 Route of the 1952 Tour de France followed clockwise, starting in Brest and finishing in Paris | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Race details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dates | 25 June – 19 July 1952 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stages | 23 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Distance | 4,807 km (2,987 mi) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Winning time | 151h 57' 20" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Results | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1952 Tour de France was the 39th edition of the Tour de France, taking place from 25 June to 19 July. It was composed of 23 stages over 4,807 km (2,987 mi). Newly introduced were the arrivals on mountain peaks.
The race was won by Italian Fausto Coppi. Coppi dominated the race, winning five stages and the mountains classification, and was a member of the winning Italian team. His dominance was so large that the Tour organisation had to double the prize money for second place to make the race interesting. At the end, Coppi had a margin of almost half an hour over the second-ranked cyclist; such a margin has never been achieved again. Although more than 25 years later during the 1979 edition, the 1st and 2nd-place finishers Bernard Hinault and Joop Zoetemelk were both nearly a half hour ahead of the 3rd-place finisher.