Tour de France 2023 - Stats

Every Tour de France is full of stories. Stories based on special performances and individual experiences. This blog features stats of the 2023 Tour de France.

by Daniël (@StatsOnCycling)

Let's start with a stat about the Tour of 2022, when 3 different riders won a stage while wearing the yellow jersey. This did not happen before in the history of the Tour de France. Wout van Aert got wings while cruising to Calais in his 'maillot jaune' (stage 4), Pogacar won in his yellow jersey at the Super-Plance des Belles (stage 7) and Vingegaard took the win as GC leader at the top of Hautacam (stage 20). Thanks to @VeloStatistics we know it happend 10 times before that 2 riders won a stage in yellow, last time in 2007 (Rasmussen and Cancellara).

4 riders with 5 GC-wins

The stage-win at Hautacam was the final touch of Vingegaard. He finished at the podium of the Tour de Farnce for the second time in a row, but before Pogacar this time. If we exclude the 7 GC-wins of Armstrong, 4 riders hold the record of 5 Tour de France victories: Merckx, Anquetil, Hinault and Indurain. Froome is the only rider wit 4 GC wins. Still there is a different rider, who never won the Tour, with most podium-results: Raymond Poulidor. The grandfather of Mathieu van der Poel never received the yellow jersey and never won the Tour, but finished 3 times 2nd and 5 times third. Joop Zoetemelk is close with 1 victory and 6 second places.

More than 400 stages for Zoetemelk

Zoetemelk finisht all 16 Tours he started and raced 401 stages, most of all riders since complete stats are available at ProCyclingStats (since 1960). Lucien Van Impe (383) and Sylvain Chavanel (who started most Tour de France edtions: 18) came close to Zoetemelk's amount. Among active pros, Erviti started most stages (257), followed by Geraint Thomas (240) and Boasson Hagen (238).

Only is his final 2 Tours ( 1985+86) Zoetemelk did not finish top-10 in a stage of the Tour de France. Poulidor and Kelly succeeded to finish top-10 in all Tours they started (14). Among the active pros, Bauke Mollema is at 12 Tour de France participations, all with a stage top-10, together with Sean Kelly. Unfortunately Mollema will not get a shot at his 13th Tour de France in a row. Moreover, in all 22 GrandTours Bauke started, he finished top-10 in at least 1 stage. Only Svorada (24) and McEwen (26) raced more GrandTours in which they finished top-10. In 2023, Sagan could finish top-10 in a stage in his 18th Grand Tour participation.

The quest for #35

One of big stories of the upcoming Tour de France will be the quest for Mark Cavendish' 35th Tour de France stgewin. Together with Eddy Merckx, 'The Manx Missile' holds the record of 34 stage-wins in the biggest race on the calendar. With 4 stage-wins in 2021 Cavendish equalled Merckx and he needs one more to become the sole record holder. Behind those 2 riders, Hinault won 28 stages and Leducq has 35 stage-wins in the Tour. 

In the past 4 GTs Cav started he won a stage. Stage 21 in Giro'23 was his 17th GrandTour with a stage-win (out of 20). Only Merckx (63) and Cipollini (57) won more GT-stages than Cav (54). Mario is the only rider who won a stage in more different GrandTours (20) than Cavendish (17). 

Tour de France 2023: route

Looking at this year's Tour de France route, 2 things stand out. First, rider will only race 22,6 kilometer against the clock. In the past 10 seasons there is a declining trend in the number ITT-kilometers in big races and also the number of Individual Time Trials is decreasing year by year. 2014 ITTs featured on average 22 kilometers, this year an average ITT is about 16,5K. The number of ITT at the highest level gradually declined from 27 between 2010 and 2015 to 20 in the past couple of seasons.

Second, only two stages of TdF'23 will be longer than 200 kilometers. The longest stage is 209K, the shortest longest stage in the history of the Tour de France. On the contrary, the number of short mountainous stages is increasing. The average profile-score of this Tour is higher than any edition since 2005, except 2020. It is a clear trend that Tour de France stages become more difficult, even though Giro and Vuelta stages were still remarkably harder in the past 10 seasons.

Tour de France 2023: peformances and startlist

Some facts on the 2023 Tour de France:

• Riders who could complete their trilogy of stage-wins in the Tour (stage-win in Giro, Tour and Vuelta):  Landa, Carapaz, Chaves and Arndt.
• Starlist of the Tour de France is the strongest of the season, over and over again. This year, startlist quality is 50% larger than any other race.
• Sanchez is with 39 years and 219 days the youngest oldest participant since 2019 (Lars Ytting Bak).
• Quinn Simmons is with 22 years and 54 days the oldest youngest competitor since 2009 (Uran).
• 36 riders will make their debut this Tour (Reinders and Pedrero being the oldest with 31 years of age).
• France awaits 38 years for their next Tour victory, Netherlands 43 years and Belgium even longer: 47 years.
• Only 8 Italians will race Tour 2023, smalles number since 1984.
• Spain is waiting for their next stage-winner since 2018 (Fraile) and Italy is waiting since 2019 (Nibali).
• Uno-X is the youngest team at the start with 27 years and 91 days on average.
• Uno-X gets to the start with 89% of maximum squad-strength, INEOS Grenadiers is with 43% the weakest possible team of all participating teams (but their 8 riders still scored 11th most UCI-points of all teams in the past 12 months).
• Coquard (51 wins) and Adam Yates (21 pro-wins) are participans who won most races while never winning a Grand Tour stage in their careers.

Tour de France 2023: Pog-stats.

Pogacar received the white leaders jersey after 54 stages in the 3 Tours he started. He is still younger than 25 this season ans therewith going for his 4th white jersey. Ullrich was leading the Youth GC after 55 stages.

In his first 3 Tour de France participations, Tadej Pogacar won 3 stages in each. Only 6 riders have more TdF-editions with 3+ stage-wins. Cavendish is leading with 7 Tour editions with 3+ stage-wins. Will Pogacar add a 4th Tour de France with at least 3 stage wins? We have a lot to look forward to.