The 111th edition of the Tour de France is under way. The race is one of the three grand tours – the others being the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España – that form the backbone around which the cycling season is structured.
Jonas Vingegaard has won the Tour de France after the Jumbo-Visma rider completed the 21-stage race 7min 29sec faster than runner-up Tadej Pogacar in Paris on Sunday.
Cyclists such as sprint world champion Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor were early stars of the sport in the US. But many felt compelled to move abroad
History was made at the Tour de France on Monday, but in the end it was not Mark Cavendish who made it. The Manx rider, chasing the 35th stage win which would make him the most successful Tour stage winner of all time, was one of a number of sprinters caught out by a late crash on the first bunch sprint of the race into Turin. Instead, it was Biniam Girmay, a 24-year-old Eritrean, who entered cycling’s record books, becoming the first black African to win a stage of the sport’s greatest race.