1989 Tour de France

The 76th Tour de France was held to 23 July 1989 of 1 July. It led into 21 stages over 3285 km, and was thus one of the most shortened sweeps. It was attended by 198 racers participated in this tour, of which 138 were classified.

On this tour there was the closest decision in the history of the Tour. Greg LeMond won the lead with eight seconds on his French counterpart Laurent Fignon. Before the last stage, a time trial with target on the Paris Avenue des Champs- Élysées, Fignon led with 50 seconds ahead. LeMond eventually won by 58 seconds, the time trial - and with eight seconds overall. Since 1989, the tour never ended again with a time trial.

Race course

The prologue in Luxembourg, the defending champion Pedro Delgado missed his start, curiously, by more than two and a half minutes. At the end of three weeks Delgado was still third.

After the first leg Acacio da Silva took over the yellow jersey from prologue winner Erik Breukink and was the first Portuguese in yellow.

On the 5th stage LeMond rode the time trial the yellow jersey of the leader, Fignon took it on the 10th stage from. After Stage 15 LeMond was for two days in front again before Fignon won back the jersey on Stage 17. The distance was at no time the race more than a minute.

The later five-time winner Miguel Indurain finished his first tour as a 17 and could win a stage.

Stages

All teams and drivers

A: task during the stage, NA: non-runner to stage, S: Suspended / excluded timeouts: timeout