The green jersey is awarded for sprint points. At certain points in a stage there might be a sprint checkpoint. The first few to cross the checkpoint are awarded sprint points, the person with the most sprint points so far can wear the green jersey. Often a group of cyclists approach a checkpoint together resulting in a furious sprint for the prized points, sometimes the whole peleton approaches a sprint checkpoint together and things can get very dangerous. |
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. Mountainous stages have checkpoints that award mountain points, the person with the most is the mountain king. |
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. |
/2001? - an overview of the Tour de France of 2001 |
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 |