The 1903 Tour de France was the first cycling race set up and sponsored by the newspaper ', ancestor of the current daily, '. It ran from 1 to 19 July in six stages over , and was won by Maurice Garin.
The race was invented to boost the circulation of ', after its circulation started to plummet from competition with the long-standing '. Originally scheduled to start in June, the race was postponed one month, and the prize money was increased, after a disappointing level of applications from competitors. The 1903 Tour de France was the first stage road race, and compared to modern Grand Tours, it had relatively few stages, but each was much longer than those raced today. The cyclists did not have to compete in all six stages, although this was necessary to qualify for the general classification.
The pre-race favourite, Maurice Garin, won the first stage, and retained the lead throughout. He also won the last two stages, and had a margin of almost three hours over the next cyclist. The circulation of ' increased more than sixfold during and after the race, so the race was considered successful enough to be rerun in 1904, by which time ' had been forced out of business.
Origin
After the Dreyfus affair separated advertisers from the newspaper ', a new newspaper ' was founded in 1900, with former cyclist Henri Desgrange as editor. After being forced to change the name of the newspaper to ' in 1903, Desgrange needed something to keep the cycling fans; with circulation at 20,000, he could not afford to lose them.
When Desgrange and young employee Géo Lefèvre were returning from the Marseille–Paris cycling race, Lefèvre suggested holding a race around France, similar to the popular six-day races on the track. Desgrange proposed the idea to the financial controller Victor Goddet, who gave his approval, and on 19 January 1903, the Tour de France was announced in '.
It was to have been a five-week race, from 1 June to 5 July, with an entry fee of 20 francs. These conditions attracted very few cyclists: one week before the race was due to start, only 15 competitors had signed up. Desgrange then rescheduled the race from 1 to 19 July, increased the total prize money to 20,000 francs, reduced the entry fee to 10 francs and guaranteed at least five francs a day to the first 50 cyclists in the classification.) to compete in the race for general classification, or five francs to enter a single stage. As the stages were so long, all but the first started before dawn: the last stage started at 21:00 the night before.
The first Tour de France crossed no mountain passes, but several lesser cols. The first was the col du Pin-Bouchain (), on the opening stage from Paris to Lyon, on what is now the old road from Roanne to Lyon. The stage from Lyon to Marseille included the col de la République (), also known as the col de Grand Bois, at the edge of St-Etienne.
In 1903, it was normal for a professional cyclist to hire pacers, who would lead them during the race. Desgrange forbade this: it was originally intended that in the final, longest, stage pacers would be allowed, but this was rescinded after the fifth stage.
To ensure that the cyclists rode the entire route, stewards were stationed at various points around the course. 24 other cyclists took advantage of the opportunity to enter specific stages: one rode in both the second and fourth stages, and additionally three cyclists took part in the second stage, one in the third stage, fifteen in the fourth stage only, and a further four only competed in the fifth stage. Also during that first stage, the first breach of the rules occurred: Jean Fischer had used a car as pacer, which was illegal. Garin retained the lead, helped by a crash of second-placed Pagie in the second stage, which eliminated him from the race.
In the fourth stage, Aucouturier had a clear lead and seemed set to win a third successive stage, but was caught using the slipstream of a car, and was removed from the race.
At that point, Garin was leading, with Émile Georget almost two hours behind. In the fifth stage, Georget had two flat tires, and fell asleep when he stopped at the side of the road to rest; he failed to finish. Garin had requested other cyclists in the leading group to let him win the stage, but Fernand Augereau refused to do this. Garin then had Lucien Pothier throw down his bicycle in front of Augereau, who fell, and Garin then bent Augereau's rear wheel. Augereau quickly obtained a spare bike and continued to the finish, however Garin easily won the sprint. Augereau still received a prize of 100 francs from Velo-Sport Nantes for the fastest final kilometre of the stage in the Nantes velodrome.
The last stage was the longest, at , and ran from Nantes to the small town of Ville-d'Avray, which lies between Versailles and Paris, instead of at the Parc des Princes velodrome. This was because of a bylaw forbidding road races to end on cycling tracks (a bylaw subsequently repealed in light of the race's success). Garin took his third stage win, and sealed overall victory by 2 hours 59 minutes 31 seconds: this remains the greatest margin of victory in the Tour de France. After arriving at Ville-d'Avray the riders were given a board marked with their finishing time and cycled on to Parc des Princes where they made several laps of honour. That day, 19 July, saw a large crowd at the velodrome to watch the riders and an earlier 100-km cycle race.
Results
thumb|The publicity after the first stage showed that [[Maurice Garin rode a bicycle from La Française|alt=French text: "Tour de France (Paris-Lyon) – 1er M. Garin, Vainquer de Paris-Brest. 2e Pagie. Tous deux sur bicyclettes La Française, marque diamant, pneus munis de l'Hermetic. Battant plus de 60 concurrents".]]
Stage results
In 1903, there was no distinction in the rules between plain stages and mountain stages; the icons shown here indicate whether the stage included mountains.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Stage characteristics and winners
|-
! scope="col" | Stage
! scope="col" | Date
! scope="col" | Course
! scope="col" | Distance
! scope="col" colspan="2" | Type
! scope="col" | Winner
! scope="col" | Race leader
|-
! scope="row" | 1
| style="text-align:center;" | 1 July || Paris to Lyon|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Plain stage|20px|link= || Plain stage|| ||
|-
! scope="row" | 2
| style="text-align:center;" | 5 July || Lyon to Marseille|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Stage with mountain|20px|link= || Stage with mountain(s)|| ||
|-
! scope="row" | 3
| style="text-align:center;" | 8 July || Marseille to Toulouse|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Plain stage|20px|link= || Plain stage|| ||
|-
! scope="row" | 4
| style="text-align:center;" | 12 July || Toulouse to Bordeaux|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Plain stage|20px|link= || Plain stage|| ||
|-
! scope="row" | 5
| style="text-align:center;" | 13 July || Bordeaux to Nantes|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Plain stage|20px|link= || Plain stage|| ||
|-
! scope="row" | 6
| style="text-align:center;" | 18 July || Nantes to Paris|| style="text-align:center;" | || alt=Plain stage|20px|link= || Plain stage|| ||
|-
! scope="row" |
| colspan="2" style="text-align:center"| Total
| colspan="5" style="text-align:center"|
|}
General classification
There were 21 cyclists who had completed all six stages. For these cyclists, the times taken for each stage were added up for the general classification. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the winner. The cyclists officially were not grouped in teams; some cyclists had the same sponsor, even though they were not allowed to work together,
{| class="wikitable" style="width:38em; margin-bottom:0px;"
|+ Final general classification (1–10)
|-
! width=40 | Rank
! width=250 | Rider
! width=150 | Sponsor
! width=50 |Time
|-
! scope="col" | 1
| || style="width:100px;" | La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 2
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 3
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 4
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 5
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 6
| || —
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 7
| || Brennabor
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 8
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" | 9
| || —
| style="text-align:right;" |
|-
! scope="col" |10
| || La Française
| style="text-align:right;" |
|}
{| class="collapsible collapsed wikitable noprint" style="width:38em;margin-top:-1px;"
|-
! scope="col" colspan="4" | Final general classification (11–21) and normal circulation increased from 25,000 to 65,000.