Tour de France - Our ten best moments

Simon Smythe recalls his ten best moments - tell us your top ten or top two below in the Forum (Maybe winning a prize)

Lance won 7 Tours - does he make your top ten? - Pic Andrea Hofling

Legend has it that Fignon's hobby was taxidermy, we assume he would have liked to have stuffed Lemond in 1989 - Pic Andrea Hofling

Marco Pantani enlivened every Tour he was in? - Pic Andrea Hofling

17 July 2001 Armstrong gives Ullrich ‘the look’
Lance Armstrong deserved an Oscar for acting as if he was having a bad day on the first Alpine stage, fooling Jan Ullrich’s Telekom team into going full gas on the front and attempting to burn him off. But at the foot of the Alpe d’Huez, Armstrong moved to the front, accelerated, looked back directly into Ullrich’s eyes, then delivered the coup de grace and rode off. Ullrich had no answer.

28 July 1991 Abdoujaparov crashes to green jersey victory
OK, it’s pure schadenfreude, but the Uzbekh ‘Tashkent Terror’s crash on the final stage is one of the most spectacular moments of the Tour de France ever. After colliding with a giant inflatable Coke can at the barrier, he slid and bounced along the road bringing riders around him down like skittles, then picked up his bike and hobbled over the line to claim the green jersey in his first Tour.

7 July 2008 Le Tour comes to London
It was the most perfect day – the sun was out, millions of people came to central London to watch the prologue, and although local hero Bradley Wiggins didn’t win, fans were treated to the most spectacular ride by world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara. The Swiss rider was cornering faster than his motorbike escorts and tore up The Mall as if it was the M1. We loved it.

13 July 1999 Armstrong on another planet
Armstrong demolished the field on the climb to Sestrieres in the first mountain stage, proving that he is the best climber in the 1999 race as well as the best time triallist, setting himself up for his first Tour win of a record consecutive seven. L’Equipe reports that he is ‘sur une autre planete’. The most remarkable thing about this win is that Armstrong has recently recovered from testicular cancer.

21 July 1985 Hinault wins his fifth Tour
The sight of ‘the Badger’ winning his fifth and equalling the records of Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx with two black eyes from an earlier crash was an impressive one. His young team-mate Greg LeMond was second and Hinault promised to help LeMond win the 1986 Tour. But whether he would keep his promise was a different story…

12 July 1964 Anquetil’s most famous victory
1964 was the year Jacques Anquetil won his fifth Tour de France – the first rider to do so. And his career-long rivalry with ‘eternal second’ and crowd favourite Raymond Poulidor was at its height. The pair’s duelling climaxed on the Puy de Dome, the last climb of the race, where they rode shoulder to shoulder, banging elbows. Anquetil cracked, but just had enough time in hand to beat Poulidor in Paris. Anquetil never rode the Tour again and Poulidor never won the Tour, even though he kept trying until 1976, when he was 40.

23 July 1989 LeMond wins by a whisker
The 1989 race finished with a 25km individual time trial into Paris and American Greg LeMond went into it 50 seconds down on leader Laurent Fignon. Helped by new technology which included triathlon bars and an aerodynamic helmet, LeMond overhauled the Frenchman – bareheaded with his trademark ponytail flying in the wind and riding cowhorn bars – and won the Tour by eight seconds.

1969 Merckx’s clean sweep
In his first Tour de France at age 24, the great Belgian utterly dominated, winning the yellow, green and polka-dot jerseys. He also won the combination jersey – which doesn’t exist any more – and the combativity prize. And if it had existed, he also would have won the white young rider’s jersey. Not surprisingly, no one has repeated the feat since.

22 July 1987 Roche’s incredible comeback
On stage 21 to La Plagne, Irish rider Stephen Roche, in the form of his life, attacked early to try to wrest the yellow jersey from arch rival Pedro Delgado. But Delgado caught and passed him on the last climb and opened a gap of almost a minute and a half. In the biggest effort of his life, Roche pulled him back to four seconds and collapsed over the line, needing oxygen. He took the yellow jersey two days later and won the Tour.

13 July 2000 Pantani and Armstrong go head to head
1998 Tour winner Marco Pantani looked to be back to his best on stage 12 to Mont Ventoux, when he and Armstrong left the rest behind on the ‘Giant of Provence’. As the two reached the finish line at the summit, Armstrong eased off to let Pantani take the stage win – he already had a comfortable margin in the overall. It was meant to show respect to Pantani, but Armstrong made the mistake of telling the press about it afterwards. Pantani was understandably furious.