1966 Tour de France

The 1966 Tour de France was the 53rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 21 June and 14 July, with 22 stages covering a distance of 4329 km.

Lucien Aimar was a domestique of 5-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil. Aimar joined a breakaway in the middle of the tour and ended up on the leader board. Anquetil then began helping Aimar win the Tour, to make sure and deny it to his then-enemy Raymond Poulidor. After stage 18 Aimar's victory was certain barring disaster. Anquetil rode hard that day to ensure it and then quit the race.

The points classification was won by Willy Planckaert, and the mountains classification by Julio Jiménez. The team classification was won by.

During the Tour, word spread that there was going to be a dope test, and many riders left their hotels to avoid the tests. As a protest against the tests, riders staged a strike during stage nine, dismounting and walking their bicycles. Eventually they started riding again, but only after arguing with officials.

Teams
As in the years before, the 1966 Tour de France was run with trade teams; each trade team consisted of 10 cyclists, and at least six of them needed to have the same nationality. The Tour organisation had full control over the team selection.

Initially, there would be only two Belgian teams, but one month before the Tour it was decided that three Belgian teams would be fielded, with the Smiths team being the late addition. Shortly after this, a medical test showed Felice Gimondi, winner of the 1965 Tour de France, could not defend his title because he was physically not fit; his team then decided not to start at all, so the number of teams was back to thirteen.

The organisers then invited the Italian team (headed by Italo Zilioli and Franco Balmamion) to replace Salvarani,  but at the last moment they refused. Thirteen teams started, for a total of 130 cyclists.

The teams entering the race were:



Because the champion of 1965 (Gimondi) and his team did not start, the number one jersey was given to the Ford France team, because they had the winner of 1964 (Anquetil).

Route and stages
The 1966 Tour de France started on 21 June, and had two rest days, in Luchon and Turin. The highest point of elevation in the race was 2556 m at the summit tunnel of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 16.

The team time trial was decided by the times of the five fastest riders of each time; the outcome had no effect on the individual classifications.

Race overview
Rudi Altig won the first stage with a small advantage. In the next stages, no big time differences were made, so Altig was able to defend his lead until the mountains.

The eighth stage broke the record for fastest mass-start stage, held since 1938.

The first mountains were in the tenth stage. A group including Lucien Aimar and Jan Janssen gained time on pre-race favourites Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor, and Tommaso de Pra won the race and became the new leader. The next stage, Lebaube became the leader, and Kunde took over in the twelfth stage.

In the time trial in the fourteenth stage, Anquetil was defeated by Poulidor. Kunde remained the leader, with Janssen in second place. In the sixteenth stage, Julio Jiménez escaped in the Pyrenées, and he was followed by a group including Janssen, Anquetil and Poulidor, but without Kunde. Jiménez stayed away, but Janssen became the new leader.

Even though the seventeenth stage included two mountain climbs, it was not considered too difficult, because these climbs were located in the first half of the stage. The cyclists made the climbs in one large group, but in the descent, a large group escaped. They were chased by teammates Anquetil and Aimar, and when most of the escapees were caught, Aimar continued on his own, and surprised Janssen by this. Janssen lost time on Aimar, and Aimar became the new leader.

In the eighteenth stage, Janssen wanted to attack, but Aimar and Anquetil stayed close to him. Poulidor, sixth in the general classification, managed to escape, but Anquetil led the chase on him. The next day, Anquetil left the race, sick and no longer able to win himself.

Janssen managed to win back some time on Aimar in the final time trial, but it was not enough, and Aimar became the winner of the Tour. Janssen became the first Dutch cyclist to reach the podium in the general classification in the Tour de France.

Classification leadership and minor prizes
There were several classifications in the 1966 Tour de France, two of them awarding jerseys to their leaders. The most important was the general classification, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey; the winner of this classification is considered the winner of the Tour. Unlike the years before, the 1966 Tour did not use time bonuses for stage winners.

Additionally, there was a points classification. In the points classification, cyclists got points for finishing among the best in a stage finish. The cyclist with the most points led the classification and was identified with a green jersey.

There was also a mountains classification. The organisation had categorised some climbs as either first, second, third, or fourth category; points for this classification were won by the first cyclists that reached the top of these climbs first, with more points available for the higher-categorised climbs. The cyclist with the most points led the classification, but was not identified with a jersey. The Tour organisation had considered to add the rule that to be eligible for the mountains classification, a rider had to be placed high in the general classification. After protests from riders, this rule was changed, such that to win the mountains classification in 1966, a rider had to finish the entire Tour.

The intermediate sprints classification was newly introduced in 1966. Every stage had one intermediate sprint, and the first three riders at each sprint scored points. The intermediate sprints did not give a time bonus for the general classification, nor points for the points classification. There was no special jersey for the leader of this classification.

For the team classification, the times of the best three cyclists per team on each stage were added; the leading team was the team with the lowest total time. The riders in the team that led this classification wore yellow caps.

In addition, there was a combativity award given after each stage to the cyclist considered most combative, although it did not use this name in 1966. The split stages each had a combined winner. The decision was made by a jury composed of journalists who gave "stars". The cyclist with the most "stars" in all stages lead the "star classification". Rudi Altig won this classification. The Souvenir Henri Desgrange was given to the first rider to pass the memorial to Tour founder Henri Desgrange near the summit of the Col du Galibier on stage 16. This prize was won by Julio Jiménez.

Doping
In June 1965, the French government enacted a law that made doping in sports illegal. This made knowingly taking doping explicitly not allowed in the Tour de France. Doping tests were for the first time held during the 1966 Tour de France, and were conducted on behalf of the French government, not the Tour organisation. As such, no time penalty was given for a positive result, and riders were not expelled from the race.

The first doping tests of the 1966 Tour were held after the eighth stage, in Bordaux; Raymond Poulidor was amongst the first tested. In the next stage, riders held a protest during the stage against the doping tests.

A second round of doping tests was done after the twelfth stage. In total, 12 doping tests were done, all of them using urine samples. Six riders gave positive results:
 * Herman Vanspringel
 * Julien Delocht
 * Guido Neri
 * Gilbert Bellone
 * Jean Dupont
 * Roger Milliot

Riders received a fine of up to 5000 francs from the French government. Bellone appealed the penalty, on the grounds that it was not proven that he knowingly had taken doping. Judgement was made in 1969, and the appeal was successful: because it is almost impossible to prove that someone takes doping knowingly, the law was thereafter seldomly used.

Aftermath
The Tour of 1966 did not give the battle between Anquetil and Poulidor that spectators had hoped for. The organisation acknowledged that the 1966 Tour had been a failure, and decided that the formula needed to be changed.

The organisation of the Tour de France was not happy with the riders' reactions on the doping controls. The organisation also looked at the success of the 1966 FIFA World Cup, and its success was credited to using national teams, and the mix of professional and amateur athletes. The Tour de France organisation wanted to copy this, and wanted to make the 1967 Tour be a Tour with national teams, partly professional and partly amateur.

The amateur teams should have come from communist countries, but they were not interested. The idea of having national teams was protested against by the trade teams. The trade teams suggested a compromise of "national trade teams": one trade team for each country would be chosen, which could include riders from other teams, using their own shirt sponsors. But this compromise was not used, and the 1967 Tour would be held with national teams; the Tour organisation sent invitations to national associations, who would select riders.