Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
2009 Tour de France: An Online Viewers Guide
The 2009 Tour de France begins on July 3 in Monaco and has 21 stages finishing after 2,200 miles in Paris on the Champs Élysées. For those of you who are keeping track France has the most Tour de France wins with 36, Belgium takes second with 18 wins, Spain third with 11 and the United States is fourth with 10. This year’s tour visits the Principality of Monaco, Spain, the Principality of Andorra and Switzerland.
The Tour de France was the brainchild of journalist, Géo Lefèvre, who thought up the Tour as a way to promote the newly launched L’Auto Magazine. L’Auto Magazine was launched as a rival to Le Velo, the first daily sports newspaper in France. At the time of the L’Auto’s launch, The Dreyfus Affair was splitting the country into two divided fractions. Alfred Dreyfus, a french soldier, was found guilty of selling secrets to the Germans in 1895, and the debate over his innocence was taking place in papers across the country. Le Velo was advocating Dreyfus’s innocence, and many regular advertisers for Le Velo, outraged at Le Velo’s support for Dreyfus, started a rival paper L’Auto and the Tour was born as a way to promote the new rag.
There are overall four different types of Jersey’s that are awarded for different accomplishments:
* Yellow Jersey: General Classificaton Leader – which means that although each stage has a winner, the yellow jersey goes to the rider who has the fastest combined times in all of the stages.
* Green Jersey: Points Standings – awarded for sprint points at the end of each stage to the rider who is the leader of the points standings. Points are awarded to the fastest riders in each stage, and points vary depending on the terrain of the stage. More points are awarded for flat road racing stages and less for mountain stages.
* Red-Polka Dotted Jersey: Is called the King of the Mountains, and is awarded to the best climber.
* White Jersey: Young Rider Standings – awarded to the best rider under 25 years of age on January 1st of that year.
In addition to the Jersey’s are two other distinctions made by attire:
* Yellow Cap: Leaders of the Teams – is given to the riders of the team who is leading the team standings.
* Red Number: Fighting Spirit Standings or Combativity Award – is awarded to the rider who displays the most effort and sportsmanship or is considered the most aggressive and “attacking” rider.
Tour de France online coverage
Official Tour de France web page
Versus TV web page – official site for US
Tour de France TV Schedule on Versus
SteepHill.TV – the most complete coverage we know of
Cycling News
Velo News Tour de France Coverage
Cycle Sport Magazine
Bicycling Magazine Tour de France coverage
Bike Radar
Daily Peloton
Team Web sites
AG2R
Agritubel
Astana
BBOX Bouygues Telecom
Caisse D’Epargne
Cervelo Testteam
Cofidis
Team Columbia High Road
Euskaltel-Euskadi
Francaise Des Jeux
Garmin-Slipstream
Team Katusha
Lampre-N.G.C.
Liquigas
Team Milram
Quick Step
RaboBank
Saxo Bank
Silence-Lotto
Skil-Shimano
Twitter pages
Lance Armstrong Twitter page Updates all the time
Chris Horner Twitter page
Levi Leipheimer Twitter page
Johan Bruyneel Twitter page
ESPN Cycling Twitter page
VeloNews Twitter page
Versus TV Twitter page
Craig Hummer Twitter page
Pro Cycling Magazine Twitter page
Garmin Slipstream Twitter page
David Zabriskie Twitter page
Christian Vande Velde Twitter page
Jonathan Vaughters Twitter page Probably most interesting
Random Sites
Phil Liggett Fan Page
Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Tour tracker
Special thanks to LiveStrong and Getty Images for providing all photographs used.
