 Route of the 1989 Tour de France | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Race details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dates | 1–23 July 1989 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stages | 21 + Prologue | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Distance | 3,285 km (2,041 mi) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Winning time | 87h 38' 35" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Results | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1989 Tour de France was the 76th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race consisted of 21 stages and a prologue, over 3,285 km (2,041 mi). It started on 1 July 1989 in Luxembourg before taking an anti-clockwise route through France to finish in Paris on 23 July. The race was won by Greg LeMond of the AD Renting–W-Cup–Bottecchia team. It was the second overall victory for the American, who had spent the previous two seasons recovering from a near-fatal hunting accident. In second place was previous two-time Tour winner Laurent Fignon (Super U–Raleigh–Fiat), ahead of Pedro Delgado (Reynolds), the defending champion.
Delgado started the race as the favourite, but lost almost three minutes on his principal rivals when he missed his start time in the prologue individual time trial. The race turned out to be a two-man battle between LeMond and Fignon, with the pair exchanging the race leader's yellow jersey several times. Fignon managed to match LeMond in the prologue, but in the other three individual time trials he lost time to LeMond, who took advantage of aerodynamic elbow-rest handlebars formerly used in triathlon events. Delgado launched several attacks in the mountain stages to eventually finish third, while LeMond rode defensively to preserve his chances. Fignon rode well in the mountains, including a strong performance at Alpe d'Huez which gave him the race lead on stage 17.
In the closest Tour in history, LeMond was trailing Fignon by fifty seconds at the start of the final stage, an individual time trial into Paris. LeMond was not expected to be able to make up this deficit, but he completed the 24.5 km (15.2 mi) stage at an average speed of 54.545 km/h (33.893 mph), the fastest individual time trial ever ridden in the Tour de France up to that point, and won the stage. Fignon's time was fifty-eight seconds slower than LeMond's, costing him the victory and giving LeMond his second Tour title by a margin of only eight seconds. From stage 5 onward, LeMond and Fignon were the only two men to lead the race. The two riders were never separated by more than fifty-three seconds throughout the event. Owing to its competitive nature, the 1989 Tour is often ranked among the best in the race's history.
The PDM–Ultima–Concorde team was the winner of the team classification and had four cyclists in the top ten of the general classification. They also won four of the five secondary individual classifications: Sean Kelly won both the points and intermediate sprints classifications, Gert-Jan Theunisse won the mountains classification and Steven Rooks won the combination classification. The young rider classification was won by Fabrice Philipot from the Toshiba team.