1990 Tour de France

1990 Tour de France

Route of the 1990 Tour de France
Race details
Dates	30 June – 22 July 1990
Stages	21 + prologue
Distance	3,403.8 km (2,115 mi)
Winning time	90h 43' 20"
Results
Winner  Greg LeMond (USA) (Z–Tomasso)   Second  Claudio Chiappucci (ITA) (Carrera Jeans–Vagabond)   Third  Erik Breukink (NED) (PDM–Concorde–Ultima) Points  Olaf Ludwig (DDR) (Panasonic–Sportlife) Mountains  Thierry Claveyrolat (FRA) (RMO)   Youth  Gilles Delion (FRA) (Helvetia–La Suisse)   Combativity  Eduardo Chozas (ESP) (ONCE)   Team Z–Tomasso
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The 1990 Tour de France was the 77th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours.^[1] It took place between 30 June and 22 July 1990. The 3,403.8 km (2,115.0 mi) race consisted of 21 stages and a prologue. American Greg LeMond (Z–Tomasso) repeated his 1989 victory in the general classification, ahead of Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera Jeans–Vagabond) and Erik Breukink (PDM–Concorde–Ultima) in second and third place respectively.

The Tour started with a prologue time trial at the Futuroscope theme park, won by Thierry Marie (Castorama). On the first stage, a four-rider group escaped and gained more than ten minutes on the rest of the field. Steve Bauer (7-Eleven) became the new leader of the race, but faltered in the Alps as Ronan Pensec (Z–Tomasso), also from the escape group, took over the race lead. Two days later, during a mountain time trial to Villard-de-Lans, the lead passed to Claudio Chiappucci, who had been in the same group as well. Chiappucci fought to hang on to his advantage over defending champion LeMond, but was overtaken in the final time trial on the penultimate stage. It was LeMond's third Tour victory, a feat he achieved without winning an individual stage.

The points classification was won by Olaf Ludwig (Panasonic–Sportlife), while the mountains classification was won by Thierry Claveyrolat (RMO). Gilles Delion (Helvetia–La Suisse) was the best young rider, while Eduardo Chozas (ONCE) was awarded the super-combativity prize. Z–Tomasso, the team of race winner LeMond, won the team classification.

The 1990 race was the first edition in which riders from Eastern Bloc nations participated. Ludwig became the first rider from East Germany and Dimitri Konyshev (Alfa Lum) was the first Soviet rider to win a stage at the Tour.