1999 Tour de France

The 86th Tour de France took place from 3rd to 25th July 1999 led to 20 stages over 3687 km. It was attended by 180 racers part in it, of which 141 were classified.

Starting position

There was the rare constellation that not a single Tour winner took: While defending champion Marco Pantani was missing after his few weeks earlier carried Exclusion from Giro d' Italia because of doping suspicion, had the two Tour winners of 1996 and 1997, Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich, their Start cancel injury.

Race course

The first week of the Tour was dominated by the sprinters: The first seven stages each ended in a bunch sprint, four of them in a row was the superior Mario Cipollini decide for themselves what Charles Pélissier in 1930 succeeded previously only. The fourth part of the day to Blois Cipollini won it with the fastest up to that time ever driven an average speed of 50.355 km / h A stage previously had a capital massive crash on the Passage du Gois infamous ( a narrow, slippery road directly on the Atlantic coast, submerged at high tide ) the field torn into two large groups and numerous favorites thrown back far. With six minutes behind and the subsequent second and third overall, Alex Zülle and Fernando Escartin came to the finish.

The prelude prologue won Lance Armstrong ( U.S. Postal ), who had just two years earlier survived a life-threatening testicular cancer. The American, world champion in 1993 and a previously more typical classic driver, since his comeback practiced a style of driving with a relatively high cadence ( "spinning " ), which he obviously brought in time trials and in the mountain stages new "qualities". This was Armstrong prove that he decided both each before the actual tour favorites Alex Zülle for itself and beyond the leadership earned him in the overall standings from the very first individual time trial and the subsequent Alpine stage. Lance Armstrong, which lost no time in contrast to its direct competitor to the yellow jersey by the events on the third leg, defended his comparatively clear lead in the individual competition in the subsequent stages, and finally in Paris celebrated by many observers "Comeback of the century " to successfully complete.

The popular mountain top finish at L' Alpe d' Huez ( stage 10 ) won the Team Telekom rider Giuseppe Guerini, who had been brought down just before the finish of a spectator. Erik Zabel took no stage win for the fourth time the green jersey, Richard Virenque - in the previous year the center of the doping scandal involving his former team Festina - won their fifth victory in the mountains classification. For the first time since 1926, won a single stage for no Frenchman.

Doping

On 23 August 2005 doping rumors about the Tour winner Lance Armstrong were loud. The French sports newspaper L' Équipe published that they had detected in six urine samples Armstrong in 1999 the banned blood doping agent EPO. The urine samples were examined retrospectively in 2004. In 1999, the doping is not noticed because you have not yet have the appropriate EPO detection methods. The A sample of that time was indeed destroyed, but you can have Armstrong on lead based on the B sample preserved.

September 12, 2006 stood two former teammates of Lance Armstrong that they were doped during his Tour victory. Franckie Andreu and a former professional U.S. Postal, who wished to remain anonymous, operated according to the New York Times during the 1999 Tour de France EPO doping. The fact that Armstrong had doped, both could not rule out that they had it but not at least noticed.

On October 22, 2012 Cycling Union UCI announced the cancellation of all titles Armstrong since 1 August 1998. Among the victory of the American Tour de France 1999. Substitutes fell in the first place have not been used.

The stages

Jerseys in the itinerary

The table shows the leaders in their respective standings at the start of each stage.

All teams and drivers

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

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