The Tour de France, also called “The Grand Boucle”, is a professional stage cycling tour, which takes place throughout French territory. It is celebrated in July and belongs to the UCI WorldTour calendar, the highest category of professional careers.

Le Tour de France

It is considered the most important race in the world. The Tour was played for the first time in 1903 when Géo Lefèvre and Henri Desgrange, chronicler and director of the newspaper L ‘Auto respectively, devised a cycling race in stages throughout his country, whose main objective was to increase the sale of newspapers.

In previous years they noticed that when they covered cycling events, the circulation of L ‘Auto increased significantly. It was then that Lefèvre thought that the newspaper would organize his own career. This proposal was made to Desgrange who immediately accepted, he found the creation of his chronicler so attractive, that he did not hesitate to become the director of the test, which he called “Tour de France”.

The story tells that on February 16 of that 1903 they published on the first page the news of the Tour, promoting its realization: “Next May, the first Tour of France will be held, it will consist of six stages, with a total of 2,428 kilometers and will be endowed with 20,000 gold francs of prizes “.

On July 9, 1903, the first Tour had its departure in Paris, where 60 cyclists – with very humble clothes and bicycles – started pedaling towards Lyon, the initial stage that consisted of 467 kilometers.

The first winner of the ‘Grand Boucle’, a name by which the Tour de France is still known today, was a French chimney sweep of Italian origin called Maurice Garin, who won 6,075 francs.

Nobody imagined that the most important and legendary cycling race in the world had just been born.