The 2005 Tour de France was the 92nd Tour de France, taking place from July 2 to July 24, 2005. It comprised 21 stages over 3592.5 km, the winner's average speed was 41.654 km/h. The first stages were held in the département of the Vendée, for the third time in 12 years. The 2005 Tour was announced on October 28, 2004. It was a clockwise route, visiting the Alps before the Pyrenees. Lance Armstrong took the top step on the podium, for what was then the seventh consecutive time. He was accompanied on the podium by Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, but in 2012 Ullrich's results were annulled. The points classification was won by Thor Hushovd, and the mountains classification by Michael Rasmussen.
On 24 August 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his victory in the 2005 Tour de France. The Union Cycliste Internationale, responsible for the international cycling, confirmed the decision on 22 October 2012 and stripped Armstrong of all his Tour titles . The UCI later announced that no other placings would be changed as a result, meaning that the first place and third place positions will be left blank in the record books.
The race was seen by 15 million spectators along the road, and by 2 billion viewers on TV.
Read more about 2005 Tour De France: Route, Participants, Favourites, Race Details, Stages, Classification Leadership, Doping Cases
Famous quotes containing the words tour and/or france:
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war!”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)