List of teams and cyclists in the 2015 Tour de France

Chris Froome, winner of the 2015 Tour de France, with other members of Team Sky at the presentation before the first stage in Utrecht.

The 2015 Tour de France was the 102nd edition of the race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race took place from 4 July to 26 July 2015, starting in Utrecht in the Netherlands and finishing on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.[1]

All seventeen UCI WorldTeams were automatically invited and were obliged to attend the race. In January 2015, five UCI Professional Continental teams were given wildcard places into the race by the race organisers – Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) – to complete the 22-team peloton.[2] Among the wildcard teams was MTN–Qhubeka, the first African trade team to participate in the Tour.[3] As each team was entitled to enter nine riders, the peloton on the first stage consisted of 198 riders.[4] These came from 32 countries. 41 riders – approximately a fifth of the peloton – were French; no other nation had more than 20 riders in the race.[5] Merhawi Kudus and Daniel Teklehaimanot were the first ever Eritrean riders to participate in the Tour.[6]

The number of riders per nation participated in the 2015 Tour de France:
  20+
  10–19
  2–9
  1

160 riders completed the final stage in Paris, with 38 of the riders failing to finish the race.[7] The race was won by Chris Froome (Team Sky), the champion from the 2013 Tour. Froome first took the lead of the race following the third stage – the first uphill finish of the race. He lost the yellow jersey of the race leader to Tony Martin (Etixx–Quick-Step) at the end of the fourth stage, but Martin's withdrawal from the race after a crash at the end of the sixth stage put Froome back into the lead. He extended this lead during the stages in the Pyrenees and defended it successfully against attacks from Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) during the final stages that took place in the Alps.[8] Quintana finished second, 1 minute and 12 seconds behind Froome, with Quintana's teammate Alejandro Valverde in third.[9] Quintana won the competition for the best young rider.[10] The points classification was won for the fourth consecutive year by Peter Sagan (Tinkoff–Saxo), although he failed to win any stages during the race.[11] As well as winning the general classification, Froome won the mountains classification, while Movistar won the team classification.[10]

  1. ^ "Tour de France 2015 route". Cycling Weekly. 17 June 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  2. ^ "ASO announces five wildcard teams invited to 2015 Tour de France". VeloNews. 14 January 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  3. ^ Farrand, Stephen (20 January 2015). "Prudhomme explains the Tour de France wild card selections". Cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  4. ^ Règlement de l'épreuve (PDF). Paris: Amaury Sport Organisation. 2015. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2015. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  5. ^ "Tour de France 2015 - Stage 1". ProCyclingStats. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  6. ^ Taylor, Adam (12 July 2015). "Why it matters that Eritrean cyclists are wowing the Tour de France". Washington Post. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference WD was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Benson, Daniel (27 July 2015). "Tour de France 2015 recap: How the race unfolded". Cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  9. ^ "Tour de France 2015 - General Classification". ProCyclingStats. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  10. ^ a b "Chris Froome wins Tour de France 2015". Cyclingnews.com. 26 July 2015. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
  11. ^ "McEwen: Tour de France course made Sagan unbeatable in green". Cyclingnews.com. 26 July 2015. Retrieved 28 July 2015.