Tour De France - Cycling gets interesting

Tour De France is an annual bicycle race held for the first time in the year 1903. It covers approximately 3600 kilometers throughout France and bordering countries. The course is different every year but it always finishes in Paris. The race continues for three weeks and has cyclists participating from around the world. The race has different stages and individual times taken by each cyclist to finish each stage are added up in the end to determine the winner. The rider with lowest aggregate time each day gets a yellow jersey.

Tour De France 2010 started on 3^rd July and will run till the 25^th July. This is the 97^th tour consisting of 1 prologue and 20 stages covering a total distance of 3642 kilometers. The 2010 Tour was launched from the south side of Rotterdam from where they were headed north. The different stages this year will include 1 prologue, 9 flat stages, 6 mountain stages and 3 summit finishes, 4 medium mountain ranges and 1 individual time trial stage (52km).

Lance Armstrong has won the maximum number of races. He won the race consecutively for 7 times from 1999-2005. He is an American cyclist. Lance was retired from racing in 2005 but returned to cycling in 2009 and finished third at the Tour De France 2009.

The winners of different stages are:

· Prologue - Cancellara Fabian from Team Saxo Bank

· Stage 1 – Petacchi Alessandro from Lampre - Farnese

· Stage 2 – Chavanel Sylvain from Quick Step

· Stage 3 – Hushovd Thor from Cervelo Test Team

· Stage 4 – Petacchi Alessandro from Lampre - Farnese

· Stage 5 – Cavendish Mark from Team HTC - Columbia

The overall leaders after Stage 5 based on time are:

1. Cancellara Fabian (Team Saxo Bank)

2. Thomas Geraint (Sky Pro Cycling)

3. Evans Cadel (BMC Racing Team)

Armstrong is competing for the last time this year. He rides for Team Radio Shack. After Stage 5, Armstrong’s overall standing on the basis of time is 18^thwhile his team is at the 11^th position.

Cancellara Fabian has been able to maintain his position winning the yellow jersey day after day. Looks like he is going to become the overall winner this year beating the other 21 teams.

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