1921 Tour de France
Route of the 1921 Tour de France
Followed counterclockwise, starting in Paris |
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| Race details | |||||||||||||
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| Dates | 26 June – 24 July | ||||||||||||
| Stages | 15 | ||||||||||||
| Distance | 5,485 km (3,408 mi) | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 221h 50' 26" | ||||||||||||
| Results | |||||||||||||
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Winner |
 Léon Scieur (BEL)
|
(1st class) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second |
Hector Heusghem (BEL)
|
(1st class) | |
| Third |
 Honoré Barthélemy (FRA)
|
(1st class) |
The 1921 Tour de France was the 15th edition of the Tour de France, taking place 26 June to 24 July. The total distance was 5,485 km (3,408 mi) and the average speed of the riders was 24.720 km/h. The race was won by Belgian Leon Scieur. The Belgians dominated the entire race, partly due to the absence of the French Pélissier brothers, who were on bad terms with the Tour organisation. Scieur's victory was largely uncontested; Hector Heusghem came close after the sixth stage, but lost time later. The organisation tried to get the cyclists to attack more by several means, but this failed.
The 1920 Tour de France had been dominated by Belgian cyclists, who won twelve of the fifteen stages, and the top seven of the overall classification. The French cyclists Henri and Francis Pélissier had left the 1920 Tour de France after Henri received a penalty from the Tour organisation for throwing away a tire, and they were still fighting. Therefore, the Pélissier brothers did not join the 1921 Tour de France. Two veteran cyclists who did join the race were Ernest Paul and Lucien Pothier, both forty years old. Paul rode his first Tour de France in 1908, while Pothier had started in the first Tour de France in 1903, and finished second. The winner of 1920, Philippe Thys, was the dominant stage racer of the time, but he was recovering from an illness and could not compete for the victory.
The economic impact of World War I was still not over, so as in the previous years there were not sponsored teams, but the cycling companies had bundled their forces under the nick La Sportive. The cyclists were divided in two categories, this time named 1ère class (first class), the professionals, and 2ème classe (second class), the amateurs. This year, some of the second class cyclists would finish higher than some of the first class cyclists.
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