Statistics
One rider has been King of the Mountains, won the combination classification, combativity award, the points competition, and the Tour in the same year—Eddy Merckx in 1969, which was also the first year he participated.
Twice the Tour was won by a racer who never wore the yellow jersey until the race was over. In 1947, Jean Robic overturned a three-minute deficit on a 257 km final stage into Paris. In 1968, Jan Janssen of the Netherlands secured his win in the individual time trial on the last day.
The Tour has been won three times by racers who led the general classification on the first stage and holding the lead all the way to Paris. Maurice Garin did it during the Tour's very first edition, 1903; he repeated the feat the next year, but the results were nullified by the officials as a response to widespread cheating. Ottavio Bottechia completed a GC start-to-finish sweep in 1924. And in 1928, Nicolas Frantz held the GC for the entire race, and at the end, the podium consisted solely of members of his racing team. While no one has equalled this feat since '28, four times a racer has taken over the GC lead on the second stage and carried that lead all the way to Paris.
René Pottier, Roger Lapébie, Sylvère Maes and Fausto Coppi all won the Tour de France the last time they appeared in the race.
Read more about this topic: Tour De France
Famous quotes containing the word statistics:
“We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)
“Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about “character issues.” Either that or just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and pie-eating contests. It would make better TV.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“and Olaf, too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me: more blond than you.”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)