Tour de France 2023

The 2023 Tour de France will be the 110th edition of the world's biggest bike race, and will take place from July 1-23. 

The race will start over the border in Spain, with the Basque Country hosting the Grand Départ and opening three stages. The race will finish in Paris after 21 stages and two rest days.

Tour de France 2023 route

The full 2023 Tour de France route was revealed at the official Tour de France presentation on 27th October.

The race starts across the border in the Basque Country, the first time the race has started there since 1992. A handful of hilly stages open the action before the race crosses the Pyrenees into France.

The route features only 22km of time trialling, all coming on the hilly stage 16. Four summit finishes also feature, including the Puy de Dôme for the first time in 35 years and the Grand Colombier in the Pyrenees.

The mountainous course brings a tough final week, concluding with a final showdown in the Vosges to Le Markstein on stage 20.

Tour de France 2023 contenders

2022 champion Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) will return to defend his title after dispatching two-time winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) last July. The Slovenian is racing after recovering from a fractured wrist in April, while Vingegaard starts off the back of the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Other big-name GC men lining up at the start in Bilbao include David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Enric Mas (Movistar), Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), and Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious).

See: Tour de France 2023 – Analysing the contenders

Tour de France 2023 teams

The 2023 Tour de France will be made up of 22 teams, 18 WorldTour teams, the two top-ranked second-division teams, and two discretionary wild-card teams.

Lotto Soudal and TotalEnergies made the cut as the best ProTeams of 2022, while Israel-Premier Tech and Uno-X were chosen as the two wildcard teams for the 2023 Tour de France.

Tour de France 2023 schedule

Tour de France history

Jonas Vingegaard is the reigning champion, having won his first Tour de France in 2022. The Danish rider denied Tadej Pogačar a trio of consecutive victories, the Slovenian having snatched the 2020 title before dominating the 2021 race. 

Pogačar himself broke a Ineos/Sky stranglehold on the race, with the British team having won seven of the previous eight Tours de France with Egan Bernal, Geraint Thomas, Bradley Wiggins and four-time winner Chris Froome. Vincenzo Nibali, then riding for Astana, was the other man to break the British squad's dominance with a win in 2014.

The Tour wins record is currently held by four men, with Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain all on five titles.

Peter Sagan getting once dominated the green jersey for the points classification but has been usurped in the past three years, with Wout van Aert establishing himself as the dominant man of all terrains in 2022. Sagan still holds the all-time green jersey record with seven wins in nine participations. Erik Zabel's six jerseys lie second, ahead of Sean Kelly's four.

In addition to his yellow jersey, Vingegaard won the polka-dot jersey for the mountains classification in 2022, as Pogačar did the previous two years.  Richard Virenque holds the record for polka dot jersey wins at seven, and it won't be beaten anytime soon as Pogačar and Rafał Majka are the only current riders to have won more than one king of the mountains title, with two.

Pogačar has won the white jersey for best young rider three years in a row and, at 24, is still eligible for a fourth crack in 2023.

Read on for a list of the riders with the most wins of the Tour de France, the most stage wins, as well as the major jerseys.

Tour de France records

Most Tour de France overall wins

• 5 – Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain
• 4 – Chris Froome
• 3 – Phiilippe Thys, Louison Bobet, Greg LeMond
• 2 – Lucien Petit-Breton, Firmin Lambot, Ottavio Bottecchia, Nicolas Frantz, André Leducq, Antonin Magne, Sylvère Maes, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, Bernard Thévenet, Laurent Fignon, Alberto Contador, Tadej Pogačar
• 1 – Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal, Jonas Vingegaard

Most Tour de France stage wins

• 34 – Eddy Merckx, Mark Cavendish
• 28 – Bernard Hinault
• 25 – André Leducq
• 22 – André Darrigade
• 20 – Nicolas Frantz
• 19 – François Faber
• 17 – Jean Alavoine
• 16 – Jacques Anquetiil, René Le Grevès, Charles Pélissiier
  ...
• 12 – Peter Sagan
• 11 – André Greipel
• 9 – Tadej Pogačar, Wout van Aert
• 7 – Chris Froome

Most Tour de France points classification/green jersey wins

• 7 – Peter Sagan
• 6 – Erik Zabel
• 4 – Sean Kelly
• 3 – Jan Janssen, Eddy Merckx, Freddy Maertens, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Robbie McEwen
• 2 – Stan Ockers, Jean Graczyk, André Darrigade, Laurent Jalabert, Thor Hushovd, Mark Cavendish
• 1 – Michael Matthews, Sam Bennett, Wout van Aert

Most Tour de France polka dot jersey/mountains classification wins

• 7 – Richard Virenque
• 6 – Federico Bahamontes, Lucien Van Impe 
• 3 – Julio Jiménez
• 2 – Felicien Vervaecke, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, Charly Gaul, Imerio Massignan, Eddy Merckx, Luis Herrera, Claudio Chiappucci, Laurent Jalabert, Michael Rasmussen, Rafał Majka, Tadej Pogačar
• 1 – Nairo Quintana, Chris Froome, Warren Barguil, Julian Alaphilippe, Romain Bardet, Jonas Vingegaard