The 1971 Tour de France was the 58th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race consisted of 22 stages, including three split stages, starting in Mulhouse on 26 June and finishing at the Vélodrome de Vincennes in Paris on 18 July. There were three time trial stages and two rest days. Eddy Merckx of the team won the overall general classification, defending his title to win his third Tour de France in a row. Joop Zoetemelk () finished second, 9:51 minutes behind, and Lucien Van Impe was third (), just over 11 minutes in arrears.
New rules to discourage the use of doping were introduced by cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI); stages lengths were reduced, only twenty stages were allowed, and rest days were made compulsory. At a distance of 3,608 km (2,242 mi) it was shorter than the previous Tour by 646 km (401 mi) and the shortest since 1905.
Pre-race favourite Merckx took the first yellow jersey as general classification leader after his team won the prologue stage's team time trial. Merckx's teammate Rini Wagtmans took the Tour lead after the second of stage 1's three split stages, before returning it to his leader by the end of the day. The leading positions of the general classification became clearer after stage 2 when a sixteen-strong breakaway group of mostly pre-race favourites ended with a margin of over nine minutes. On stage 8 in the Massif Central, Merckx's closest rival Luis Ocaña () attacked and won atop Puy de Dôme to move within just over 30 seconds of the race leader, just behind second-placed Zoetemelk.
In the Chartreuse Mountains on stage 10, Merckx had a tyre puncture and was distanced by a group of rivals, with Zoetemelk of the group taking the race lead. Another from the group, Ocaña, took the yellow jersey the next day as he soloed for to victory up to Orcières-Merlette in the Alps, ending with an overall lead of more than eight minutes. Merckx gained back close to two minutes the following stage as he broke away from the start with a small group in record-breaking speed to Marseille. Two days later in the Pyrenees on stage 14, a thunderstorm passed as the riders traversed the Col de Menté mountain pass. Race leader Ocaña crashed on the wet roads during the descent, and afterwards was hit by other riders. He left the race with injury, with Merckx reluctantly taking over the Tour lead. He comfortably held the yellow jersey for the remaining stages, ending the Tour with victory in the individual time trial held in Paris.
In the other race classifications, Merckx also won the points and the combination classifications. Van Impe won the mountains classification. The intermediate sprints classification was won by Zoetemelk's teammate Pieter Nassen. The winners of the team classification were . The overall award for most combative rider was given to Ocaña. Merckx won the most stages, with four.
Teams
The 1971 edition of the Tour de France consisted of thirteen teams, two less than the previous Tour. Teams were either invited or paid a participation fee. The Italian-based and the Belgian teams announced they would not be entering the race due to the high cost, although Salvarani later reached an agreement. Belgian-based and Tour co-organiser Félix Lévitan were in disagreements over the team's participation and there was speculation that the team would instead race the Grand Tour of Italy, the Giro d'Italia, which took place one month before the Tour. The team chose to wait for Lévitan's decision regarding their entry, which came following the Giro's start, and therefore did not participate in the Giro. Ultimately, Lévitian requested the team to pay extra money, on top of the 25,000 French francs (f) entry fee, to participate in the Tour.
Each squad was allowed a maximum of ten riders, resulting in a start list total of 130. Of these, 37 were riding the Tour de France for the first time. The riders came from twelve countries, with the majority of them coming from France (35), Belgium (25), Italy (25), Spain (21) and Netherlands (14). Francisco Javier Galdeano () was the youngest rider at 21 years and 201 days, and the oldest was Ventura Díaz () at 32 years and 304 days. The cyclists had the youngest average age while the riders of had the oldest.
The teams entering the race were:
Pre-race favourites
The rider considered the clear favourite for the overall general classification before the Tour was 's Eddy Merckx, who had won the 1969 and 1970 Tours by the large margins of 17:54 and 12:41 minutes respectively. He had been the strongest rider throughout the 1971 season, winning 54 of the 124 races he entered (43.5%). Of the 13 before the Tour, the most notable were the one-day races Milan–San Remo, Omloop Het Volk, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the general classification in the stage races Giro di Sardegna, Paris–Nice, Tour of Belgium, Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré and Grand Prix du Midi Libre. He opted for the Dauphiné and Midi Libre races to warm up for the Tour instead of the Giro d'Italia, which he rode the two previous seasons. In these races, constant adjustment to his riding position caused a knee injury, and he came close to abandoning the final stage of the Midi Libre, a month before the Tour. Later in his retirement, he revealed that heading into the Tour his "condition was not good" and that riding the Giro was the ideal preparation because of the harder climbs. Since 1968, his team were undefeated in the team time trial discipline of the prologue stage, and there was speculation whether he would be able to lead the race from beginning to end. Merckx was such an overwhelming favourite that the interest was not in if could win, but rather the manner in which he would do it.
The strongest challenger to Merckx was expected to be Luis Ocaña (). He and Merckx were the same age at 26, born eight days apart in June. Both had made their Tour debuts in 1969, but unlike the success of Merckx, Ocaña crashed out of the race on a descent. In 1970, Ocaña won the Vuelta a España, Spain's Grand Tour, and was likewise Merckx's main rival before the Tour, but he finished the race over an hour behind in 31st place. His confidence in beating Merckx grew in 1971, saying: "they all surrender to Merckx, but I'm going to stand up to him". Speaking prior to the Tour, climbing specialist Ocaña thought he would able to get the better of the all-rounder Merckx in the mountains, as he had shown on the Col du Granier Alpine climb in the Dauphiné, a race in which he ultimately finished second overall to Merckx. His biggest results of the season prior to the Tour were the mountains classification of the aforementioned race and the overall victories of the Tour of the Basque Country and Volta a Catalunya. The Spanish media did not rate their compatriot Ocaña's chances of winning highly, in contrast to in France, where he had lived since childhood.
The next contender was thought to be Joop Zoetemelk of , who in his debut season as a professional was runner-up in the 1970 Tour. His most notable performance of the year so far was at the Vuelta in May, where he won the mountains classification and finished sixth overall. He finished second to Merckx in the closely contested Midi Libre.
Several other riders were named as favourites for a high place in the general classification. The winner of the 1971 Giro and the third-place finisher of the 1970 Tour Gösta Pettersson () was considered by Merckx to be among two of his closest rivals, along with Zoetemelk. Bernard Thévenet () was third in the Dauphiné. Climber Lucien Van Impe (), who was sixth overall in 1970, was also consider a contender. Other favourites included Joaquim Agostinho (), Gianni Motta () and Leif Mortensen (). Agostinho took a three-week rest two weeks before the Tour following bad crash at the Dauphiné. Van Impe's teammate Lucien Aimar, a Tour veteran, was the only rider entering apart from Merckx to have won the race, the 1966 edition.
Notable absentees from the start list were Raymond Poulidor (), Felice Gimondi (), Frans Verbeeck (), Georges Pintens (), Roger Pingeon () and Jan Janssen (). Poulidor, who had top-ten finishes in all of the previous nine Tours bar one, withdrew from his team's squad stating: "I will only do this if my physical condition leaves something to be desired". Gimondi, winner of the 1965 Tour, was not selected by his team as Motta was preferred as the leader. Verbeeck, whose team did not enter, was considered to be one of few that would challenge Merckx. Merckx's one-day race rival Pintens was another from a team not entering. He seemingly managed a rare feat of exposing weakness in Merckx at the notably cold Liège–Bastogne–Liège in April, when he reeled in the tiring lone leader Merckx taking it to the two-way sprint finish won by Merckx, who was later found by his soigneur (team assistant) physically exhausted sat on a stool in a shower. Winner of the 1967 Tour Pingeon was serving a doping suspension from April 30 to July 30. Janssen, winner of the 1968 Tour, kept to his promise to never ride a Tour again, made following his bad crash in the 1970 Paris–Tours. He was critical of the Tour's commercial prioritisation which made the race too hard for riders.
Route and stages
On 16 October 1970, it was announced that the city of Mulhouse in eastern France would host the 1971 edition's opening stages (known as the Grand Départ), which consisted of a team time trial prologue stage and two further stages. The entire route was announced on 8 December at a press conference in Paris by race directors Jacques Goddet and Félix Lévitan.
New rules to discourage the use of doping were introduced by cycling's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI); stages lengths were reduced, only twenty stages were allowed, and rest days were made compulsory. The latter was a re-introduction to the Tour. At a distance of , it was shorter than the previous Tour by and the shortest since 1905.
With the shortened distance in addition to the increased financial running costs, the race organisers maximised the amount of route locations which paid the race to start, pass through or finish there. The navigation of the host locations made a loose figure of eight route, unlike the usual continuous loop. There were a total of five transfers which added up to a distance of . For the first time in a Tour there were air transfers, from Le Touquet to Paris and Marseille to Toulouse. The previous Tour's split stages, where two or more shorter stages would be run on the same day, had drawn complaints from the riders, nevertheless, they remained as the income they provided was an overriding factor. There were three split stages; two stages were split half and one in thirds. The reduction in distance and amount of stages saw more climbs introduced, and it was thought that this edition was more suited to climbing specialists. Overall, the route was seen as easier than recent editions.
The Tour took place over 23 days, including the two rest days, between 26 June and 18 July. Beginning in the Black Forest and Vosges Mountains, with visits to Switzerland and West Germany, the race then headed north-west to the coast passing through the Ardennes and south-east Belgium. After the first rest day and air transfer, racing resumed in the outskirts of Paris, taking the Tour through the Massif Central highlands and the Chartreuse Mountains towards the Alps. After the second rest day and a stage to the Mediterranean coast at Marseille came the other air transfer. The race then moved into the Pyrenees, with the closing stages taking place between the south-west and the finish in Paris.