The 2018 Tour de France was the 105th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's three Grand Tours. The -long race consisted of 21 stages, starting on 7 July in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, in western France, and concluding on 29 July with the Champs-Élysées stage in Paris. A total of 176 riders from 22 teams participated in the race. The overall general classification was won by Geraint Thomas of . Tom Dumoulin () placed second, with Thomas's teammate and four-time Tour winner Chris Froome coming third.
The opening stage was won by Fernando Gaviria of , who became the Tour's first rider to wear the general classification leader's yellow jersey. Peter Sagan () then took the race lead on the following stage. won stage three's team time trial, putting their rider Greg Van Avermaet in yellow. He held the jersey for eight days until the second stage of the three Alpine stages, which Thomas won and took the lead in. He successfully defended it from Dumoulin for the rest of the Tour, which included three stages in the Pyrenees and the penultimate stage's individual time trial, the latter won by Dumoulin.
Sagan, who won three stages, was placed first in the points classification for the sixth time. Julian Alaphilippe of , winner of two mountain stages, won the mountains classification, and 's Pierre Latour won the young rider classification. The team classification was won by , and Dan Martin of won the combativity award.
Teams
The 2018 edition of the Tour de France consisted of 22 teams. The race was the 25th of the 37 events in the UCI World Tour, and all of its eighteen UCI WorldTeams were entitled, and obliged, to enter the race. On 6 January 2018, organisers of the Tour, the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the four second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams that received a wildcard invitation to participate in the event. The four teams were , , , from France, and Belgium's , all of which have participated in the race before. This meant that new French team , with their team leader, sprinter Bryan Coquard, missed out on the race. The presentation of the teams – where the members of each team's roster are introduced in front of the media and local dignitaries – took place on in the town of La Roche-sur-Yon on 5 July, two days before the opening stage.
New rules by the cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), reduced the number of riders per team for Grand Tours from 9 to 8, resulting in a start list total of 176, instead of 198, which had been the number of starters since 2010. Of these, 35 competed in their first Tour de France. The riders came from 30 countries. Seven countries had more than 10 riders in the race: France (35), Belgium (19), the Netherlands (13), Italy (13), Australia (11), Germany (11) and Spain (11). The average age of riders in the race was 29.37 years, ranging from the 21-year-old Egan Bernal () to the 40-year-old Franco Pellizotti (). had the youngest average age while had the oldest.
The teams entering the race were:
UCI WorldTeams
UCI Professional Continental teams
Pre-race favourites
In the lead up to the Tour, the favourite for the general classification was Chris Froome of . Froome had won the 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions of the Tour, and was also the current defending champion at both other Grand Tours, the Vuelta a España and the Giro d'Italia. However, Froome's participation was unconfirmed due to an ongoing anti-doping investigation that began in December 2017, when it was announced that he had returned a urine sample taken at the Vuelta (which had taken place two months earlier) which contained twice his allowed amount of the asthma drug salbutamol. This was considered not as a positive doping result, but as an "Adverse Analytical Finding" (AAF), meaning that he was allowed to continue racing until the case was resolved. He did however face the possibility of losing his Vuelta victory and all subsequent results. The ASO were unhappy with the situation, which was very similar to that of the 2011 Tour pre-race favourite Alberto Contador, who started the tour with his case over a positive test for clenbuterol still unresolved. The UCI conducted an investigation into the AAF, which was still unresolved at the time that Froome won the Giro in May 2018. With an outcome before the start of the Tour unlikely, the ASO attempted to bar Froome from starting the race, citing article 28 of the race's rules, saying that the organiser "expressly reserves the right to refuse participation in – or to exclude from – the event, a team or any of its members whose presence would be such as to damage the image or reputation of ASO or the event". Froome was cleared by the UCI on 2 July, five days before the start of the Tour, with a press statement reading that the authorities had found sufficient evidence "that Mr Froome's sample results do not constitute an AAF". He was thereafter cleared to start the Tour by the ASO as well.
The closest rivals of Froome were thought to be Romain Bardet (), Tom Dumoulin (), Mikel Landa (), Vincenzo Nibali (), Richie Porte (), Nairo Quintana () and Adam Yates (). Porte's best result in the Tour was fifth overall in 2016. He had shown his form so far in the 2018 season by winning the general classification of Tour de Suisse. Although Quintana had placed twelfth overall in the 2017 Tour, his 2018 season so far had been consistent and he had finished second behind Froome in previous Tours. He came to the Tour with a strong team, which included contender Landa, who in 2018 had moved to Movistar from Sky after being a domestique for Froome. The 2017 Giro winner Dumoulin placed second in the 2018 Giro. Nibali had recently won the classic Milan–San Remo, one of cycling's five one-day race "monuments". He had however failed to impress in the stage races leading up to the Tour, finishing 24th in the Critérium du Dauphiné after finishing outside the top 10 in the general classifications at Dubai Tour, Tour of Oman and the Tirreno–Adriatico. He was the only rider on the start list apart from Froome to have won a Tour, the 2014 edition. Bardet finished second and third overall in the two previous Tours and placed third in the Critérium du Dauphiné leading up to the 2018 Tour. Yates' best overall Tour result was fourth 2016; he had shown his form during the season before the Tour with top-five placings in four stage races, including second in the Dauphiné.
Some of the other riders considered as contenders for the general classification were Dan Martin (), Alejandro Valverde (), Rigoberto Urán (), Geraint Thomas () and Primož Roglič ().
The sprinters considered favourites for the points classification and wins on the flat or hilly bunch sprint finishes were Peter Sagan (), Michael Matthews (), Fernando Gaviria (), Marcel Kittel (), Mark Cavendish (), Dylan Groenewegen (), Arnaud Démare () and André Greipel (). Others expected to contend for sprint finishes included Greg Van Avermaet (), Alexander Kristoff (), Sonny Colbrelli (), Nacer Bouhanni () and John Degenkolb (). Triple reigning world road race champion Sagan had won the five previous points classifications of the Tour before his 2017 Tour disqualification after race officials judged that he caused Cavendish to crash. Sagan was again aiming to equal Erik Zabel's record of six points classifications. He was in good form during the season before the Tour, winning the one-day races Paris–Roubaix and Gent–Wevelgem, multiple top ten results one-day races and two points classifications in stage races. Matthews, who won the 2017 Tour's points classification, suffered an early season injury and his sole win for the season was at the Tour de Romandie. Kittel had won fourteen Tour stages, five in 2017, gained two wins so far in 2018, both at the Tirreno–Adriatico. Debutant Gaviria had been second to Kittel at before the latter moved to for the 2018 season. Gaviria amassed a total of seven wins so far in 2018, and additionally the points classification at the Tour of California. The 2011 points classification winner Cavendish's win at the Dubai Tour in February was his only of 2018 so far. Winner of the 2017 Tour's final stage Groenewegen had a total of nine victories for the season going into the Tour, with one coming at Paris–Nice. Démare, who led the points classification in the 2017 Tour, had gained two wins at Paris–Nice and the Tour de Suisse in 2018 before the Tour. Greipel, who turned 36 during the Tour, had taken six wins at stage races during 2018 before the Tour, as well as the points classification of the Tour of Belgium.
Route and stages
On 12 February 2017, at a rugby union match between France and Scotland at Paris's Stade de France, race director Christian Prudhomme announced the opening stages of the 2018 Tour (known as the Grand Départ) would take place in the Vendée department, in the Pays de la Loire region. Since the inaugural Tour in 1903, the Vendée has hosted the Grand Départ five times, with the last in 2011. Two weeks after the announcement, the ASO revealed that the Grand Départ would take place over three stages, with the third a team time trial. In June 2017, the UCI's Professional Cycling Council (PCC) moved the start of the Tour a week later than usual and originally planned due to a clash with the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The full route was announced on 17 October 2017; it was almost completely within France, with short deviations into Spain in the Pyrenees the only exceptions. Two of the Tour's most historic climbs featured, Alpe d'Huez and the Col du Tourmalet, which last featured in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Notable was stage nine's of sett paving, split across fifteen sectors, a feature that was last seen in the 2015 Tour. It finished in Roubaix, home of the "monument" race Paris–Roubaix. For the first time in 60 to 70 years, it included a section of unpaved roads on the Glières Plateau. Overall, the route was thought to offer something for all rider types.
Stage one began in the village of Noirmoutier-en-l'Île on the island of Noirmoutier, before heading along the coast of the Vendée department. The following two stages were loops, with the third taking the route north into the Maine-et-Loire department. The next three stages took place in the region of Brittany, ending with two laps of the short, but steep, climb in Mûr-de-Bretagne. The seventh, eighth and ninth stages headed north-east with finishes in Chartres, Amiens and Roubaix, respectively. A long transfer then moved the race to the Alps. Following three stages in the mountains, the Tour descended into the Drôme department and stage thirteen's finish in the city of Valence. The Massif Central highland region hosted stage fourteen, with the finish in Mende. The next two transitional stages took the race south-west to the Pyrenees across a continuous journey between Millau, Carcassonne and Bagnères-de-Luchon. After two Pyrenean stages, the eighteenth stage took place in the foothills between Trie-sur-Baïse to Pau. The next stage headed back into the mountains, before the penultimate stage, which took place close to the west coast in the French Basque Country. A long transfer took the Tour to its conclusion in Paris with the Champs-Élysées stage.