Information about the Tour de France

Somewhere in 2008, I read that Richard Virenque was one of the few riders who had won stages in the Tour de France ten years apart. There was also a list of riders who also achieved that. I wondered if that list was correct, and who won stages the most years apart. So I started to look for more information.

I could not find this information. So I decided to make my own. I made an overview os stage winners, and their birth dates. Because the leader of the general classification was easy to find, I also added them, and I made my overview of stage winners and general classification leaders complete.

Later, I wondered what the corresponding statistics were for the points classification and the mountains classification. I could find a list with leaders for most years, so I added them, and started the lists of leaders of the points classification and leaders of the mountains classification.

To find the missing leaders of the mountains classification, I decided to find the mountain pass results, to I could calculate this classification myself. And thus, I made the overview of mountain passes.

The logical next steps were the intermediate sprints classification and the young rider classification. To complete the intermediate sprints classification, I needed to find results of intermediate sprints.

Information of the intermediate sprints classification was not easy to find, but in most years there ws a link with the points classification, and I could use this to find missing information. To do that, I needed to calculate the points classification results, so I did this.

To calculate results in the points classifications, I needed stage results, so I started adding them. This forced me to add all riders who ever rode in the Tour de France. A lot of work, but with some programming tricks it did not take much time.

And this also enabled me to generate all results for the general classification and the team classification, while finding out all classification rule details. And in the end, this may have become the most complete website of the Tour de France. It ahs information about the classification for the most complete rider in 1939, the different categories of riders before World War II, the winners of the combativity award, and so on, see the menu.

I also added information about the Giro and the Vuelta. I don't think they will ever be as complete as the Tour, but they may still be the most complete in the world.

Comparison with other websites

The official Tour de France website

The official Tour de France website has mainly information about the upcoming Tour. There is also some information about the history, but this is incomplete and has several mistakes.

Memoire du cyclisme

Memoire du cyclisme has a much better overview of the Tour de France, but is limited to participants, stage results and the general classification. I took a lot of information from them, mainly for the stage results, but I needed to make several improvements. Some riders were missing in results, some riders were shown twice. Also the intermediate results in the general classification were mostly limited to the top fifteen, and they were also sometimes wrong. In my overview I made a check by adding up the stage results (compensating for time bonuses and penalties) and comparing the outcome to the general classification, see my overview of unexplained differences in the general classification. It may seem like I have a lot of unexplained differences, but the differences for memoire du cyclisme are much larger. (Later, Memoire du Cyclisme has been busy to add information, which makes it a lot completer.)

Cyclingarchives

Cyclingarchives is very good in their rider database. They also have results, but regarding the Tour de France they are not so special. The names in my database are 95% taken from them.

Tourfacts

Tourfacts has a lot of Tour statistics, also taken from a database. This site had a lot of potential for the future, and just needed some sort of check, because I found several obvious errors. If I remember correctly, I only took a little bit from this website. I can not open this page anymore, it seems to have gone offline since.

ProCyclingStats

ProCyclingStats is my favourite website for recent Tours. It has detailed information on what happened in a stage, and full results shown in an accessible way. Go there if you wnat to find out what happened in the last Tour, don't try to find that on my website.

Unique features of my website

The three most important features of this website: it is dynamic, complete and honest.

  1. Everything is taken from a database, so it is dynamic. In other words: after the results from the next Tour de France are added, all tables will automatically be up to date, and no overview is accidentally oudated.
  2. All stage result, mountain pass results and intermediate sprint results are shown in the database, and I can calculate classification results and compare them to what other sources say. I clearly indicated differnces.
  3. I am honest about missing information. Memoire du cyclisme has errors in their stage results, but does not indicate this. I am honest about where information is missing, and where information is conflicting.

Some other websites have one (or even two) of these features, but I have not seen all three together.

Next to that, this website is (as far as I know) unique in other aspects:

Privacy of top sporters

On this page, I list personal information for every rider who participated in the Tour (or registered, didn't start, but already had a race number): their name, nationality, date of birth, and date of death. Everyone, including top athletes, has the right to privacy, and such personal data is generally not publicly available. I believe I have good reasons to disclose it here.

First of all: the right to protection of personal data applies only to living individuals. Because I know for certain that no participant from the Grand Tours before 1930 is still alive (and according to other experts, no one from the Tours up to and including 1934 is still alive), this point is irrelevant for the early Tours.

Theoretically, it could have been relevant from 1930 onward (and probably from 1934 onward). At that time, it was clear to everyone that the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta were events with a lot of media attention. Every participant must have realized that their name and nationality would appear in the newspapers. Also, the participants in the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta at that time were professional cyclists. Even riders in the "touristes-routiers" category, or individuals, were, in practice, mainly (and perhaps entirely) professional. It is theoretically possible that some cyclists who registered individually for the Giro or Vuelta are still alive but never became professional cyclists. These are automatically riders about whom very little information is available: often no date of birth and sometimes not even their full name. So, if there are any riders whose personal data I should not disclose for privacy reasons, I automatically withhold their personal data because I couldn't find them.

Note: the above consideration does not automatically apply to all sports results. If any participants from the first Tour had been alive, I believe I should not have disclosed their personal data without permission. Perhaps they were embarrassed to have dropped out in the first stage. Some riders in the first Tours rode under pseudonyms if they wanted to keep their participation secret for whatever reason.

Even if it were a semi-professional event where normally only the winner is mentioned, I don't think it's justified to show the personal data of all participants.

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