Tour de France: A look back at the most dramatic individual time trial decisions of the Tour
Sven Bremer
· 23.06.2024
A man is lying on the ground in the middle of the Champs-Elysees, his eyes tightly closed as if he is in pain. He doesn't notice the photographers standing above him. Neither does he notice the fans. He doesn't want to see them, he doesn't want anything. The man on the pavement of the Parisian boulevard would like to die. He is indeed in pain, but it is less physical, he has not fallen, he has collapsed. His name is Laurent Fignon. He is still wearing a yellow jersey, the yellow jersey of the overall leader of the Tour de France. But he will have to relinquish it - on the one day that counts.
Years later, Fignon wrote in his autobiography about these moments on 23 July 1989: "I no longer knew anything - not who I was and not where I was. Then the shock took shape in my head. It began to become a reality." The reality was eight seconds. Eight seconds that he lacked on his rival Greg LeMond after a total time of 87:38:35 hours. Almost exactly 82 metres after covering a distance of 3,285.30 km, which smart people had already calculated very quickly back then.
Never before and never again has there been such a narrow margin between the overall winner of the Tour of France and the runner-up. 35 years ago, the Tour de France was last decided in an individual time trial on the final stage. Last year, the organiser ASO therefore surprised the cycling world with the decision to once again schedule an individual time trial on the final day. And because a few days later the Olympic Games begin in Paristhe Tour will end on 21 July this year for the first time since 1905 not on the Champs-Elysees in the capital, but in Nice.
"You can't simply replace Paris and the sprint on the Champs-Elysees. So, firstly, we looked for a prestigious venue and found it in Nice and, secondly, we came up with something special," says Tour Director Christian Prudhomme and adds: "We hope that the gaps between the top riders in the overall standings will be so small until the final individual time trial on the final day that it will really remain exciting until the last second."
Tour de France: seconds poker instead of champagne mood?
In 1989, Laurent Fignon lost the Tour by seconds because his rival LeMond was years ahead of him. The US American conjured an aerodynamic helmet out of his sleeve and fitted his racing bike with special time trial handlebars, which until then had only been used by triathletes. LeMond flew from Versailles in the direction of the Champs-Elysees. Fignon, who started as the overall leader shortly after LeMond, didn't seem to be worried: 50 seconds was enough of a lead for him, the excellent time trialist, and not only he was convinced of this at the time. Fignon rode without a helmet - which was still normal at the time. His long blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, bobbed with every turn of the pedals.
Kilometre by kilometre, the lead melted away like butter in the sun. Soon the experts had done the maths: Greg LeMond had won the 24.5-kilometre time trial and thus the overall classification thanks to his equipment; the futuristic-looking teardrop helmet and the streamlined riding position due to the handlebars had given him the decisive advantage. The American raced through Paris at an average speed of 54.545 km/h; a new record. And the time trial, as it was held until the end of the 1980s, on largely identical and barely changed road bikes, became a discipline in its own right over time. Greg LeMond was more or less just the starting gun.
With the decision to end the Tour of France 2024 with an individual time trial, the tradition of the final stage has been suspended for at least a year. There will be no Tour d'Honneur that leads to the Champs-Elysees in a champagne mood, where the race for the coveted stage win picks up speed again. No rider will be travelling with a champagne glass in their hand during this year's 21st stage.
Favourites for overall victory
But who will be popping the corks after the time trial on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice? The top favourites for overall victory undoubtedly include Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), overall winner in 2020 and 2021, and his successor from the past two years, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) - provided he recovers fully and in good time from his crash at the Tour of the Basque Country and the resulting serious injuries.
However, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step), who will make his Tour debut in 2024, and Bora-Hansgrohe newcomer Primoz Roglic also fancy their chances of winning the Grande Boucle. All four have produced outstanding time trials in the past. Roglic was Olympic champion in Tokyo in 2021 and impressed in the opening time trial of this year's Tour of the Basque Country. Evenepoel is the reigning time trial world champion, while Pogacar once turned out to be a "prodigy in a league of his own" in the mountain time trial at the 2020 Tour in La Planche des Belles Filles.
"The time trial between Monaco and Nice is super interesting. I'm looking forward to it, but you have to reach it with really good legs," said Tadej Pogacar. Vingegaard in turn distanced Pogacar by more than a minute and a half in the only individual time trial of the 2023 Tour and already declared at the presentation of the route in October 2023: "If I have the legs from this year's Tour time trial, the time trials will suit me, if those from the Vuelta, then rather not."
The final stage on the Cote d'Azur is a tough 34-kilometre mountain time trial. After the start in the Principality of Monaco, the route leads up to La Turbie, 8.1 kilometres with an average gradient of 5.6 per cent, followed by the shorter but even tougher climb to the Col d'Eze at 8.1 per cent.
Specialists among the all-rounders
Incidentally, the first Tour de France mountain time trial took place around midday on 27 July 1939. In the morning, Tour director Henri Desgrange had already sent the riders on a 126-kilometre mountain stage before rushing them to a 63.5-kilometre individual time trial over the Col de l'Iseran at an altitude of 2764 metres. In the late afternoon, the riders were then allowed to "ride out" on a 106-kilometre flat stage. Looking back, the Sportinformationsdienst (SID) wrote that this day was "a case for Amnesty International".
Incidentally, the first "normal" time trial had already taken place five years earlier over a distance of 83 kilometres in the direction of Nantes and was won by Antonin Magne. Throughout the history of the Tour, there have always been proven time trial specialists who dominated the individual time trials in their overall victories and then "managed" their lead in the mountains. The Spaniard Miguel Indurain, who they called the "untouchable" or the "alien", was one such rider in the 1990s. TOUR once dubbed him the "computer on wheels".
Indurain didn't care. He said: "To win the Tour, you only have to attack once. But that has to be a knockout blow." Once the Spaniard had landed that in the time trial, tactics determined the rest of the tour. If one of his opponents got up again after the first knockout blow, Indurain would follow up with the decisive punch in the second time trial at the latest. The Spaniard, overall winner five times in a row between 1990 and 1995, won practically all individual time trials during this period, ten of his twelve Tour stage victories. Italian professional cyclist Gianni Bugno once said with regard to Indurain's time trial qualities that he saw "180 people and an alien" at the start of the 1994 Tour.
Time trialists at an advantage?
The Frenchman Jacques Anquetil, who was nicknamed "Monsieur Chrono" due to his outstanding qualities in the battle against the clock, was just as dominant as Indurain. In his five overall victories (1957 and 1961-1964), he did not lose a single time trial. And the Italian Fausto Coppi, "Il Campionissimo" ("The Champion of Champions"), who triumphed twice in the Tour and five times in the Giro d'Italia, also owed his victories in particular to his strength in the battle against the clock. He won the time trial during the 20th stage from Colmar to Nancy in 1949 with a lead of 7:02 minutes over second-placed Gino Bartali; to this day, this is the biggest difference between first and second place in a Tour time trial, although the race also covered a distance of 137 kilometres.
"With his long legs, which were compared to those of a heron, a short torso and a slightly arched back, Coppi merged with his bike to form an inseparable unit," reads a book about the "Campionissimo", who was one of the first professional cyclists to pursue his sport with almost scientific meticulousness: he read medical textbooks, always went to bed before 10 p.m., installed an exercise bike in his home and watched his diet. Anquetil, with his reputation as a bon vivant, had a different approach. He once explained: "To prepare for a race, there's nothing better than a delicious pheasant, some champagne and a woman."
Can only all-rounders win the Tour de France?
If you want to win the most important tour in the world, you have to excel in climbing and time trials; this is a "truisme", a truism that is as old as the contre-la-montre in the Tour. Only relatively rarely have pure mountain fleas reached Paris in the yellow jersey since the end of the Second World War. The Spaniard Federico Bahamontes in 1959, the Belgian Lucien van Impe in 1976 and of course Marco Pantani in 1998 were rather exceptions. Often enough before and after that memorable 23 July 1989, the overall classification was decided in the battle against the clock, and the duels on the penultimate day of the Tour of France often turned into a spectacle and had plenty of drama to offer.
In 2003, Jan Ullrich still had at least a theoretical chance of snatching the yellow jersey from Lance Armstrong on the penultimate stage of the individual time trial from Pornic to Nantes. Pouring rain turned the roads into a slippery surface. Ullrich crashed around 13 kilometres from the finish, but Armstrong took no more risks and finished third on the day. The dream of a second German Tour victory by Ullrich, which was more concrete than it had been for a long time in 2003, was over, despite Ullrich's good form that year and his outstanding time trial skills, which earned him two world championship titles and Olympic silver in Sydney in 2000.
Legendary: During his Tour victory in 1997, Ullrich overtook Richard Virenque, who had started three minutes ahead of him, in the 55-kilometre time trial over the Col de la Croix de Chaubouret. Incidentally, Indurain achieved something similar in 1994 when he rode up to a certain Lance Armstrong and left him standing like a schoolboy.
Drama at the Planche des Belles Filles
However, the series of time trials, the result of which caused a major shake-up in the Tour classification, is far from over. The drama at the Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges was just four years ago. Primoz Roglic, who had previously dominated the Tour with his former team Jumbo-Visma, started the time trial of the 20th and penultimate stage with a 57-second lead over his highly talented compatriot and Tour debutant Tadej Pogacar. Roglic had been wearing cycling's most coveted jersey since stage 9 and had already been seen cheering in the yellow jersey on the Champs-Elysees.
But 19 September 2020 (the Tour had started later in the year due to the coronavirus pandemic) went down in the history books - and it was a day to cry for Roglic. Because Pogacar mastered the 36.2 kilometre long and difficult mountain time trial as if from another planet. The then 21-year-old took 1:56 minutes from his compatriot, who was nine years his senior, and left for Paris with a 59-second lead on the Tour d'Honneur. A few minutes after the most bitter defeat of his career, he said: "I cried, and I'll cry some more." And then he went to Pogacar, hugged him and congratulated him.
The Italian Vito Favero fared similarly to Roglic in 1958. His lead over Luxembourg's Charly Gaul was seven seconds. The "Angel of the Mountains" was not even considered an outstanding time trialist, but took more than three minutes off Favero in the contre-la-montre and triumphed in Paris. Gaul, who later lived as a hermit in the Luxembourg forests for years, didn't like the angel thing anyway. He had always said: "I am not an angel; I am a warrior." Ten years later, it was the exorbitantly good time trial qualities of a certain Jan Janssen that led to a change in the yellow jersey - including on the final stage - and the first overall victory for a Dutchman in the Tour of France. Previously, Janssen had not worn the yellow jersey for a single day.
Turning point time trial at the Tour de France
The first Luxembourger to come close to winning the Tour since Charly Gaul was Andy Schleck in 2011, but Cadel Evans, who was 57 seconds behind the younger of the Schleck brothers before the time trial, proved to be the stronger in the battle against the clock in Grenoble, taking more than two and a half minutes off the man in yellow and becoming the first Australian to win the world's most important stage race.
And of course there were the riders who could do it all. Eddy Merckx, the cannibal, and Bernard Hinault, the badger, who each won the overall classification of the Tour five times thanks to their time trial skills. Strictly speaking, Hinault was actually the forerunner for LeMond, as he had already competed in the time trial for the first time in 1978 with a more aerodynamically designed bike and a nylon suit. Like Merckx and Hinault, the top favourites for 2024 can do both: they are first-class climbers and time trialists.
So what does it mean that a contre-la-montre will be held on the final stage in 2024 for the first time in decades? Tour boss Christian Prudhomme, whose name translates roughly as "clever, cautious man", has taken a risk. He will have done everything right if the leaders in the classification go into the final time trial with a gap of just a few seconds. But even if one of the stars already has a very clear lead over the chasers, this is no guarantee that they will still be wearing the yellow jersey at the finish in Nice - look it up in the rich history of the Tour de France.
