Why did the Tour de France start?

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📓 The short answer

The Tour de France grew out of the Dreyfus affair, a scandal over the wrongful treason conviction of a Jewish French army officer. The scandal divided France so deeply that anti-Dreyfus advertisers left the pro-Dreyfus sports paper Le Vélo to start a rival, L’Auto. To boost circulation, L’Auto launched the Tour de France in 1903.

📚 The long answer

A technically correct answer to this question is that (spoiler alert) a struggling newspaper organized the Tour de France to boost sales. But there is so much more to this story (intrigue alert). Have you heard of the Dreyfus affair?

What was the Dreyfus affair?

In 1894, a Jewish officer in the French army named Alfred Dreyfus was found guilty of passing military secrets to Germany and sentenced to life in prison. But Dreyfus and his family ardently maintained his innocence.

After a tumultuous decade of legal battles, Dreyfus was found to have been framed by another officer with the military involved in a cover-up. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated in 1906. Fun fact: The French army did not publicly acknowledge his innocence until 1995.

In the time between Dreyfus' conviction and exoneration, the question of his innocence became an intensely divisive political issue in France.

Those who believed in Dreyfus' innocence were called "Dreyfusards." They were opposed by the "anti-Dreyfusard" coalition of anti-Semitic nationalists, monarchists, and the Catholic right. This faction wasn't necessarily wholly convinced of Dreyfus' guilt but felt defending the army's reputation mattered more than one man's innocence.

The Dreyfus affair divided French society. Disagreements between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards broke up families, political parties, and ... sports newspapers.

What does the Dreyfus affair have to do with the Tour de France?

At the turn of the 20th century, France's top sports newspaper, Le Vélo, enjoyed a virtual monopoly, circulating 80,000 copies daily.

Le Vélo's editor-in-chief, Pierre Giffard, believed Dreyfus was innocent and repeatedly expressed these views in the paper's political commentary, despite the paper's advertisers being anti-Dreyfusards.

So in 1900, automobile manufacturer Albert de Dion rallied up other anti-Dreyfusard sponsors (including a Michelin brother) and part of Le Vélo's editorial staff to break away and start a rival, politically neutral newspaper named L'Auto-Vélo.

If you think Le Vélo and L'Auto-Vélo sound awfully similar, you're in good company. Le Vélo editor Giffard sued his rival for trademark infringement and won the case in 1903, which forced L'Auto-Vélo to change its name to L'Auto. Not a great name for a cycling newspaper.

Even before the name change, L'Auto was struggling to compete with the powerhouse Le Vélo. Editor Henri Desgrange feared that a name change would cause the paper to fold altogether. Not to disrespect this French story with an American sports idiom, but Desgrange needed a Hail Mary.

The winning idea came from a young employee, Géo Lefèvre, who suggested L'Auto organize a multi-day bicycle race across the entire country. The idea of organizing an event to boost circulation was not unique (the famous Paris–Roubaix race was started by Le Vélo in 1896), but the scale would be novel.

The Tour de France was announced on January 19, 1903 as a test of superhuman strength and endurance, spanning 2,428 kilometers (more than 1,508 miles) in six stages over 20 days.

As we know with today's outlandish YouTube thumbnails, extreme spectacles grab people's attention. The first Tour de France was no exception. L'Auto increased its circulation six-fold during the race, and its success caused the pro-Dreyfus Le Vélo to shut down a year later.

What was the first Tour de France like?

The Tour de France is and always has been a sufferfest, but it looked a bit different in 1903. In some ways, it was easier (the French Alps climbs weren't introduced until 1911). But the race was definitely more brutal and dangerous than it is today.

The first Tour de France's riders that competed for the 20,000 francs of prize money were a mix of professional and hobbyist cyclists. They rode without helmets, often through the night on rough, unpaved roads, and were forbidden to draft behind other riders or vehicles.

The riders were also forbidden to receive any support, so they often rode with spare tubes and tires wrapped around their torsos in case of flats.

The stages in the 1903 race were also considerably longer than today's stages. For example, the first stage from Paris to Lyon stretched 467 kilometers (~290 miles). Compare that to the longest stage in the 2026 Tour de France: a paltry 205.8 km (~128 miles). It took the winner of the first stage, Maurice Garin, over 17 hours to complete the section and astonishingly he only won by one minute.

Garin, a former chimney sweep, would go on to win the first Tour de France while getting cheered on by a crowd of 20,000 spectators. In total, Garin spent more than 94 hours riding and averaged ~24 km/h (15 mph). Out of the 60 riders that started with Garin, only 20 ended up completing the brutal race.

--- Thanks for reading this week's newsletter! If you have any thoughts, questions, or favorite GIFs, my inbox is always open. Just hit reply to send me a note! :) ​ All my best, Caitlin ​Click here to read five facts about Caitlin​

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​Sources for this week's newsletter​

🌐 Wikipedia article of the week

​Jiffy (time)​

"Jiffy can be an informal term for any unspecified short period, as in "I will be back in a jiffy". From this, it has acquired a number of more precise applications as the name of multiple units of measurement, each used to express or measure very brief durations of time. First attested in 1780, the word's origin is unclear, though one suggestion is that it was thieves' cant for lightning....
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The earliest technical usage for jiffy was defined by Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875–1946). He proposed in 1926 a unit of time called the "jiffy" which was equal to the time it takes light to travel one centimeter in vacuum (approximately 33.3564 picoseconds)."

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👀 Catch up on other curious questions

• ​Why do we zone out?​​
• ​Why is it easier to balance a bike in motion?​​
• ​How do court reporters type so fast?​​

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