1976 Tour de France

The 63rd Tour de France took place from 24 June to 18 July 1976 and resulted in 22 stages over 4016 km. The five-time winner Eddy Merckx did not go to the start, the Frenchman Bernard Thévenet was in a weaker form than when he won last year, he finally gave up on the 19th stage. It was attended by 130 racers participated in the tour, of which 87 were classified.

Race course

The Belgian Freddy Maertens won the prologue and the first stage and was able to defend the yellow jersey until the eighth stage. A total succeeded Maertens to win eight stages, so he set the record of Charles Pélissier and Eddy Merckx one, where it was also able to win in 1930 and 1974 respectively eight stages at the Tour de France. The Belgians also contributed from the first to the last day of the green jersey and won the scoring by a wide margin.

On the stage to L' Alpe d' Huez, the Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk won before the Belgian Lucien Van Impe, who took over the overall lead. The next day went to the stage victory at Zoetemelk, Van Impe but lost only a second to the Dutch.

Raymond Delisle won the 12th stage after Pyrénées 2000 after a solo flight and took over the yellow jersey. However, after only two stages he had to cede back to Van Impe, the. , The 14th stage with a lead of over three minutes on the stage Second, Zoetemelk, decided in his favor Van Impe won the Tour at the end before Joop Zoetemelk and the 40 -year-old Raymond Poulidor. The Frenchman made ​​his announcement from the previous year so true to achieve during his last tour again a podium finish. 1975 Poulidor had reached only the 19th place in the standings because of bronchitis.

The mountain jersey won Giancarlo Bellini with one point ahead of Tour winner Van Impe, who previously won three times the mountain classification for itself.

On the stage to Manosque drove the Spaniard José - Luis Viejo, who played no role in the overall standings, out a distance of 22:50 minutes. His solo flight over 160 kilometers made ​​him the winner of a stage with the biggest winning margin in the history of the Tour de France.

The stages

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