A round-up of the most successful riders in the history of the Tour de France.
The Tour de France is cycling’s crown jewel. The event is into its 110th edition, and in honour, we will take a look at the five most successful riders leading up to 2023.
Four riders have won the Tour overall five times, while Mark Cavendish, who has never won the overall Tour general classification, has been its outstanding sprinter for 15 years, reaching a magnificent total of 34 stage victories.
RadioTimes.com brings you the most successful riders in the history of Tour de France.
Most Tour de France title wins
Chris Froome (England) – 4
Froome was the main helper to Bradley Wiggins when Wiggins won the Tour de France in 2012, although tensions arose between the two when Froome looked set to drop Wiggins on the stage 11 mountaintop finish before he was ordered to drop back in his support.
Froome subsequently led Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) to four overall Tour victories, in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. His success was founded on his strength in the mountains and on time trials, as well as the support of the strongest team at the race. He also won the Giro d’Italia in 2018 and Vuelta a España in 2018 and was retrospectively awarded the 2011 Vuelta victory, making him the most successful grand tour rider of recent times.
Miguel Indurain (Spain) – 5
At 1.86m (6ft 1in) tall and weighing 76kg, Miguel Indurain would almost certainly be too large to win a Tour de France today. Even Chris Froome, who is the same height as Indurain, weighs 68kg and Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, the current dominant Tour riders are shorter and lighter still.
But Indurain won five Tours in a row from 1991 to 1995, mainly thanks to his domination in the time trials. He was then able to defend his position in the mountains. It has been said that Indurain was a calculating rider and his performances uninspiring, but they were sufficient to better his rivals and also win him two Giro-Tour doubles in 1992 and 1993.
Bernard Hinault (France) – 5
Bernard Hinault’s five Tour de France wins came in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985, with a Giro-Tour double in 1982 and 1985.
He’s perhaps best remembered for the 1986 Tour, his last, when he rode ostensibly in support of his teammate, American Greg LeMond, who had helped him to his 1985 win. It wasn’t clear that Hinault would keep the bargain though and he attacked LeMond on stage 12, gaining over four minutes on him and himself taking the yellow jersey.
He lost time over subsequent stages, with LeMond taking the yellow jersey from him. The two rode together up the 21 hairpins to Alpe d’Huez on Stage 18, with Hinault awarded the stage. But LeMond won his first of three Tours overall, with Hinault second, when the race arrived in Paris.
Eddy Merckx (Belgium) – 5
Not only does Merckx’s record of 34 individual stage wins equal Cavendish’s total, but he also won five Tours outright. Unlike Cavendish, who has been the master of flat sprint stage finishes for the last 15 years, Merckx was competitive in mountain stages and time trials too – crucial for an overall victory in any of the grand tours.
Merckx didn’t just win the overall general classification by almost 18 minutes at his first Tour de France in 1969, he won all the other competitions as well, including the points and king of the mountains overall, racking up six stage wins along the way.
In 1970, Merckx won both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, only the third time this had been achieved. He also added eight stages to his Tour tally and again won all three major competitions outright.
The 1971 and 1972 Tours saw Merckx win both the yellow jersey and green jersey competitions, with a second Giro-Tour double in 1972. He skipped the Tour in 1973, but returned for a final win in 1974, again also winning the Giro d’Italia that year as well as the world championships.
On Merckx’s final Tour in 1975, he placed second overall, following a series of mishaps including being punched by a spectator and breaking a cheekbone in a crash. It was the first Tour he’d ridden which he didn’t win and over his career, Merckx spent 96 days in the yellow jersey.
Jacques Anquetil (France) – 5
Anquetil won the Tour de France in 1957 and 1961 – 64, making him the first rider to win the race five times. But he’s perhaps best known for his duel in 1964 with Raymond Poulidor on the road that rises to the summit of the Puy de Dôme, an extinct volcano in the Massif Central.
The two rode shoulder to shoulder with Poulidor attacking three times on the steep climb. Each time Anquetil was able to respond, until the last, when Poulidor distanced him, beating him by 42 seconds. That gave Anquetil only a 14 seconds advantage in the race overall, but he extended this over the next two stages to win overall by 55 seconds, the smallest winning margin to that date. Poulidor never did win the Tour de France, nor even wear the yellow jersey of race leader, but he was second overall three times and third five times.
Most Tour de France stage wins
Mark Cavendish (Great Britain) – 34
Cavendish’s 34 wins at the Tour de France have come from his sprint finishes, starting in 2008, when he won four stages. He followed that up with 16 more stage wins over the next three Tours, when his team was built around delivering him to the line on flat stages. In 2011 he also won the green jersey for the points classification.
A less prolific season at Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) in 2012 saw Cavendish win just three stages as the team supported Bradley Wiggins to win the Tour overall and that was followed by another three years with just three stage wins. His 2016 was more prolific though, with another four wins at his then team, Dimension Data.
This was a time when powerful sprinters, mainly German, dominated the racing on flatter stages. A rule change by the Tour organisers made this style of riding less rewarding though and teams were less willing to commit all their resources to a sprinter.
Cavendish had a couple of lean years in 2017 and 2018, after suffering from Epstein-Barr virus. It wasn’t until 2021 that he was again competitive at the Tour, winning a surprising four stages and the points classification for a second time and drawing level with Eddy Merckx to reach the 34 wins total. His announced retirement at the end of 2023 means that, barring a change of mind, he will remain tied with Merckx on 34 wins.
Tour de France multiple winners
- Jacques Anquetil – 5
- Eddy Merckx – 5
- Bernard Hinault – 5
- Miguel Indurain – 5
- Chris Froome – 4
- Philippe Thys – 3
- Louison Bobet – 3
- Greg LeMond – 3
- Lucien Petit-Breton – 2
- Firmin Lambot – 2
- Ottavio Bottecchia – 2
- Nicolas Frantz – 2
- André Leducq – 2
- Antonin Magne – 2
- Sylvère Maes – 2
- Gino Bartali – 2
- Fausto Coppi – 2
- Bernard Thévenet – 2
- Laurent Fignon – 2
- Alberto Contador – 2
- Tadej Pogačar – 2
He who shall not be named: Lance Armstrong (USA)
Lance Armstrong was the winner of the Tour de France seven times in a row between 1999 and 2005. His back story was inspiring too: he was a man who had beaten potentially fatal metastatic testicular cancer in 1996, came back stronger from it and went on to dominate the Tour.
Trouble was, it was all a lie fuelled by performance enhancing drugs and well-timed blood transfusions to boost his blood’s oxygen capacity.
It all unravelled when members of his team turned and gave evidence of his (and their) systematic doping, which Armstrong eventually admitted in 2013. He was stripped of his wins and barred from competitive cycling for life, but his shadow still hangs over the Tour and returns to taint the performances of his successors.
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