1928 Tour de France
Route of the 1928 Tour de France
Followed counterclockwise, starting in Paris |
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| Race details | |||||||||||||
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| Dates | 17 June – 15 July | ||||||||||||
| Stages | 22 | ||||||||||||
| Distance | 5,376 km (3,340 mi) | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 192h 48' 58" | ||||||||||||
| Results | |||||||||||||
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Winner |
 Nicolas Frantz (LUX)
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(Alcyon–Dunlop) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second |
 André Leducq (FRA)
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(Alcyon–Dunlop) | |
| Third |
 Maurice De Waele (BEL)
|
(Alcyon–Dunlop) |
The 1928 Tour de France was the 22nd Tour de France, taking place from 17 June to 15 July. It consisted of 22 stages over 5,376 km (3,340 mi).
The second win by Nicolas Frantz, he held the yellow jersey from beginning to end despite an obstacle in three days before the end of the tour. Frantz had a mechanical failure between Metz and Charleville and had to finish 100 km of race on an undersized women's bicycle resulting in a loss of 28 minutes. Regardless, Frantz won the tour, showing the superiority of his team, Alcyon, which gained the team trophy, and also had second best man André Leducq.
The 22nd tour featured the first appearance of an Australian/New Zealand team, indicating the beginning of a more international sporting field. Their experience was turned into a film by Phil Keoghan, released in July 2016.
Tour director Henri Desgrange allowed teams to replace exhausted or injured cyclist by new cyclists, to give the weaker teams a fairer chance. However, the effects were opposite, so the concept was quickly abandoned.
In the 1927 Tour de France, the team time trial format had been introduced, where teams started 15 minutes separated. This was done to make the flat stages more competitive. Although in 1927 this had not been successful, the formula was repeated in 1928; this time the teams started 10 minutes from each other.
The team time trial format had been an advantage to the strong teams; therefore the tour organisation invented a new rule, aimed to help the weak teams: the teams were allowed to replace cyclists in the beginning of stage 12, halfway through the competition. They were not eligible for the general classification.
Another new rule thing were the regional teams. The riders were separated in three groups: there were eight trade teams, nine regional teams of five riders and the touriste-routiers, without teams. Between them, the eight trade teams formed five competing units for the race. Three of them - Alcyon, Armor and Thomann, all of which had sponsorship from Dunlop - combined to compete as a single unit of ten riders. Elvish and Fontan, with Wolber sponsorship, did the same. The formidable Alcyon-Armor-Thomann combination would go on to fill the top five places overall.
In other years, the mountain stages, especially in the Pyrenees, had decided the race. To reduce the importance of these stages, the Tour organisation had changed the route of the first mountain stage, that had been the same since 1913. Two mountains, the Aspin and the Peyresourde, were left out of the stage.
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