Has anyone ever won green and yellow in the TDF

[ukdodger]

In the same race that is. Just a thought.

[Brucey]

I think that both have been held by the same rider at the same time but perhaps not at the race finish*. I think the rider wears the yellow and the second place rider in the points gets to wear green.

* correction Merckx did it in '69, '71, '72. He did it in the Giro more than once too. Not 'the cannibal' for nothing....

cheers

[ukdodger]

I think that both have been held by the same rider at the same time but perhaps not at the race finish*. I think the rider wears the yellow and the second place rider in the points gets to wear green.

* correction Merckx did it in '69, '71, '72. He did it in the Giro more than once too. Not 'the cannibal' for nothing....

cheers

I thought and I could be wrong that yellow is on time and green on points. So the most stage wins wins green.

So Merckx did win both in the same race?

[ukdodger]

I think that both have been held by the same rider at the same time but perhaps not at the race finish*. I think the rider wears the yellow and the second place rider in the points gets to wear green.

* correction Merckx did it in '69, '71, '72. He did it in the Giro more than once too. Not 'the cannibal' for nothing....

cheers

I thought and I could be wrong that yellow is on time and green on points. So the most stage wins wins green and the shortest time overall wins yellow.

So Merckx did win both in the same race?

[LollyKat]

And Merckx also won the King of the Mountains jersey in 1969 and 1970 - so in his first TdF he won all three jerseys

[Brucey]

The green jersey is for points, and points are awarded in various ways, for stage finishes and for intermediate sprints. It is possible for a rider to win the points without winning a single stage.

The yellow is for general classification, i.e. total time, with the caveat that you get time bonuses (some years and not others) for finishing positions on each stage. It is quite possible to win the GC without winning a single stage.

1969 it was pretty much a clean sweep for Merckx; he won the mountains classification and the award for the most aggressive rider, as well as the GC and the points classification.

You can see his palmares (or highlights, anyway) here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Merckx

in the box at the top right of the page.

cheers

[ukdodger]

And Merckx also won the King of the Mountains jersey in 1969 and 1970 - so in his first TdF he won all three jerseys

Wow. But with a performance like that you have to wonder about drugs. Doping was around long before testing.

[Brucey]

Merckx's career was both long and consistent. His performances (even as an amateur) were just phenomenal. Back then, those things were not the hallmarks of a doper.

Merckx was found with dope in his system on just three occasions, despite many tests during his long career, during an era of -sometimes flagrant- drug abuse in sport. Of those three, only one lacks a reasonable explanation. I'm inclined to the view that amongst his peers, he was either much less likely to have doped, or (less likely IMHO) he had some special way of doping that was just way better than anyone else's, that he somehow used for about seventeen years.

cheers

[pete75]

And Merckx also won the King of the Mountains jersey in 1969 and 1970 - so in his first TdF he won all three jerseys

Wow. But with a performance like that you have to wonder about drugs. Doping was around long before testing.

And testing was around before Merckx. Remember he rode all year round spring classics, the stage races and finishing with the Tour of Lombardy before starting the winter 6 day track stuff. Winners and podium finishers tended to be tested and Merckx was almost always one of those.
Merckx also had a very bad track accident at Blois in the autumn of 69 damaging his pelvis and back so badly he was confined to bed for 6 weeks. By his own admission he was never as good a rider after the accident and in particular it affected his climbing. That may well be why he never again won all the jerseys in a single tour.

[thirdcrank]

For a couple of decades - 1968 to 1989 - there was also a combined classification for the rider doing best across the three other jersey classifications. It began as a white jersey but was changed to a sort of patchwork quilt of the yellow, green, and polka dot. Eddy Merckx won all four in 1969.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinati ... _de_France

The diagram illustrating the combined jersey in that link also has a patch of red. At one time, they introduced an intermediate sprint competition separate from the green jersey which was recognised by the award of the red jersey.

[ukdodger]

For a couple of decades - 1968 to 1989 - there was also a combined classification for the rider doing best across the three other jersey classifications. It began as a white jersey but was changed to a sort of patchwork quilt of the yellow, green, and polka dot. Eddy Merckx won all four in 1969.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinati ... _de_France

The diagram illustrating the combined jersey in that link also has a patch of red. At one time, they introduced an intermediate sprint competition separate from the green jersey which was recognised by the award of the red jersey.

Interesting link. Before this years TDF I didnt really understand the jersey qualifications. Have to say though after reading Walsh's book on Armstrong and the world of doping in cycling I'm really suspicious of Eddy Merckx's stunning three jersey win.

[thirdcrank]

Doping in sport is something I know little about, but IMO it's misleading to think of bike racing in the past in terms of what it's like now. Pro racing was largely restricted to France, Italy, Belgium and Spain, with some more from Holland, Germany and, of course Luxemburg. The amateur part of the sport was dominated by the Iron Curtain countries. The road calendar was a three season affair, with many riders having either a complete break in winter or doing a bit of cyclo-cross. As has been pointed out, some top roadmen were able to continue through the winter with 6 day (track racing) contracts.

The Paris-Nice stage race was generally regarded as a bit of a training run after the winter. Most of the classics, as now were held in the spring and then the Giro was mainly ridden by Italian riders followed a bit later by the TdeF which was a bit more cosmopolitan but still mainly home riders. In the days of national teams - which ended just before Merckx's career, there would be a French national team and several French regional teams. After the TdeF, French riders made their living riding the numerous local village races around-the-houses where each race organiser would pay appearance money for a few pro riders - recent success in the TdeF meaning more appearance money - and then was pretty much the World Championships - held a bit earlier in the year than now - and Tour of Lombardy, then bikes back away for the Winter.

All this meant that there were fewer truly strong riders and there was less specialisation. Obviously, there were sprinters, but not with entire teams forming a lead-out train. There were specialist climbers, too, but largely lightweights who could accelerate repeatedly. In the days when there was much less motorised technical support, domestiques were largely there to fetch and carry for the team leader, swapping wheels and even bikes with the team leader to a much greater extent than happens now. Some domestiques were not full-time riders. eg AFAIK, Roger Chaussabel, who was lanterne rouge in 1956 was also a part-time fireman. They would be expected to forage in roadside bars and cafés for cold drinks, especially in hot weather. In short, although riders such as Merckx dominated their era, there was much less strong competition. No modern rider could hope to dominate the sport in the way that Merckx did, even with rocket fuel: pro bike racing is now much more international, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain, but television coverage has meant much more money, and more incentive for riders to ride hard throughout a race. Modern professionals are more .... professional.

[pete75]

In short, although riders such as Merckx dominated their era, there was much less strong competition.

For most of his career Merkx was up against Roger De Vlaeminck in the classics. Look up the man's palmares and I think you'll find he's amongst the strongest competition any rider could face in them. Later on he was racing against Freddy Martens and earlier Rik Van Looy and Jaques Anquetil. Felice Gimondi was a constant throughout his career as was Poulidor - older but still capable of second place in the tour as late as 1974. Then there was Louis Ocana, not an easy man to beat. Joop Zoetemelk and Bernard Thevenet shouldn't be regarded as pushovers either.
If anything competition was probably stronger in Merckx's day than currently. As an example when he won the tour in 1972 the four riders just behind him in the GC were Felice Gimondi, Raymond Poulidor, Lucien Van Impe and Joop Zoetemelk. Three tour winners and the chap who probably holds the record for podium places without actually winning - not what I'd call easy opposition.

[thirdcrank]

I was posting in reply to a suggestion that Merckx's domination of the TdeF implied doping.

Beyond that, it's generally likely to be futile comparing success at sport between generations because of changing conditions. (There's an argument that they are all softies compared with Eugene Christophe.) Naming a few other prominent strong riders tends to support what I said about the rank-and-file and I suspect that evidence to describe any of Merckx's contemporaries as strong would include their success in beating him - a bit circular. This took place in my golden youth and Merckx is just a few months younger than I am but I've dumped the rose-tinted specs.

[pete75]

I was posting in reply to a suggestion that Merckx's domination of the TdeF implied doping.

Beyond that, it's generally likely to be futile comparing success at sport between generations because of changing conditions. (There's an argument that they are all softies compared with Eugene Christophe.) Naming a few other prominent strong riders tends to support what I said about the rank-and-file and I suspect that evidence to describe any of Merckx's contemporaries as strong would include their success in beating him - a bit circular. This took place in my golden youth and Merckx is just a few months younger than I am but I've dumped the rose-tinted specs.

I can't think of a better argument that a rider was strong than to say he'd beaten Merckx. I named more than a few strong riders of that era and there were a lot more. To say that riders in the past did not face strong competition is nonsense .