Rainbow jersey

The rainbow jersey is the distinctive jersey worn by the reigning world champion in a cycling discipline, since 1927. The jersey is predominantly white with five horizontal bands in the UCI colours around the chest. From the bottom up the colours are: green, yellow, black, red and blue; the same colours that appear in the rings on the Olympic flag. The tradition is applied to all disciplines, including road racing, track racing, cyclo-cross, BMX, Trials and the disciplines within mountain biking. The jersey is produced by Santini SMS since 1994.

A world champion must wear the jersey when competing in the same discipline, category and speciality for which the title was won. For example, the world road race champion would wear the garment while competing in stage races (except for time trial stages) and one-day races, but would not be entitled to wear it during time trials. Similarly, on the track, the world individual pursuit champion would only wear the jersey when competing in other individual pursuit events. In team events, such as the team pursuit, each member of the team must wear the rainbow jersey, but – again – would not wear it while racing in, say, points races or other track disciplines.

The rainbow jersey helps make a world champion easier to spot for spectators, but it also has the effect of making the title-holder more visible to other competitors, particularly in road racing situations. This can be a disadvantage as it makes it more difficult for the world champion to launch an attack, while other riders will quickly seek to take advantage if they notice the rainbow jersey crashes or suffers a mechanical or other problem. There is also reduced space for sponsors' logos on the world champion's jerseys; however, the increased media coverage of a reigning world champion is thought to offset the effects of the smaller logo space.

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Wikipedia