14 Incredible Facts You Need To Know About The Tour De France

The Tour de France is the world's largest annual sporting event. This year, the competition is running from July 5 to July 27 and covers 3,664 kilometers over 21 stages. A total of 198 riders will take part in the race with 22 teams of nine. But what do you really know about the Tour de France? Check out these 14 incredible facts:

1. The Tour de France course is 2,276 miles long this year, which is further than from London to Tel Aviv.

©Ouest France

2. Soon, sheep will replace cameramen on the Tour de France.

©Sony

This year the tour started in England, though it is not the first time (1974, 1994, 2007). Yet, no one has ever trusted a British sheep with a camera as Sony did when promoting their new camera. Here’s our favorite!

3. Half the world’s population watches TV coverage of the Tour.

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Say thank you to the 2,000 accredited journalists following the race from 600 media organizations.

4. Much of the Tour’s fame is accredited to controversial cheating. The first winner blazed the trail being disqualified for taking the train!

©LBC

Nice try Maurice Garin!

5. The first Tour de France was in 1903. It was counting only 6 stages, attracted 70 entrants… and was ridden during the night!

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Why don’t they ride at night today? The Tour bosses dropped night riding sections as they felt they could not trust riders in the dark (refer to Maurice).

6. There’s a big difference between the rider’s diets from before to now.

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In the 20′s, the riders could have a cigarette while racing and prior the 60s could enjoy getting a bit tipsy to make the ride easier. The boozy cyclists had to stop because a law was passed stopping sportsmen using stimulants when competing.

7. There is a total of 2,877,705 Euros in prize money handed out throughout the entire Tour.

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And for the winner of the race? He receives a purse of €450,000.

8. If riders ate fast food, they would need to eat 12 Big Macs per day.

©La boite verte

A rider burns nearly 124,000 calories over the course of the Tour. That works out to be roughly 6,526 calories per day of energy expended.

9.The Tour de France inspired Freddie Mercury to write the song Bicycle Race in 1978.

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Even Queen loves bicycle!

10. With 36 wins the French are the most titled riders in the Tour history.

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11. The heaviest rider to take part in Le Tour de France was Sweden’s Magnus Backstedt at 97kg, a.k.a. “Big Maggy”.

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Most cyclists who race in the Tour de France are slim and light, except BM! On the contrary, the least heavy cyclist was Leonardo Piepoli who weighed just 57kgs.

12. 15 million spectators hit the route of the Tour every year. Don’t miss the legend: El Diablo.

©Philip Van der Vossen

With a white beard, a pitchfork and a devil costume, he runs by the riders for some meters with great boldness. His name is Didi Senft, a sixty year old German bike maker. Be careful! He’s also present at the World Cup and during the Olympic Games.

13. One would think most see the tour to support the riders, but in reality half just come for the free stuff.

©Sport Buzz Business

The information is not from us! A survey showed 15 million gifts were distributed last year. Now we understand why there are 15 million spectators…

14.The maillot jaune comes from the yellow pages of the French newspaper L’Auto-Vélo.

©Pascal Pavani

The Tour de France was created as a promotion for the French newspaper L’Auto-Velo. Because the pages of the paper were yellow, race organizers designated that the race leader’s jersey should be yellow, too.