An epic long distance cycling competition held over three weeks in and around France. It has been held annually since 1903 (with a couple of breaks for the two [World War]?s) usually in July/August?.
Divided into stages, each stage is a race held over one day. Most stages take place in France though it is very common to have a few stages in nearby countries (in 2001 a few stages visited Belgium). Not every day is a race day, some are rest days (so there are more days than stages). The traditional finish is on the cobbled streets of the [Champs Elysees]?, Paris.
Stages are varied: ordinary road racing, mountain climbing, sprinting, time trial, team time trial.
There are several prizes to be had, and generally a coloured jersey is associated with each prize. The current holder of the prize is entitled to wear the jersey when they are racing.
The yellow jersey is most prized. Awarded on the basis of overall time (time for all the stages raced so far added together).
The green jersey is awarded for sprint points. At the end of each stage, points for this jersey are gained by the riders who finish first, second etcetera. The number of points depends on the type of stage - many for a flat stage, a bit less for an intermediate stage, less yet for a mountaineous stage, and the least for time trials. There are also a few points for the riders who are first at some intermediate points, usually about 2 per stage. At those intermediate points (as well as at the finish) there are also bonus seconds for the yellow jersey, but those are so few that they rarely if ever have an influence on the final standings. They do however play a role in the first week, before the mountain stages.
The mountain king wears the white jersey with red dots. At the top of each climb in the Tour, there are points for the rider who is the first on the top. The climbs are divided into categories from 1 (most difficult) to 4 (least difficult) based on their difficulty, measured as a function of their steepness and length. A fifth category, called Hors category (outside category) is formed by mountains even more difficult than those of the first category.
Two lesser classifications are that for the white jersey, which is like the yellow jersey, but only open for young riders below a certain age, and that for the red number, which goes to the most combattive rider. Each day, a group of people gives points to riders that rode very attacking that day. The rider with most points in total gets a red (instead of black) identification number.
Finally, there is a teams classification. For this classification, the added time of the first three riders of each team on each stage is counted. Usually, the Tour has 20 teams of 9 riders each (when starting).
/2001 - an overview of the Tour de France of 2001
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