53min 44sec
• Thierry Gouvenou (Big Mat-Auber 93)) @ 1hr 55min 20sec
• Roberto Conti (Mercatone Uno) @ 1hr 55min 33sec
• Laurent Desbiens (Cofidis) @ 1hr 56min 28sec
• Erik Zabel (Telekom) @ 1hr 56min 57sec
• Leon Van Bon (Rabobank) @ 1hr 57min 30sec
• Paul Van Hyfte (Lotto) @ 1hr 58min 2sec
• Jacky Durand (Casino) @ 1hr 59min 42sec
• Christophe Mengin (FDJ) @ 2hr 0min 35sec
• Frédérick Guesdon (FDJ) @ 2hr 5min 8sec
• Wilfried Peeters (Mapei) @ 2hr 6min 16sec
• Rik Verbrugghe (Lotto) @ 2hr 6min 17sec
• Magnus Bäckstedt (Gan) @ 2hr 8min 30sec
• Eddy Mazzoleni (Saeco) @ 2hr 10min 19sec
• Fabio Fontanelli (Mercatone Uno) @ 2hr 11min 37sec
• Stefano Zanini (Mapei) @ 2hr 12min 11sec
• Alain Turicchia (Asics) @ 2hr 14min 12sec
• Mirko Crepaldi (Polti) @ 2hr 15min 5sec
• Diego Ferrari (Asics) @ 2hr 15min 46sec
• Xavier Jan (FDJ) @ 2hr 15min 51sec
• Pacal Lino (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 2hr 16min 13sec
• Fabio Roscioli (Asics) @ 2hr 17min 53sec
• Christian Henn (Telekom) @ 2hr 19min 52sec
• Vjatjeslav Djavanian (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 2hr 21min 31sec
• Rossano Brasi (Polti) @ 2hr 22min 10sec
• Jens Voigt (Gan) @ 2hr 25min 14sec
• Pascal Deramé (US Postal) @ 2hr 26min 25sec
• Tom Steels (Mapei) @ 2hr 26min 30sec
• Eros Poli (Gan) @ 2hr 31min 56sec
• Alecei Sivakov (Big Mat-Auber 93) @ 2hr 33min 19sec
• Aart Vierhouten (Rabobank) @ 2hr 35min 6sec
• Robbie McEwen (Rabobank) @ 2hr 36min 32sec
• Paolo Fornaciari (Saeco) @ 2hr 37min 50sec
• Massimiliano Mori (Saeco) @ 2hr 38min 12sec
• Bart Leysen (Mapei) @ 2hr 39min 43sec
• Francesco Frattini (Telekom) @ 2hr 43min 16sec
• Franck Bouyer (FDJ) @ 2hr 43min 45sec
• Mario Traversoni (Mercatone Uno) @ 2hr 44min 2sec
• Damien Nazon (FDJ) @ 3hr 12min 15sec
• Erik Zabel (Telekom): 327 points
• Stuart O'Grady (Gan): 230
• Tom Steels (Mapei-Bricobi): 221
• Robbie McEwen (Rabobank): 196
• George Hincapie (US postal): 151
• François Simon (Gan): 149
• Bobby Julich (Cofidis): 114
• Jacky Durand (Casino): 111
• Alain Turicchia (Asics): 99
• Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno): 90
• Christophe Rinero (Cofidis): 200 points
• Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno): 175
• Alberto Elli (Casino): 165
• Cédric Vasseur (Gan): 156
• Stéphane Heulot (FDJ): 152
• Jan Ullrich (Telekom): 126
• Bobby Julich (Cofidis): 98
• Michael Boogerd (Rabobank): 92
• Leonardo Piepoli (Saeco): 90
• Roland Meier (Cofidis): 89

Team Classification:

• Cofidis: 278hr 29min 58sec
• Casino @ 29min 9sec
• US Postal @ 41min 40sec
• Telekom @ 46min 1sec
• Lotto @ 1hr 4min 14sec
• Polti @ 1hr 6min 32sec
• Rabobank @ 1hr 46min 20sec
• Mapei @ 1hr 59min 53sec
• Big Mat-Auber 93 @ 2hr 3min 32sec
• Mercatone Uno @ 2hr 23min 4sec
• Jan Ullrich (Telekom) 92hr 53min 7sec
• Christophe Rinero (Cofidis) @ 5min 55sec
• Giuseppe Di Grande (Mapei) @ 14min 14sec
• Kevin Levingston (Cofidis) @ 30min 42sec
• Jörg Jaksche (Polti) @ 32min 20sec

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Individual stage results with running GC:

Prologue: Saturday, July 11, Dublin, Ireland 5.6 km Individual Time Trial

• Chris Boardman: 6min 12sec
• Abraham Olano @ 4sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 5sec
• Bobby Julich s.t.
• Christophe Moreau s.t.
• Jan Ullrich s.t.
• Alex Zulle @ 7sec
• Laurent Dufaux @ 9sec
• Andrei Tchmil @ 10sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov @ 11sec

GC: Same as Prologue time, there was no time bonus in play in the prologue.

Stage 1: Sunday, July 12, Dublin, Ireland - Dublin, Ireland, 180.5 km.

• Tom Steels: 4hr 29min 58sec
• Erik Zabel s.t.
• Robbie McEwen s.t.
• Gian-Matteo Fagnini s.t.
• Nicola Minali s.t.
• Frederic Moncassin s.t.
• Philippe Gaumont s.t.
• Mario Traversoni s.t.
• François Simon s.t.
• Jan Svorada s.t.

GC after Stage 1:

• Chris Boardman
• Erik Zabel @ 7sec
• Tom Steels @ 9sec
• Laurent Dufaux s.t.

Stage 2: Monday, July 13, Enniscorthy, Ireland - Cork, Ireland, 205.5 km.

• Jan Svorada: 5hr 45min 10sec
• Mario Cipollini s.t.
• Alain Turicchia s.t.
• Tom Steels s.t.
• Emmanuel Magnien s.t.
• Jan Kirsipuu s.t.
• Jeroen Blijlevens s.t.
• Silvio Martinello s.t.

GC after Stage 2:

• Tom Steels @ 7sec
• Abraham Olano @ 8sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 9sec
• Jan Svorada @ 10sec
• Robbie McEwen @ 11sec

Stage 3: Tuesday, July 14, The Tour returns to France. Roscoff - Lorient, 169 km.

• Jens Heppner: 3hr 33min 36sec
• Xavier Jan s.t.
• George Hincapie @ 2sec
• Bo Hamburger s.t.
• Stuart O'Grady s.t.
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta s.t.
• Pascal Hervé s.t.
• Francisco Cabello s.t.
• Pascal Chanteur @ 5sec
• Fabrizio Guidi @ 1min 10sec

GC after Stage 3:

• Bo Hamburger
• Stuart O'Grady @ 3sec
• Jens Heppner s.t.
• Xavier Jan @ 21sec
• Pascal Hervé @ 22sec
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta @ 23sec
• Pascal Chanteur @ 28sec
• Francisco Cabello @ 47sec
• Erik Zabel @ 1min 2sec

Stage 4: Wednesday, July 15, Plouay - Cholet, 252 km.

• Jeroen Blijlevens: 5hr 48min 32sec
• Andrei Tchmil s.t.
• Lars Michaelsen s.t.
• Maximilian Sciandri s.t.
• Fabio Baldato s.t.

GC after stage 4:

• Stuart O'Grady
• Bo Hampburger @ 11sec
• George Hincapie s.t.
• Jens Heppner @ 14sec
• Xavier Jan @ 32sec
• Pascal Hervé @ 33sec
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta @ 34sec
• Pascal Chanteur @ 39sec
• Francisco Cabello @ 58sec
• Erik Zabel @ 1min 1sec

Stage 5: Thursday, July 16, Cholet - Châteauroux, 228.5 km.

• Mario Cipollini: 5hr 18min 49sec
• Christophe Mengin s.t.
• Andrea Farrigato s.t.
• Fabrizio Guidi s.t.
• Alessio Bongioni s.t.

GC after Stage 5:

• George Hincapie @ 7sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 11sec
• Pacal Hervé @ 33sec
• Erik Zabel @ 45sec

Stage 6: Friday, July 17, Le Châtre - Brive la Gaillarde, 204.5 km.

• Mario Cipollini: 5hr 5min 32sec
• Emmanuele Magnien s.t.

GC after Stage 6:

• George Hincapie @ 9sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 13sec
• Jens Heppner @ 16sec
• Xavier Jan @ 34sec
• Pascal Hervé @ 35sec
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta @ 36sec
• Pascal Chanteur @ 41sec
• Erik Zabel @ 43sec
• Jan Svorada @ 47sec

Stage 7: Saturday, July 18, Meyrignac l'Église- Corrèze 58 km Individual Time Trial.

The Festina team was forced to withdraw from the Tour before the start of the time trial.

• Jan Ullrich: 1hr 15min 25sec
• Tyler Hamilton @ 1min 10sec
• Bobby Julich @ 1min 18sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 1min 24sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov @ 1min 40sec
• Abraham Olano @ 2min 13sec
• Evgeni Berzin @ 2min 21sec
• Francesco Casagrande @ 2min 22sec
• Stephane Heulot @ 2min 22sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 2min 29sec

GC after Stage 7:

• Jan Ullrich: 31hr 24min 37sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 1min 18sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 1min 14sec
• Tyler Hamilton @ 1min 30sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov @ 1min 46sec
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta @ 1min 50sec
• Stuart O'Grady @ 1min 53sec
• Abraham Olano @ 2min 12sec
• Jens Heppner @ 2min 17sec

Stage 8: Sunday, July 19, Brive la Gaillarde - Montauban, 190.5 km.

• Jacky Durand: 4hr 40min 55sec
• Andrea Tafi s.t.
• Fabio Sacchi s.t.
• Eddy Mazzoleni s.t.
• Laurent Desbiens s.t.
• Joona Laukka s.t.
• Philippe Gaumont @ 1min 34sec
• Erik Zabel @ 7min 45sec
• Serguei Ivanov s.t.

GC after Stage 8:

• Laurent Desbiens
• Andrea Tafi @ 14sec
• Jacky Durand @ 43sec
• Joona Laukka @ 2min 54sec
• Jan Ullrich @ 3min 21sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 4min 39sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 4min 45sec
• Tyler Hamilton @ 4min 51sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov @ 5min 7sec

Stage 9: Monday, July 20, Montauban - Pau, 210 km.

• Leon Van Bon: 5hr 21min 10sec
• Jens Voigt s.t.
• Masimilliano Lelli s.t.
• Christophe Agnolutto s.t.
• Erik Zabel @ 12sec

GC after stage 9:

• Laurent Desbiens: 41hr 31min 18sec
• Vicente Garcia-Acosta @ 5min 11sec

Stage 10: Tuesday, July 21, Pau - Luchon, 196.5 km.

• Rudolfo Massi: 5hr 49min 40sec
• Marco Pantani @ 36sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 59sec
• Giuseppe Di Grande s.t.
• Jose-Maria Jimenez s.t.
• Fernando Escartin s.t.
• Jean-Cyril Robin s.t.
• Leonardo Piepoli s.t.

GC after Stage 10:

• Jan Ullrich: 47hr 25min 18sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 2min 17sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 2min 38sec
• Luc Leblanc @ 3min 3sec
• Abraham Olano @ 3min 11sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 3min 36sec
• Evgeni Berzin @ 3min 39sec
• Stephane Heulot @ 3min 40sec
• Bjarne Riis @ 3min 51sec
• Marco Pantani @ 4min 41sec

Stage 11: Wednesday, July 22, Luchon - Plateau de Beille, 170 km.

• Marco Pantani: 5hr 15min 27sec
• Roland Meier @ 1min 26sec
• Bobby Julich @ 1min 33sec
• Michael Boogerd s.t.
• Christophe Rinero s.t.
• Jan Ullrich @ 1min 40sec
• Kevin Livingston @ 2min 1sec
• Angel Casero @ 2min 3sec

GC after Stage 11:

• Jan Ullrich: 52hr 42min 25sec
• Bobby Julich @ 1min 11sec
• Laurent Jalabert @ 3min 1sec
• Marco Pantani s.t.
• Michael Boogerd @ 3min 29sec
• Luc Leblanc @ 4min 16sec
• Bo Hamburger @ 4min 44sec
• Fernando Escartin @ 5min 16sec
• Roland Meier @ 5min 18sec
• Angel Casero @ 5min 53sec

Stage 12: Friday, July 24, Tarascon sur Ariège - Le Cap d'Agde, 222 km.

• Tom Steels: 4hr 12min 51sec
• Stephane Barthe s.t.
• Andrea Ferrigato s.t.
• Aert Vierhouten s.t.
• Leonardo Guidi s.t.

GC after Stage 12:

• Jan Ullrich: 56hr 55min 16sec

Stage 13: Saturday, July 25, Frontignan la Peyrade - Carpentras, 196 km.

• Daniele Nardello: 4hr 32min 46sec
• Stephane Heulot s.t.
• Marty Jamison s.t.
• Koos Moerenhout s.t.
• Serguei Ivanov @ 2min 27sec
• Fabio Roscioli @ 2min 43sec
• François Simon
• Maarten Den Bakker s.t.

GC after Stage 13:

• Jan Ullrich: 61hr 30min 53sec
• Stephane Heulot @ 5min 5sec

Stage 14: Sunday, July 26, Valréas - Grenoble, 186.5 km.

• Stuart O'Grady: 4hr 30min 53sec
• Orlando Rodriguez s.t.
• Leon Van Bon s.t.
• Peter Meinert s.t.
• Giuseppe Calcaterra s.t. (Crossed the line 2nd, but relegated for not holding his line in the sprint.
• Frederic Guesdon @ 8min 27sec
• Rafael Diaz Justo s.t.
• Erik Zabel @ 10min 5sec

GC after Stage 14:

• Jan Ullrich: 66hr 11min 51sec

Stage 15: Monday, July 27, Grenoble - Les Deux Alpes, 189 km.

• Marco Pantani: 5hr 43min 45sec
• Rudolfo Massi @ 1min 54sec
• Fernando Escartin @ 1min 59sec
• Christophe Rinero @ 2min 57sec
• Bobby Julich @ 5min 43sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 5min 48sec
• Marcos Serrano @ 6min 4sec
• Jean-Cyril Robin @ 6min 34sec
• Manuel Beltran @ 6min 40sec
• Dariusz Baranowski s.t.

25. Jan Ullrich @ 8min 57sec

GC after Stage 15:

• Marco Pantani: 71hr 58min 37sec
• Bobby Julich @ 3min 53sec
• Fernando Escartin @ 4min 14sec
• Jan Ullrich @ 5min 56sec
• Christophe Rinero @ 6min 12sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 6min 16sec
• Rodolfo Massi @ 7min 53sec
• Luc Leblanc @ 8min 1sec
• Roland Meier @ 8min 57sec
• Daniele Nardello @ 9min 14sec

Stage 16: Tuesday, July 28, Vizille - Albertville, 204 km.

• Jan Ullrich: 5hr 39min 47sec
• Bobby Julich @ 1min 49sec
• Axel Merckx s.t.
• Bjarne Riis s.t.

GC after Stage 16:

• Marco Pantani: 77hr 38min 24sec
• Bobby Julich @ 5min 42sec
• Fernando Escartin @ 6min 3sec
• Christophe Rinero @ 8min 1sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 8min 5sec
• Rodolfo Massi @ 12min 15sec
• Jean-Cyril Robin @ 12min 34sec
• Leonardo Piepoli @ 12min 45sec
• Roland Meier @ 13min 19sec

Stage 17: Wednesday, July 29, Aix-les Bains - Vasseur, 149 km.

After a riders' strike in which they completed the course slowly, without their backnumbers, the stage was annulled. Teams ONCE, Riso Scotti and Banesto abandoned the race.

Stage 18: Thursday, July 30, Aix les Bains - Neuchatel (Switzerland), 218.5 km.

• Tom Steels: 4hr 53min 27sec
• Jacky Durand s.t.
• Nicolas Jalabert s.t.
• Aert Vierhouoten s.t.
• Viatcheslav Djavanian s.t.

GC after Stage 18:

• Marco Pantani: 82hr 31min 51sec
• Daniele Nardello @ 13min 36sec
• Bjarne Riis @ 14min 45sec
• Giuseppe Di Grande @ 15min 13sec

Stage 19: Friday, July 31, La Chaux de Fonds (Switzerland) - Autun, 242 km.

Team TVM abandoned.

• Magnus Backstedt: 5hr 10min 14sec
• Maarten De Bakker s.t.
• Pascal Derame s.t.
• Frederic Guesdon @ 25sec
• Thierry Gouvenou s.t.

GC after Stage 19:

• Marco Pantani: 87hr 58min 43sec

Stage 20: Saturday, August 1, Montceau les Mines - Le Creusot 52 km individual time trial.

• Jan Ullrich: 1hr 3min 52sec
• Bobby Julich @ 1min 1sec
• Marco Pantani @ 2min 35sec
• Dariusz Baranowski @ 3min 11sec
• Andrei Teteriouk @ 3min 46sec
• Viatcheslav Ekimov @ 3min 48sec
• Christophe Rinero @ 3min 50sec
• Riccardo Forconi @ 3min 55sec
• Axel Merckx @ 3min 59sec
• Roland Meier @ 4min 29sec

GC after Stage 20:

• Marco Pantani: 89hr 5min 10sec
• Bobby Julich @ 4min 8sec
• Christophe Rinero @ 9min 16sec
• Michael Boogerd @ 11min 26sec
• Jean-Cyril Robin @ 14min 57sec
• Roland Meier @ 15min 13sec
• Danielo Nardello @ 16min 7sec
• Giuseppe Di Grande @ 15min 35sec
• Axel Merckx @ 17min 39sec

21st and Final Stage: Sunday, August 2, Melun - Paris (Champs Elysées), 147.5 km.

• Tom Steels: 3hr 44min 36sec
• Stefano Zanini s.t.
• Mario Taversoni s.t.
• Damien Nazon s.t.

Complete Final 1998 Tour de France General Classification.

The Story of the 1998 Tour de France:

These excerpts are from "The Story of the Tour de France", Volume 2. If you enjoy them we hope you will consider purchasing the book, either print, eBook or audiobook. The Amazon link here will make the purchase easy.

Always looking to make the Tour interesting as well as profitable for its owners, the 1998 edition started in Dublin, Ireland. The prologue and the first 2 stages were to be held on the Emerald Isle. Then, without a rest day, the riders were to be transferred to Roscoff on the northern coast of Brittany. Then the Tour headed inland for a couple of stages before turning directly south for the Pyrenees, then the Alps and then Paris. This wasn't a race loaded with hilltop finishes but it did have 115.6 kilometers of individual time trial including 52 in the penultimate stage. This should have been a piece of cake for Ullrich. He not only won the Tour de France in 1997, he won the HEW Cyclassics and the Championship of Zurich.

Ullrich was a well-rounded rider who could do anything and who truly deserved his Number 2 world ranking. But the demands of his fame were more than he could handle. His autobiography Ganz oder Ganz Nicht (All or Nothing at All) is disarmingly frank and honest about his troubles. After the 1997 Tour he signed contracts for endorsements that gave him staggering sums of money. He would never have to worry about a paycheck again. Over the winter his weight had ballooned and his form was suspect. In his words, he had begun 1998 with a new personal best, he weighed more than he had ever weighed in his entire life. In the post-Tour celebrations, he let himself go. He said that after winning the Tour, training was the furthest thing from his mind. He then fell into a vicious cycle. He couldn't find good form and good health. He would lie in bed frustrated, and shovel down chocolate. He would then go out and train too hard for his lapsed form and then get sick again.

He rationalized things. "I can't just train all year long. My life consists of more than cycling," he told himself. Meanwhile, his trainer Peter Becker ground his teeth in frustration seeing his prodigiously talented client riding fewer than 50 kilometers a day.

The results of his winter excess were obvious. He attained no notable successes in the spring, but in the new era of Tour specialization this wasn't necessarily a sign that things were going wrong. Yet in Ullrich's case there were few signs that things were going right. In March he pulled out of the Tirreno–Adriatico only 30 kilometers into the first stage.

Ullrich had a new foe in the 1998 Tour. Marco Pantani had been a Charly Gaul-type racer who would detonate on a climb and bring himself to a high placing in a single stage. In May he proved that he could do more than just climb when he won the Giro d'Italia. The signal that Pantani was riding on a new level was the penultimate stage, a 34-kilometer time trial. He lost only 30 seconds to one of the masters of the discipline, Sergey Gonchar. As we noted in 1997, Pantani had suffered a horrific racing accident in 1995 that shattered his femur. He became determined to return to his former high level and through assiduous training he exceeded his former level. There was a telling flag that wasn't made known until later. Technologists checking Pantani's blood after the accident in Turin found that his hematocrit was over 60 percent.

Hematocrit is the measurement of the percentage of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells, the tools the body uses to feed oxygen to the muscles. Normal men of European descent have a hematocrit in the low to mid 40s. It declines slightly as a response to the effects of training. It would not be expected to increase during a stage race, as some racers have asserted. Exceptional people may exceed that by a significant amount. Damiano Cunego, winner of the 2004 Giro, through a fortunate twist of genetic fate has a natural hematocrit of about 53. To improve sports performances endurance athletes took to using synthetic EPO or erythropoietin, a drug that raises the user's hematocrit. This is not without danger because as the hematocrit rises, so does the blood's viscosity. By the late 1990s athletes were dying in their sleep as their lower sleeping heart rates couldn't shove the red sludge through their blood vessels. Until 2004 there was no way to test for EPO so the only thing limiting how much EPO an athlete would use was his willingness to tempt death. A friend of mine traveled with a famous Spanish professional racing team in the 1990s and was horrified to see the riders sleeping with heart monitors hooked up to alarms. If the athlete's sleeping heart rate should fall below a certain number, he was awakened, given a saline injection, and put on a trainer. In January of 1997 the UCI implemented the 50% rule. If a rider were found to have a hematocrit exceeding 50% he would be suspended for 2 weeks. Since there was no test at the time to determine if a rider had synthetic EPO in his system, the 2-week suspension wasn't considered a positive for dope, only a suspension so that the rider could "regain his health". There were ways for cagey riders to get around the 50% limit, but that story is for 1999.

So let's get one thing straight and understood. Doping was and is part of the sport. As we proceed through the sordid story of 1998, the actions of the riders to protect themselves and their doping speak for themselves. Without a positive test no single rider may be accused but as a group they are guilty. As individuals, unless proven otherwise, the riders are all innocent. As Miguel Indurain asked after he was accused of doping long after he had retired, "How do I prove my innocence?" He's right. It's almost impossible to prove a negative, that is, that a rider didn't do something.

Yet, complicating matters is that a rational, knowledgeable person knows that just because a rider has never tested positive for dope doesn't mean that he has been riding clean. Many riders who never failed a drug test have later been found to be cheaters, as in the case of World Time Trial Champion David Millar. But again, we must be fair. In the absence of a positive test in which the chain of custody of the samples is guaranteed and a fair appeals process is in place to protect the rider's interests, I grit my teeth and consider a rider innocent.

The prologue for the 1998 Tour was on July 11 but the story of the Tour starts in March when a car belonging to the Dutch team TVM was found to have a large cache of drugs. Fast forward to July 8. Team Festina soigneur Willy Voet was searched at a customs stop as he was on his way from Belgium to Calais and then on to the Tour's start in Dublin. What the customs people found in his car set the cycling world on fire. Among the items Voet was transporting were 234 doses of EPO, testosterone, amphetamines and other drugs that could only have one purpose, to improve the performance of the riders on the Festina team. For now we'll leave Voet in the hands of the police who took him to Lille for further searching and questioning.

In Dublin Chris Boardman won the 5.6-kilometer prologue with a scorching speed of 54.2 kilometers an hour. Ullrich momentarily silenced his critics when he came in sixth, only 5 seconds slower. Tour Boss Jean-Marie Leblanc said that the Voet problem didn't concern him or the Tour and that the authorities would sort things out. Bruno Roussel, the director of the Festina team expressed surprise over Voet's arrest.

The first stage was run under wet and windy conditions with Tom Steels, who had been tossed from the previous year's Tour for throwing a water bottle at another rider, winning the sprint. But the cold rain didn't cool down the Festina scandal. Police raided the team warehouse and found more drugs, including bottles labeled with specific rider's names. Roussel expressed yet more mystification at the events and said he would hire a lawyer to deal with all of the defamatory things that had been written about the team. The next day Erik Zabel was able to win the Yellow Jersey by accruing intermediate sprint time bonifications.

When the Tour returned to France on July 14 the minor news was that Casino rider Bo Hamburger was the new Tour leader. The big news was that Voet had started to really talk to the police and told them that he was acting on instructions from Festina team management. Roussel said he was "shocked". The next day things got still worse for Festina. Roussel and team doctor Eric Rijckaert were taken by the police for questioning. Leblanc continued to insist that the Tour was not involved with the messy Festina doings and if no offenses had occurred during the Tour, there would be no action taken to expel Festina.

While the race continued on its way to the Pyrenees with Stuart O'Grady now the leader, the first Australian in Yellow since Phil Anderson and the second ever, the Festina affair continued to draw all of the attention. The world governing body of cycling, the U.C.I., suspended Roussel. Both the Andorra-based Festina watch company and Leblanc continued to voice support for the team's continued presence in the race.

Stage 6, on July 15, turned the entire cycling world upside-down. Roussel admitted that the Festina team had systematized its doping. The excuse was that since the riders were doping themselves, often with terribly dangerous substances like perfluorocarbon (synthetic hemoglobin), it was safer to have the doping performed under the supervision of the team's staff. Leblanc reacted by expelling the team from the Tour. Then several Festina riders including Richard Virenque and Laurent Dufaux called a news conference, asserted their innocence and vowed to continue riding in the Tour.

There was still a race going on amid all of the Festina doings and the first real sorting came with the 58-kilometer time trial of stage 7. Ullrich again showed that against the clock he is an astounding rider. American Tyler Hamilton came in second and was only able to come within 1 minute, 10 seconds of the speedy German. Another American rider, Bobby Julich of the Cofidis team turned in a surprising third place, only 8 seconds slower than Hamilton. So now the General Classification with 2 more stages to go before the mountains:

• Jan Ullrich
• Bo Hamburger @ 1 minute 18 seconds
• Bobby Julich @ same time
• Laurent Jalabert @ 1 minute 24 seconds
• Tyler Hamilton @ 1 minute 30 seconds

Virenque announced that the Festina riders would not try to ride the Tour after their expulsion. That took Alex Zülle, World Champion Laurent Brochard, Laurent Dufaux and Christophe Moreau, among others, out of the action. The reaction from the Tour management, the team doctors and the fans was indicative of the blinders all parties were wearing. The Tour subjected 55 riders to blood tests and found no one with banned substances in his system. The Tour then declared that this meant that the doping was confined to a few bad apples. What it really meant was that for decades the riders and their doctors had learned how to dope so the drugs didn't show up in the tests. And, in 1998 there was no test for EPO. The team doctors protested that the Festina affair was bringing disrepute upon the other teams and their profession. The fans hated to see their beloved riders singled out and thought that Festina was getting unfair treatment. Officials, reflecting upon the easy ride TVM had received in March when their drug-laden car was found, reopened that case.

Stage 10, the long anticipated showdown between Ullrich and Pantani, had finally arrived. It was a Pyrenean stage, going from Pau to Luchon with the Aubisque, the Tourmalet, the Aspin and the Peyresourde. With no new developments in the drug scandals, the attention could finally be focused on the sport of bicycle racing. It was cold and wet in the mountains, which saps the energy of the riders as much as or more than a hot day. It was on the Peyresourde that the action finally started. Casino rider Rudolfo Massi was already off the front. Ullrich got itchy feet and attacked the dozen or so riders still with him. Pantani responded with his own attack and was gone. Pantani closed to within 36 seconds of Massi after extending his lead on the descent of the Peyresourde. Ullrich and 9 others including Julich came in a half-minute after Pantani. After losing the lead in stage 8 when a break of non-contenders was allowed to go, Ullrich was back in Yellow. Pantani was sitting in eleventh place, 4 minutes, 41 second back.

Stage 11, July 22, had 5 climbs rated second category or better with a hilltop finish at Plateau de Beille, an hors category climb new to the Tour. As usual, the best riders held their fire until the final climb. Ullrich flatted just before the road began to bite but was able to rejoin the leaders before things broke up. And break up they did when Pantani took off and no one could hold his wheel. Ullrich was left to chase with little help as he worked to limit his loss. At the top Pantani was first with the Ullrich group a minute and a half back. While Pantani said he was too tired from the Giro to consider winning the Tour, he was slowly closing the gap.

After the Pyrenees and with a rest day next, the General Classification stood thus:

• Bobby Julich @ 1 minute 11 seconds
• Laurent Jalabert @ 3 minutes 1 second
• Marco Pantani @ same time

Festina director Roussel, still in custody, issued a public statement accepting responsibility for the systematic doping within the team.

On July 24, the day of stage 12, the heat in the doping scandal was raised a bit more, if that were possible. Three more Festina team officials including the 2 assistant directors were arrested. A Belgian judge performing a parallel investigation found computer records of the Festina doping program on Erik Rijckaert's computer. Rijckaert said that the Festina riders all contributed to a fund to purchase drugs for the team. Six Festina riders were rounded up and questioned by the Lyon police: Zülle, Dufaux, Brochard, Virenque, Pascal Herve and Didier Rous. The scandal grew larger. TVM manager Cees Priem, the TVM team doctor and mechanic were arrested. A French TV reporter said that he had found dope paraphernalia in the hotel room of the Asics team.

So how did the riders handle this growing stink? Much as they did when they were caught up in the Wiel's affair in 1962. They became indignant. They were furious that the Festina riders had been forced to strip in the French jail and fuming that so much attention was focused on the ever-widening doping scandal instead of the race. In 1962 Jean Bobet talked the riders out of making themselves ridiculous by striking over being caught red-handed. There was no such voice of sanity in 1998. The riders initiated a slow-down, refusing to race for the first 16 kilometers.

On July 25 several Festina riders confessed to using EPO, including Armin Meier, Laurent Brochard and Christophe Moreau. The extent of the concern over the drug scandal was made clear when the French newspaper Le Monde editorialized that the 1998 Tour should be cancelled. It's important to note that what should have been outrage from the riders of the peloton, when confronted with the undeniable fact that they were racing against cheaters, was never voiced. Instead, the peloton defended the cheaters. When pro racers start screaming that they were robbed by the dopers then we may start to think that there has been some reform in the peloton. Until then, the pack is guilty.

As the Tour moved haltingly towards the Alps the top echelons of the General Classification remained unchanged. Alex Zülle issued a statement of regret admitting his use of EPO, saying what any rational observer should have assumed, that Festina was not the only team doping.

On Monday, July 27 the Tour reached the hard alpine stages. Stage 15 started in Grenoble and went over the Croix de Fer, the Télégraphe, and the Galibier to a hilltop finish at Les Deux Alpes. It was generally surmised that if Ullrich could stay with Pantani until the final climb he would be safe because the climb to Les Deux Alpes averages 6.2% with an early section of a little over 10% gradient. Ullrich's big-gear momentum style of climbing would be well suited to this climb.

Pantani didn't wait for the last climb. On the Galibier he exploded and quickly disappeared up the mountain. At the top he had 2½ minutes on Ullrich. On the descent Pantani used his superb descending skills to increase his lead on the now isolated Ullrich. By the start of the final ascent Pantani had a lead of more than 4 minutes. On the climb to Les Deux Alpes Ullrich's lack of deep, hard conditioning made itself manifest. He was in trouble and needed teammates Riis and Udo Bolts to pace him up the mountain. At the top of the mountain the catastrophe (as far as Telekom was concerned) was complete. Pantani was in Yellow, having taken almost 9 minutes out of the German who came in twenty-fifth that day. The new General Classification shows how dire Ullrich's position was:

• Marco Pantani
• Bobby Julich @ 3 minutes 53 seconds
• Fernando Escartin @ 4 minutes 14 seconds
• Jan Ullrich @ 5 minutes 56 seconds

Stage 16 was the last day of truly serious climbing with the Porte, Cucheron, Granier, Gran Cucheron and the Madeleine. On the final climb Ullrich showed that he was doing much better than the day before when he attacked and only Pantani could go with him. Since Pantani was the leader and had the luxury of riding defensively, he let Ullrich do all the work. If Ullrich couldn't drop Pantani, he could at least put some distance between himself and Julich and Escartin, which he did. Pantani and Ullrich came in together with Ullrich taking the stage victory in Albertville. Julich and Escartin followed the duo by 1 minute, 49 seconds. Ullrich was back on the General Classification Podium:

• Bobby Julich @ 5 minutes 42 seconds
• Fernando Escartin @ 6 minutes 3 seconds

On Wednesday July 29, stage 17, the riders staged a strike. They started by riding very slowly and at the site of the first intermediate sprint they sat down. After talking with race officials they took off their numbers and rode slowly to the finish in Aix-les-Bains with several TVM riders in the front holding hands to show the solidarity of the peloton. If the reader thinks that the other members of the peloton did not know that the TVM team was doping I have ocean-front land in Arkansas for him to buy. Along the way the Banesto, ONCE and Risso Scotti teams abandoned the Tour. The Tour organization voided the stage allowing those riders who were members of teams that had not officially abandoned to start on Thursday.

Why all this anger now? First of all, the day before drugs were said to be found in a truck belonging to the Big Mat Auber 93 team. The next day this turned out to be untrue. Then the entire TVM squad was taken into custody and the team's cars and trucks were seized. They, like the Festina team, were handled roughly by the police, sparking outrage from the riders not yet in jail.

Thursday, July 30, stage 18: Kelme and Vitalicio Seguros quit the Tour. That made all 4 Spanish teams out. Rudolfo Massi, winner of stage 10 was taken into custody. At the start of the stage there were now only 103 riders left in the peloton, down from 189 starters.

Friday, July 31, stage 19. TVM abandoned the Tour. It turned out that ONCE's team doctor Nicolas Terrados was also put under arrest after a police search found drugs on their bus that later turned out to be legal.

So now it was Ullrich's last chance to take the Tour with the stage 20 52-kilometer individual time trial. Pantani was too good, losing only 2 minutes and 35 seconds to Ullrich. That sealed the Tour for Pantani. Ullrich acknowledged that he had not taken his preparation for the Tour seriously and paid a very high price for his lack of discipline. Sounding a note that will become a metaphor for the balance of his career, he promised to work harder in the future and not repeat his mistakes.

Of 189 starters in this Tour, 96 finished.

Final 1998 Tour de France General Classification:

• Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno): 92 hours 49 minutes 46 seconds
• Jan Ullrich (Telekom) @ 3 minutes 21 seconds
• Bobby Julich (Cofidis) @ 4 minutes 8 seconds
• Christophe Rinero (Cofidis) @ 9 minutes 16 seconds
• Michael Boogerd (Rabobank) @ 11 minutes 26 seconds

Climbers' competition:

• Christophe Rinero: 200 points
• Marco Pantani: 175 points
• Alberto Elli: 165 points

Points competition:

• Erik Zabel: 327 points
• Stuart O'Grady: 230 points
• Tom Steels: 221 points  

Pantani became the first Italian to win the Tour since Felice Gimondi in 1965. He became the seventh man to do the Giro-Tour double, joining Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, Roche and Indurain.

The drug busts of 1998 did little to alter rider and team behavior. There would be more drug raids and more outraged screams from the riders. But the police knew what they were dealing with. The riders had formed a conspiracy to cheat and to break the law. Their code of silence was nothing more than a culture of intimidation to allow the riders to do what they had done for more than 100 years, take drugs to relieve their pain, allow them to sleep and improve their performance. Their anger at the treatment they received from the police is indicative of their sense of entitlement, their feeling that this was something that they could and sometimes had to do. On the other hand cops like to catch bad guys and when they do, they aren't always gentle.

Now, there is one other question that needs to be asked. Voet, who had chosen a lightly-traveled road on his way to Calais, was expecting the customs station at the French frontier to be abandoned. It wasn't and he was stopped and searched by border agents who seemed to be waiting for him. Roussel believes that when Tour Boss Jean-Marie Leblanc, who is conservative politically, talked Roussel into letting Bernadette Chirac, wife of conservative French President Jacques Chirac, do a bit of self-promotion when she visited the Tour for stage 7, the Tour became a target in the war between France's Right and the Left. The left-center coalition government had given the Ministry for Sports and Youth to the left-leaning Marie-George Buffet. Roussel hypothesized that Festina, Leblanc and the Tour were sacrificed to give Buffet a victory against the Right and incidentally, against doping. Certainly it was clear after the 1998 Tour that systematized doping was part of the professional cycling scene and had been that way for some time. Roussel asks why did this festering problem erupt into scandal at this point? A deeper exploration of the subject is beyond the intended scope of this book.

If the reader is interested I recommend Les Woodland's The Crooked Path to Victory where the complex subject of sport, politics, dope and the 1998 Tour is brilliantly dissected.

© McGann Publishing

1998 Tour de France: results and classification

General classification of the 1998 tour de france, jerseys of the 1998 tour de france, stages of the 1998 tour de france.

Prologue (Dublin - Dublin, 5.6 km)

Stage 1 (Dublin - Dublin, 180.5 km)

Stage 2 (Enniscorthy - Cork, 205.5 km)

Stage 3 (Roscoff - Lorient, 169 km)

Stage 4 (Plouay - Cholet, 252 km)

Stage 5 (Cholet - Chateauroux, 228.5 km)

Stage 6 (La Châtre - Brive la Gaillarde, 204.5 km)

Stage 7 (Meyrignac - Corrèze, 58 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 8 (Brive la Gaillarde - Montauban, 190.5 km)

Stage 9 (Montauban - Pau, 210 km)

Stage 10 (Pau - Bagnères-de-Luchon, 196.5 km)

Stage 11 (Bagnères-de-Luchon - Plateau de Beille, 170 km)

Stage 12 (Tarascon sur Ariège - Le Cap d'Agde, 222 km)

Stage 13 (Frontignan la Peyrade - Carpentras, 196 km)

Stage 14 (Valréas - Grenoble, 186.5 km)

Stage 15 (Grenoble - Les Deux Alpes, 189 km)

Stage 16 (Vizille - Albertville, 204 km)

Stage 17 (Albertville - Aix-les-Bains, 149 km)

Stage 18 (Aix-les-Bains - Neuchatel, 218.5 km)

Stage 19 (La Chaux de Fonds - Autun, 242 km)

Stage 20 (Montceau les Mines - Le Creusot, 52 km in Individual Time Trial)

Stage 21 (Melun - Paris/Champs Élysées, 147.5 km)

• Championship and cup winners
• Club honours
• World Cup: results of all matches
• Winners of the most important cycling races
• Tour de France winners (yellow jersey)
• Best sprinters (green jersey)
• Best climbers (polka dot jersey)
• Best young riders (white jersey)
• Tour de France: Stage winners
• Australian Open: Men's singles
• Australian Open: Women's singles
• Australian Open: Men's doubles
• Australian Open: Women's doubles
• Australian Open: Mixed doubles
• French Open: Men's singles
• French Open: Women's singles
• French Open: Men's doubles
• French Open: Women's doubles
• French Open: Mixed doubles
• US Open: Men's singles
• US Open: Women's singles
• US Open: Men's doubles
• US Open: Women's doubles
• US Open: Mixed doubles
• Wimbledon: Men's singles
• Wimbledon: Women's singles
• Wimbledon: Men's doubles
• Wimbledon: Women's doubles
• Wimbledon: Mixed doubles

The 1998 Tour de France 25 Years Later... A “Last Rider” Review... And the Arc of Cycling History

F orgive me if I am being a bit nostalgic — maybe it’s just my age. Or maybe it’s what I do best now. Probably it has something to do with a slew of cycling media, actual and rumored, taking us back in time to the... if not good old days, certainly some very charismatic ones. Those late-20th Century days.

I launched myself back into the Jan Ullrich story last month, which is my own choosing/fault, although in part because we have been promised a new documentary which will finally clear up his mysterious story, though of course that seems to have disappeared once again. Oh, and over the past weekend my wife and I went to see The Last Rider , a spectacular replay of the 1989 Tour de France and the ... well, more on that in a minute. I did feel some pangs of annoyance coming out of there and into this year’s Tour, which started in the Basque Country and briefly included an appearance by Miguel Indurain, whose exploits are still celebrated as if there was nothing going on behind the scenes in cycling until after he left.

But mostly I feel prompted by anniversaries, and 25 years ago we watched one of the craziest Tours de France ever, loaded with the very best and absolute worst kind of (non-crash-related) drama imaginable. It was a charisma clash of the titans, and to this day the spectre of doping only partially peels back the emotion this race generated in Italy (and maybe parts of Germany too). The role of doping, however, dominated the events day-to-day, as the world was forced to really look at the influence of performance-enhancing substances for the first time, and the riders had to face the resulting backlash from within and without, for the first time as well.

Three things happened coming into the 1998 Tour de France that shook the sport in a major way. One was the rapid rise of Jan Ullrich, who had graduated a year earlier from super-talented understudy to Bjarne Riis to dominant maillot jaune, poised to rewrite the record books. The next major event was the crystalizing of Marco Pantani’s career as a grand tour rider. Prior to 1998, he had two third place finishes at the Tour (including the previous edition) and was runner-up in the 1994 Giro d’Italia, but then suffered a pair of training accidents, the second one which wiped out almost all of his 1996 season and threatened to derail his promising career entirely. His rebound at the ‘97 Tour reawakened the excitement, which then went through the roof as he won the 1998 Giro, reversing a four-minute deficit with a swashbuckling attacking style on the Marmolada and subsequent days to throw Italy into a complete frenzy, six weeks before the Tour.

The third and most destabilizing event setting the scene for the 1998 Tour was the arrest of Cofidis soigneur Willy Voet on his way to the Tour’s start in Dublin. He was nabbed at the border of Belgium and France with a veritable pharmacy in his car. This was actually the second such revelation after a TVM team vehicle was seized in Reims three months earlier. French police shifted their anti-doping activities into high gear after Voet’s arrest on July 8, raiding the Cofidis HQ the next day while the riders warmed up for the start of the race in Dublin two days later, July 11.

The Festina Affair, as it came to be known, was unavoidable for even those fans who didn’t care about doping, because it put a huge dent into the high hopes of Richard Virenque, runner-up in 1997, and his French supporters who were otherwise staring down the barrel at either a German or Italian favorite for yellow in ‘98 — two pretty bitter pills to swallow. So, to recap, we had a very charismatic, intriguing GC battle shaping up... under not so much a cloud of suspicion but a series of increasingly deafening thunderclaps.

This is why I think it’s worth looking back at 1998. I don’t love rubbernecking at doping disasters, but even though doping makes you wonder if you should care at all, well, we sure did have some Shakespearian-level drama. Rather than a complete blow-by-blow retelling of the 1998 Tour, here are the main points.

• Police kept raiding potential dopers — over the course of the Tour they stopped all the cars coming back from Ireland, they raided the TVM and Casino-AG2R team hotel rooms, and they held numerous riders and staff from Cofidis and TVM for intense questioning. Cofidis were the first team to capitulate and leave the race en masse , but they were followed by TVM, ONCE, Banesto (Indurain’s old team), Kelme, Vitalico Seguros, and Riso Scotti. Journalists were dumpster diving for doping evidence. Riders began to feel besieged on all sides, and on both stages 12 and 17 they sat in the road, refusing to race, to protest their treatment. It sounds ugly now, but in context, let’s just say that years of winks and nods didn’t prepare them for this sudden wave of accountability demands. It seemed at one point like the Tour might not make it to Paris.
• One last thing about the doping is the sudden appearance of new tests, which the riders were unhappy about. Well, they weren’t great tests apparently, because none of them turned up positive, but the riders were right to be scared. In 2004, new tests were used to retroactively analyze samples from 1998 and they were nearly all positive for recombinant EPO, with Pantani, Ullrich, Erik Zabel, Mario Cipollini and Abraham Olano among the guilty.
• The racing part started as expected with Ullrich crushing the stage 7 time trial and ascending into yellow, 4+ minutes up on Pantani, then giving the jersey away, then retaking it in the Pyrénées, seemingly for good, though Pantani nabbed a stage to emerge from the first mountain phase a manageable three minutes back.
• Then the hot weather which Ullrich loved so much turned cold, and on a four-col ride to Les Deux Alpes, Pantani soared away from everyone on the Galibier, regrouped with a few climbers (not including the maillot jaune) on the descent, then rode into pure legend — on several levels — on the final climb, leaving Ullrich nearly nine minutes back after an ill-timed puncture, and now six minutes down on GC. The next day, Ullrich tried to turn the tables on another Alps stage to Albertville, but Pantani hung with him and the pair decimated the competition with the German taking the stage and the Italian consolidating his overall lead. By Paris, Ullrich had won another time trial and vaulted back into second place, still more than three minutes back, to be sure, but Pantani’s triumph came with at least one (non-doping) footnote: one bad day aside, Der Jan was still a force to be reckoned with.

There has never been another Tour like this in the modern era. Political (small-p) squabbles have arisen on occasion, but this time it wasn’t angry farmers or rider solidarity against bad conditions — it was an all-out battle for the soul of the sport, with the riders and teams and UCI on one side, and the Tour de France, probably 90% of the French public, some large contingent of French police, and the mostly-horrified international fan base on the other. The battles raged on and off the bike, and while fights for yellow have taken all sorts of twists and turns, this one came with the main characters all hopelessly intertwined with the off-bike madness. We were literally talking about whether the sport was about to disappear.

Last Saturday my partner Stacey and I went to a small, quirky movie theater over by the University of Washington where you can sit in comfy seats, in screening rooms as small as 30-person capacity, and sip on elaborate cocktails with vodka-infused non-dairy whipped toppings. Showing was The Last Rider , a documentary on Greg LeMond’s victory over Laurent Fignon in the 1989 Tour de France, which I wanted to see ASAP for several reasons. First, I suspected it wasn’t going to draw enough eyeballs to stay on the big screen for long, and sure enough we sat in the tiny screening room with two other people on a Saturday evening that coincided with the Grand Depart of the 2023 Tour. As of this writing it looks like it lasted four more days of mid-afternoon screenings on the other side of Puget Sound, and then was gone from theaters.

The movie ticks off the details of LeMond’s incredible comeback story chronologically, leading up to the ‘89 Tour, updated from the last version of the story (which has passed through several books but no films) to include the role of LeMond’s struggles from having been sexually abused as a teenager by a family friend. It’s otherwise re-plowing old turf for LeMond fans until they start in on 1989, from which point the story of the Tour is told by LeMond, his wife Kathy, of course. Plus Pedro Delgado, the defending champion who lost the Tour in the first week by showing up 2:30 too late for his prologue start, then went into a shame spiral that saw him fall even further behind before turning back into the championship-level rider we all expected him to be that summer. And Cyrille Guimard, speaking for the late Fignon, who died of cancer in 2010, though he was LeMond’s DS for a while too and knew the race inside and out.

If you’ve heard it all before, then it’s Delgado whose perspective makes it all the more interesting. Not only because his story deserves to not get lost in the shuffle of events, but because he has a neutral perspective on what LeMond and Fignon were up to. He’s also a polished media personality and a likeable guy, a nice balance between the affable but very emotionally-driven (aka biased) LeMond and the absent, dearly departed Fignon whose presence is largely video of his prickly jousts with the media. The stories and footage are all pulsating with drama like no sporting event before or since... as you already knew.

If I feel differently about the story at all, it’s that maybe I hadn’t fully appreciated the extent of the pain Fignon was experiencing as a result of saddle sores and/or swollen testicles. It sounded frightful and Guimard reveals that there was talk of him not starting the final stage. It upends the narrative of LeMond’s heroism and aero bars and anything else you want to ascribe the final eight-second difference to — though of course all of those things were real, LeMond did ride heroically, even if a healthy Fignon probably finds a smoother rhythm and only loses half his 50-second lead rather than all of it and more. But that’s cycling.

After the movie Stacey and I went out to eat and talked about how amazing the story was, as well as how stunningly similar it was to the Armstrong comeback... up to a point. The only two American champions of the Tour ( asterisk asterisk ), precocious world champions who then found themselves on death’s door and really should not have survived their respective ordeals — LeMond’s shotgun wound and Armstrong’s cancer. They each struggled to resume their careers only to win the Tour de France on their first try after returning to health. The races themselves were incredible stories of overcoming uncertain fitness, but even more incredible lifetime achievements.

And then they diverge, rather jarringly. LeMond’s story is truncated by the very doping culture that Armstrong mastered en route to his version of redemption. After a while their stories didn’t just stop paralleling each others but became set against each other in an existential flame war, LeMond calling out Armstrong’s suspicious activities and Armstrong setting out to destroy LeMond’s life, business interests and so on. Two stories borne of incredible human will, one ascending to the heights of human decency and the other bound straight for the ultimate depths. It’s like a chapter of the Bible. And I’m talking Old Testament/Torah level. As I write and think about this for the umpteenth time, I still can’t believe it all happened.

Without the 1998 Tour, the story remains incomplete. That was the race where the warning alarms started ringing, when taking some action toward change became a notion, when the long march back to respectability took its initial, tentative steps. The Armstrong Era was a false redemption story, a desperate grab for an easy solution whose utter failure told everyone to stop looking for easy solutions. If 1998 brought the problems out into the open, 1999 and beyond showed how deep they ran and how pernicious they were.

Now? I won’t ask anyone to stake their reputation on declaring the doping era totally over now, absent some deep insider knowledge that I doubt any of us possesses. But I do think that doping has receded into the shadows and has either shrunk down to the size of a small blemish on the face of the sport, or has shifted in nature to something we know nothing about. I do think we have come full circle back to the glory days of my early cycling fandom, the 1980s, albeit as a sport looks and feels different, more calculating and less biblical. It’s fun to contrast this time with those days, as estranged as these generations of cyclists may be to each other ... provided we can skip over the 90s and Aughts for the most part.

So, to me, I feel like I can believe in Cycling again, like I did in 1989, because of that 1998 Tour de France a quarter-century ago, when we all collectively took that first step toward asking, finally, what are we doing? A lot of people played big roles in turning the sport around, but on this dark anniversary we must recognize the French public and the French police and the Tour de France all remembering cycling in its highest form and having that extra certainty and determination that the sport needed saving. Not to diminish the other people sounding the alarms, but the Tour has long been the sport’s backbone, and the people who knew that best became the backbone of the anti-doping movement. That car stop on the Belgian border 25 years ago was just what we needed.

• Season Calendar 1998
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85th edition General Classification 11 July 1998 - 2 August 1998

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Le maillot jaune Marco Pantani et Jan Ullrich lors du Tour 1998

Vous avez vu passer le Tour de France mais vous ne vous souvenez plus exactement où ni en quelle année ...

Le Dico du Tour peut vous aider à préciser vos souvenirs

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Sprint | Gavet

Sprint | livet, finishline points, mountain sprint | col de la croix de fer, mountain sprint | col du t, mountain sprint | col du galibier, mountain sprint | les deux-alpes, team day classification, race information.

• Date: 27 July 1998
• Start time: -
• Avg. speed winner: 32.989 km/h
• Race category: ME - Men Elite
• Distance: 189 km
• Points scale: GT.A.Stage
• Parcours type:
• ProfileScore: 578
• Vert. meters: 6000
• Departure: Grenoble
• Arrival: Les Deux Alpes
• Race ranking: 0
• Startlist quality score: 1692
• Won how: 55 km solo
• Avg. temperature:

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Et le patron de Festina craque

• "J'avais dans les mains une grenade dégoupillée"
• "Tout le monde pensait que cela allait s'arranger"

Les coureurs mènent la fronde

Recit. tour de france : le 17 juillet 1998 ou quand le dopage organisé de l'équipe festina a fait exploser le peloton.

franceinfo le samedi 7 juillet 2018

L'euphorie de la victoire de la Coupe du monde flotte encore dans l'air chaud de cette mi-juillet 1998, quand l'autre grand sport populaire français, le Tour de France,  explose en plein vol. Le 17 juillet, le public découvre qu'un directeur sportif a avoué ce que la rumeur bruissait depuis des années. Le dopage, au sein de l'équipe Festina est alors une pratique routinière, touchant presque tous ses coureurs, et qui est orchestrée en toute complicité par le staff de l'équipe. L'omerta est brisée.

Dans les heures qui suivent, les instances du Tour sanctionnent pour la première fois une équipe entière. A la veille de l'étape du contre-la-montre en Corrèze, les Festina sont exclus de la plus grande compétition cycliste au monde. Pour Richard Virenque et ses huit coéquipiers, le Tour s'arrête là. Mais pour le monde du vélo, son plus grand scandale commence.

Dans la Peugeot 306 qui le conduit au tribunal de Lille (Nord) le 17 juillet 1998, Bruno Roussel, le directeur sportif de l'équipe, sait que le dénouement est proche. La veille, au commissariat de Cholet (Maine-et-Loire), ses dernières résistances pour masquer l'étendue du dopage organisé au sein de Festina ont cédé. Il a tout avoué. L'achat, le transport, la conservation des dopants, etc. Bruno Roussel déballe tout, et détaille même les réunions, entre l'encadrement et les coureurs, pour définir le montant retenu sur leurs primes pour financer l'achat de leurs doses.

Arrivé au tribunal, il s'entretient avec son avocat Thibault de Montbrial, avant sa présentation au juge d'instruction en charge du dossier, Patrick Keil. "Quelques jours plus tôt, il s'apprêtait à prendre le départ du Tour et à le remporter, il était au sommet de sa gloire. Et là, il se retrouve au seuil de sa mise en examen, son monde s'effondre" , se rappelle Me Thibault de Montbrial vingt ans plus tard.

Il y avait un immense soulagement [pour Bruno Roussel] de mettre fin aux mensonges des jours précédents. Thibault de Montbrial, avocat de Bruno Roussel 

Un soulagement, car depuis le 8 juillet, Bruno Roussel est sous le feu des accusations de dopage qui visent son équipe. Ce jour-là, Willy Voet, le soigneur de l'équipe Festina, a été arrêté par des douaniers alors qu'il se rendait sur le départ de Tour de France, qui partait de Dublin pour cette nouvelle édition. Ils saisissent 235 ampoules d'EPO, 82 flacons d'hormones de croissance, 60 doses de testostérone, des amphétamines, des corticoïdes, des fluidifiants sanguins, etc. Un arsenal si important qu'il aurait pu permettre de doper les coureurs de toutes les équipes, pendant toute la durée du Tour.

Au départ, pourtant, Bruno Roussel fait comme si de rien n'était. "Le sentiment qui prédominait dans le village du Tour, c'était qu'il n'y allait pas avoir de suite , se souvient Marie-George Buffet, la ministre de la Jeunesse et des Sports de l'époque, qui se trouvait sur place.  Quelque part, c'était logique, il y avait un tel sentiment d'impunité."  

Devant le juge Patrick Keil à Lille, Bruno Roussel réitère ses aveux faits la veille. "Après avoir vu le dossier chez le juge, je lui ai tout de suite dit que c'était impossible que l'équipe se maintienne sur le Tour. Il avait compris que tout était fini" , se rappelle Thibault de Montbrial. Le directeur sportif de l'équipe est mis en examen pour "facilitation et incitation à l'usage de produits dopants, notamment lors d'une compétition sportive."  Il se voit ensuite signifier sa mise en détention.

La chute de Bruno Roussel est violente, mais pas question pour lui de tomber seul. "Il fallait éviter de se laisser enfermer dans une affaire Festina seul, qu'il se retrouve désigné comme le mouton noir, et que cela continue de cacher ce qui était, en réalité, généralisé" , explique son conseil.

L'avocat et son client décident de rédiger ensemble un communiqué qui aura l'effet d'une bombe dans le monde du cyclisme professionnel.

"J'avais dans les mains une grenade dégoupillée"

Le tribunal de Lille est quasiment désert, à 20h30, quand Bruno Roussel est escorté par la police jusqu'à la maison d'arrêt d'Arras (Pas-de-Calais), où il passera encore onze jours. Me Thibault de Montbrial se retrouve seul ; il quitte le couloir vide du 10e étage du bâtiment et s'engouffre dans l'ascenseur avec, dans les mains, la feuille de papier sur laquelle est rédigée le communiqué.

Je savais que j'avais dans les mains une grenade dégoupillée qui allait avoir des déflagrations immédiates dans le monde du cyclisme. Thibault de Montbrial, avocat de Bruno Roussel 

Lorsque les portes de l'ascenseur s'ouvrent, au rez-de-chaussée, le jeune avocat d'alors 29 ans se retrouve face à un mur de journalistes qui l'attendent. "Bruno Roussel a expliqué aux enquêteurs, lesquels avaient les éléments en leur possession, les conditions dans lesquelles une gestion concertée de l'approvisionnement des coureurs en produits dopants était organisée entre la direction, les médecins, les soigneurs et les coureurs de l'équipe Festina. L'objectif était d'optimiser les performances, sous strict contrôle médical, afin d'éviter l'approvisionnement personnel sauvage des coureurs dans des conditions susceptibles de porter gravement atteinte à leur santé, comme cela a pu être le cas par le passé" , lit l'avocat.  

Ces quelques phrases sont la confirmation publique d'un système de dopage généralisé au sein de la première équipe cycliste au monde. "C'était assez dramatique, se remémore Marie-George Buffet.  Cela donnait à voir à l'ensemble de l'opinion publique que nous n'étions pas face à des choix personnels, de sportifs ou de sportives qui décidaient un jour, dans leur coin, de pratiquer le dopage."

La bombe lâchée, les journalistes quittent les lieux en précipitation pour appeler leurs rédactions. "Je me suis soudain retrouvé tout seul sur les marches du tribunal de Lille, c'était lunaire" , souffle Thibault de Montbrial. Il rejoint sa voiture, garée à quelques centaines de mètres de là, et passe deux coups de fil. Un au directeur sportif adjoint de l'équipe, Michel Gros, et l'autre à son meneur, Richard Virenque. "J'avais demandé l'autorisation au juge, je me doutais bien que ces personnes étaient sur écoute",  pointe l'avocat.  

L'idée, en les informant le plus rapidement possible, "était de leur permettre de se retirer dans l'honneur" , explique l'avocat. En d'autres termes, de tirer leur révérence avant de se faire formellement expulser du Tour de France. "Ils ont fait un autre choix."

"Tout le monde pensait que cela allait s'arranger"

A Brive-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze), où la caravane du Tour est arrivée en fin d'après-midi, l'onde de choc se répercute rapidement. Jean-Marie Leblanc, le patron du Tour, en est informé aux abords de la salle de presse, peu après la lecture du communiqué à Lille. "Vous vous rendez compte de la façon dont nous sommes mis au courant. Nous sommes des organisateurs de course. Nous n'avons aucune information officielle. Nous n'avons pas d'envoyés spéciaux à Lille" , réagit-il, comme le rapporte Libération à l'époque.

Il se retire avec ses principaux collaborateurs en promettant de revenir dans l'heure. Finalement, il fera son retour à 22h50. "Depuis le départ de Dublin , les informations concernant l'équipe Festina nous provenaient exclusivement de la presse. Nous ne pouvions pas prendre une décision avant que les faits soient avérés" , déclare Jean-Marie Leblanc lors de sa conférence de presse.

Après avoir rapporté à nouveau la teneur du communiqué lu par Thibault de Montbrial, Jean-Marie Leblanc annonce : "Ces quelques phrases nous ont paru terribles, à nous organisateurs du Tour de France, organisateurs de la plus grande compétition sportive du monde." Et puis, la sentence tombe : "Nous avons pris la décision d'exclure l'équipe Festina du Tour de France à compter de ce jour".

Une décision loin d'être anecdotique : c'est mettre dehors l'une des meilleurs formations du Tour, et surtout le chouchou du public, Richard Virenque, favori qui plus est pour le maillot jaune.

Du côté des coureurs, le choc est brutal. "Ils se pensaient au-dessus des lois et que rien ne pouvait les arrêter. C'était une époque où tout pouvait se régler d'un seul coup de fil, s'il y avait un problème, donc tout le monde pensait que cela allait forcément s'arranger" , se rappelle Antoine Vayer, l'entraîneur sportif de l'équipe à l'époque, qui logeait dans leur hôtel.

Il y avait un tel sentiment de surpuissance et de complicité avec les instances, qu'ils tombaient totalement des nues.   Antoine Vayer, ancien entraîneur de l'équipe Festina

Après les aveux de Roussel, Antoine Vayer observe avec amusement le manège qui se joue sous ses yeux. Les coureurs continuent de tout nier en bloc. Ils jurent aux journalistes qui les interrogent que "jamais ils ne se sont dopés" , qu'ils "ne comprennent vraiment pas les déclarations de Voet et Roussel" . Richard Virenque fanfaronne même qu'il compte se payer de "belles vacances au soleil" avec l'argent du procès en diffamation qu'il compte intenter contre quiconque affirmerait qu'il y a du dopage dans son équipe, comme le souligne Fabrice Lhomme dans son livre Le procès du Tour (éd. Denöel)   . "C'était assez drôle, toute cette hypocrisie" , moque Antoine Vayer.

Pour ne pas tomber, les coureurs de l'équipe Festina tentent un passage en force. C'est l'avocat de Zülle, Meier, Dufaux et Virenque, Me Albert Rey-Mermet, qui leur donne ce conseil, comme le révèle Fabrice Lhomme dans Le procès du Tour . Il veut faire valoir que l'exclusion des Festina, au regard des règlements édictés par la Société du Tour, est illégale.

"Les coureurs cherchaient à intervenir auprès de moi, en mettant en cause la décision qui avait été prise , se rappelle Daniel Baal, alors président de la Fédération française de cyclisme et vice-président de l'Union cycliste internationale . Systématiquement, quand il y avait un dossier de dopage quel qu'il soit, il y avait forcément des recours juridiques."

Le 18 juillet, la septième étape, un contre-la-montre individuel de 58 km entre Meyrignac-l'Eglise et Corrèze, a déjà débuté depuis deux bonnes heures lorsqu'un cortège de trois voitures suivies d'une vingtaine de véhicules de presse se dirigent vers Meyrignac-l'Eglise. Richard Virenque est dans le break de tête. Les radios annoncent que, malgré leur exclusion, les coureurs se rendent tout de même au départ. "L'encadrement était dépassé par les coureurs depuis déjà un certain temps, il n'y avait pas vraiment d'autorité" , se rappelle Antoine Vayer. Mais la voiture de Virenque change de direction.

A Corrèze-Gare, les coureurs rencontrent Jean-Marie Leblanc dans l'arrière salle de Chez Gillou. Le café-tabac est plein à craquer de journalistes, de photographes, de caméras. Jean-Marie Leblanc s'extirpe finalement de la salle, cerné par une horde de journalistes, et attend quelques secondes avant de prendre la parole, le ton grave et la mine affligée : "Je suis venu dire au revoir à l'équipe Festina [...] elle n'est pas allée contre la décision que nous avons prise hier soir" , annonce-t-il, visiblement secoué. "Il était naturel que le directeur du Tour de France vienne saluer Virenque, Dufaux, Brochard et tous leurs coéquipiers, d'une manière assez émouvante."

Après son départ, la porte de l'arrière-salle s'ouvre, et Richard Virenque prend la parole au nom de ses coéquipiers dans une conférence de presse improvisée. Dans l'encadrement de la porte, les journalistes se pressent, micros tendus.

"Dans cette affaire, les coupables ont été écroués. Nous, nous ne sommes que des témoins."   Virenque fond en larmes, soutenu par ses camarades. L'équipe Festina, acculée, accepte de se retirer,   "pour le vélo" .   "Du grand cirque, du cinéma, n'importe quoi" , raille aujourd'hui Antoine Vayer. Si les larmes de Virenque n'étaient pas gage de son innocence, elles montrent l'injustice dont se croyaient victimes les coureurs.   "Ils se disaient 'pourquoi nous ?' Ça aurait pu tomber sur n'importe qui d'autre" , observe l'ancien entraîneur, qui était resté à l'hôtel de l'équipe, alors que ses coureurs tentaient encore de sauver leur Tour. Bientôt, ils le rejoindront pour plier définitivement bagage.

Hors de la course, les membres de Festina seront interrogés par les policiers, et finiront par passer aux aveux, en mentionnant parfois des membres d'autres équipes. Les interpellations sur le Tour se succèderont, et des produits dopants seront aussi saisis dans les bagages du coureur italien Rodolfo Massi et dans le camion de l'équipe ONCE. Face à la pression policière, les équipes se retirent une à une de la course. Seuls 96 coureurs sur 180 franchiront la ligne d'arrivée finale sur les Champs-Elysées, le 2 août 1998.

"Je me souviens avoir dit à Brochard que c'était une bonne chose, que maintenant tout le monde allait arrêter et qu'ils allaient pouvoir s'imposer de manière réglo" , se souvient Antoine Vayer.   "Mais, il m'a regardé et il m'a dit : 'les autres n'arrêteront jamais de toute façon'. Même à chaud, pris la main dans le sac, il savait que ça ne s'arrêterait pas. D'ailleurs, c'est ce qu'il s'est passé."   Vingt ans plus tard, à l'image des soupçons insistants qui pèsent sur le tenant du titre   Christopher Froome,   le cyclisme ne s'est toujours pas défait de ses démons.

                                         Récit : Louise Hemmerle

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A history of foreign starts at the Tour de France

As Copenhagen marks the 24th foreign Grand Départ, we take a look back at memorable starts through the years

Friday's Tour de France Grand Départ in the Danish capital of Copenhagen will mark the 24th time the race has kicked off with a start outside of its home country, a tradition dating back all the way to 1954.

The 2022 Tour start will be the most far-flung yet, even if it doesn't quite match up to the Giro d'Italia's starts in Greece and Israel over the years. It's the first time the race – or any Grand Tour – has started in Denmark.

Over the past 68 years, the Tour has begun in almost every major western Europe country, barring Italy (which could host the 2024 Grand Départ ). The likes of Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, and Spain have all hosted Tour starts in that time.

This weekend, the peloton will take in three stages in Denmark, with a time trial and two sprints on the menu before they fly back to the north of France on Monday. Ahead of the 2022 start and all the action that lies ahead, we've taken a look back at some of the most memorable Grand Départs of years gone by.

1954: Amsterdam, Netherlands

The 1954 Tour would eventually be won by Louison Bobet, the second victory of the first Tour three-peat. The Frenchman was already on the podium on stage 2, winning as the peloton raced from the Flemish city of Beveren to Lille in northern France.

A day earlier, the race had kicked off in Amsterdam, where Dutch rider Wout Wagtmans gave the home crowds something to celebrate as he took the second of four career stage victories at the race just over the Belgian border in Brasschaat.

Massive crowds lined the roads for the opener, which saw Wagtmans attack to the win late on, just about holding off the peloton. He would hold yellow for three days before ceding it to Bobet, and later enjoyed another four days in the lead as the race snaked down to the Pyrenees. (DO)

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1973: Scheveningen, Netherlands

Joop Zoetemelk had already stood on the final Tour de France podium on two occasions before he had the opportunity to start the 1973 Tour – his fourth – at home, just minutes away from his hometown of The Hague.

He hadn't won a stage of the race by this point, having already accrued two runner-up spots in addition to his two overall second places, but pulled out all the stops on home ground for the short 7.1km prologue.

Under 10 minutes after setting off, Zoetemelk would have his first career Tour stage win, getting the beating of 'the eternal second' Raymond Poulidor by just one second.

He'd end the race fourth overall, and would have to wait seven more years to seal the yellow jersey, while the 1973 race spent three more (half) stages working its way across the Netherlands and Belgium, including a mini 12.4km time trial. (DO)

1987: West Berlin, Germany

By the late 1980s, the Tour was regularly visiting neighbouring countries for Grand Départs, with three in the Netherlands, two apiece in Belgium, and West Germany, and one in Switzerland.

1987 brought a third start in West Germany, and what would be the final visit to the country before reunification. It would be the most far-flung Tour start at the time, and there would be a full five days of racing in Germany before the race even hit the border and returned to France.

A 6km prologue on the opening day brought glory for Dutchman Jelle Nijdam, who utilised two disc wheels to take the win by three seconds as eventual race winner Stephen Roche rounded out the top three.

Nijdam's countryman Nico Verhoeven won stage 1, sprinting home from a small breakaway group, while Roche's Carrera Jeans squad beat Saronni's Del Tongo in the stage 2 time trial.

Portuguese rider Acácio Da Silva and solo breakaway man Herman Frison won stage 3 and 4 into Stuttgart and Pforzheim before the race headed to Strasbourg on stage 5, concluding what would be the last Grand Départ in Germany for three decades. (DO)

1992: San Sebastián, Spain

While the Vuelta a España was at this point in the midst of what would be a 33-year avoidance of the Basque Country (the race returned in 2011), the Tour chose the region to host its first Spanish Grand Départ three decades ago.

The prologue was overshadowed by a bombing in an underground car park in Fuenterrabia the night before, a reminder of the tensions in the region that saw the Vuelta stay away.

The race itself, however, went off without any such problems, and was instead a celebration of reigning champion Miguel Indurain, who hailed from the town of Villava in the eastern Basque Country.

The Banesto leader duly pleased the home crowds with a victory in the 8km prologue, beating ONCE's Alex Zülle by two seconds. Indurain would cede the lead to the Swiss rider on the first road stage a day later, though he'd be back in yellow in the Alps en route to a dominant four-minute overall victory. (DO)

1998: Dublin, Ireland

The 1998 Tour start in Ireland was not completely overshadowed by the Festina scandal that almost caused the entire race to grind to a halt, but the storm clouds were looming fast.

Festina soigneur Willy Voet had been arrested earlier that week on the French border with a trunkload of doping products in his car, the team had already gone into full denial mode over his whereabouts, and riders were already pouring their doping products down the wash-basins and toilets of their hotels.

Given the meltdown that then unfolded in that Tour, with the glorious gift of hindsight it almost seemed irrelevant that Chris Boardman claimed his third Tour prologue win in five years on a rain=soaked Dublin Friday evening. Or indeed that Boardman, while in the leader’s jersey, then crashed out en route to Cork and the ferries assembled to take the race back to France that evening.

But at the time, the massive crowds that lined the route in Dublin despite the weather, and again on the stages taking the race inland that followed, seemed to hold out hope that the Tour start in Ireland would be remembered as a success. But that was all quickly eclipsed by what unfolded in France. (AF)

2007: London, United Kingdom

Pre-empting the British cycling explosion that saw the founding of Team Sky, the 2012 Olympic Games, and the rise to superstardom of Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas, and Chris Froome, the Tour headed to Britain for the first time 15 years ago.

The home start came a year too early for Cavendish, who broke out with four stages in 2008, though time triallists Wiggins and David Millar – as well as Liquigas domestique Charly Wegelius and Barloworld neo-pro Thomas were also holding up the home end.

Wiggins and Millar were both among the favourites for the opening prologue around the streets of central London, though it was Swiss star Fabian Cancellara who dominated the day (as he had in 2004 and as he would in 2009, 2010, and 2012) to win by 13 seconds as Wiggins was the top Brit in fourth.

The next day Millar gave home crowds something to cheer, taking the polka dot jersey from the break on the flat stage to Canterbury as Robbie McEwen sprinted to victory. Three weeks later, Alberto Contador claimed his first Tour win after a controversial race which saw Iban Mayo, double stage winner Alexandre Vinokourov, and yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen all leave the race under doping clouds. (DO)

2010: Rotterdam, Netherlands 

Three days across the Low Countries kicked off the 2010 Tour as the Netherlands hosted the Grand Départ for the fifth time.

Once again it was Fabian Cancellara's time to shine as the Swiss rider, hot off a superb spring with wins at E3 Harelbeke, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix, beat Tony Martin by 10 seconds over the 9km course in Rotterdam. 

Alessandro Petacchi shot to sprint glory on stage 2 in Brussels, while the hilly third stage to Spa was perhaps the most memorable of the lot. There, Sylvain Chavanel soloed to the yellow jersey as the peloton staged a go-slow after the carnage and mass crashes on the wet, slippery roads.

The Frenchman would hand yellow back to Cancellara the next day as the race hit France – and the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix – but would be back in the lead for another day with another breakaway win on stage 7. In Paris, it was Alberto Contador (later Andy Schleck) who took the overall glory. (DO)

2014: Leeds, United Kingdom

Seven years on from the London start, the Tour revisited the UK once more, with two days in Yorkshire followed up by one into London before the race travelled back across the Channel.

It was the year following the triumphs of Wiggins and Froome, and so the roads of Yorkshire were packed with fans there to cheer on Team Sky as well as Cavendish, who by that point had 26 Tour stage wins to his name.

As was the case in 2007, though, there would be little home glory for the Brits. In Harrogate and London, Marcel Kittel, the dominant sprinter of the previous year, would take the wins, while eventual winner Vincenzo Nibali nipped away to stage 2 victory in the hills of Sheffield.

Cavendish, meanwhile, left the race after stage 1 after crashing hard in Harrogate, while defending champion Froome made it to France and the cobbled stage – but not the cobbles – 5 before crashing out. 

The Grand Départ had a lasting effect on cycling in the region, spawning the Tour de Yorkshire men's and women's race before COVID-19 and financial problems saw both events cancelled from 2020 through this year. (DO)

2019: Brussels, Belgium

The last Tour to start outside of France came three years ago with the fifth Grand Départ from Belgium – the first time the race had kicked off in the capital, Brussels, since 1958.

The city hosted both the opener and the second stage of the race, before a third stage from the Walloon town of Binche took the peloton on a hilly stage into France.

Jumbo-Visma dominated the first two days of the race as Wout van Aert (who would later win stage 10 in Albi) making his Tour debut. The opening stage, which featured the Muur van Geraardsbergen early on, would be prime Van Aert territory today, but then it was Dylan Groenewegen set to sprint for the Dutch squad.

He was taken down by a mass crash late on, though, and instead it was Mike Teunissen who took a surprise victory, holding off Peter Sagan and Caleb Ewan to take yellow. The squad would go on to dominate the stage 2 TTT, too, putting a full 20 seconds into second-placed Ineos over the 27.6km course. (DO)

Foreign starts at the Tour de France

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Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews , he has also written for The Independent ,  The Guardian ,  ProCycling , The Express and Reuters .

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• Tour de France in Ireland
• History and Genealogy

The Tour de France en Irlande an unforgettable event for Irish cycling enthusiasts and sports fans of all ages. For the first time in history, the Tour de France took to Ireland in 1998 for its 'Grand Départ' opening stages (July 11-13). Dublin came to a standstill for the weekend and all of the towns and villages along the route got into the spirit of having Le Tour pass through, and planned French-Irish festivals as Le Tour travelled south towards Cork.

This was the first time for the Irish Government to fund a major sporting event to come to Ireland. People travelled from all over Ireland, and many from abroad, to witness this French sporting spectacle taking place in Ireland.  Ireland looked magnificent as live images were broadcast worldwide and the event was a huge success

July 11: The Tour started with a  prologue  time trial around the streets of Dublin starting at Trinity College and passing by Leinster House, Merrion Square, St Stephen's Green, Winetavern St, St. Patrick's Cathedral and the River Liffey along Ormond Quay. Here, Chris Boardman (pictured above) covered the 5.6 km route fastest with a time of 6:12.36 minutes 

July 12:  Stage 1  was a loop, passing through Dundrum (home of 1987 Tour winner Stephen Roche), on to Bray and into the mountains, through the Wicklow Gap, descending back through Blessington to return to the city, finishing in Phoenix Park.

July 13:  Stage 1   travelled down the Irish eastern coast from  Enniscorthy  to  Cork .  En route, the race paid tribute to two famous former Irish professional cyclists:  Seamus Elliott  of Kilmacanogue - (the first Irish rider to ride the Tour and win a stage) and  Sean Kelly  of Carrick-on-Suir (four-time winner of the Tour's points classification). The anniversary of French troops landing at  Killala  Bay during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was also commemorated during Stage 2. 

The riders then headed for France by air (with the team vehicles and equipment following to Roscoff supported by StenaLine). The FIFA World Cup, held in France that same month, was part of the reason the race started a week later than usual. 

After the success of the Tour’s visit, the Irish Government announced a new strategy specifically aimed at bringing major sports events to Ireland.

READ MORE Stephen Roche becomes first Irishman to win the Tour de France

ALSO  Pat McQuaid on organising the Tour de France in Ireland

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