The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Belgian city of Liège on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July. The Tour consisted of 21 stages, including an opening prologue, and covered a total distance of 3,496.9 km (2,173 mi). As well as the prologue, the first two stages took place in Belgium, and one stage finished in Switzerland. Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) won the overall general classification, and became the first British rider to win the Tour. Wiggins's teammate Chris Froome placed second, and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas–Cannondale) was third.
The general classification leader's yellow jersey was worn for the first week by Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack–Nissan), who won the prologue. Wiggins, second in the prologue, took the leadership of the race on stage seven, the first mountainous stage, which was won by Froome, and maintained his lead for the remainder of the race, winning the two longest time trials, and not losing time to his main challengers for the overall title in the mountains.
The points classification was won by Nibali's teammate Peter Sagan, who won three stages. André Greipel of Lotto–Belisol and Team Sky rider Mark Cavendish also won three stages. Team Europcar's Thomas Voeckler, winner of two mountain stages, won the mountains classification. BMC Racing Team's Tejay van Garderen, in fifth place overall, won the young rider classification. The team classification was won by RadioShack–Nissan, and Chris Anker Sørensen (Saxo Bank–Tinkoff Bank) was given the award for the most combative rider.
The 2012 edition of the Tour de France consisted of 22 teams.[1] The race was the 18th of the 29 events in the UCI World Tour,[2] and all of its eighteen UCI ProTeams were entitled, and obliged, to enter the race.[3] On 6 April 2012, the organiser of the Tour, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced the four second-tier UCI Professional Continental teams given wildcard invitations, of which three were French-based (Cofidis, Team Europcar and Saur–Sojasun) and one was Dutch (Argos–Shimano).[4] The presentation of the teams – where the members of each team's roster are introduced in front of the media and local dignitaries – took place outside the Prince-Bishops' Palace in Liège, Belgium, on 28 June, two days before the opening stage held in the city.[5]
Each squad was allowed a maximum of nine riders, resulting in a start list total of 198 riders.[6] Of these, 35 were riding the Tour de France for the first time.[7] The riders came from 31 countries; France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Australia all had 12 or more riders in the race.[6] Riders from six countries won stages during the race; British riders won the largest number of stages, with seven.[8] The average age of riders in the race was 30.17 years, ranging from the 22-year-old Thibaut Pinot (FDJ–BigMat) to the 40-year-old Jens Voigt (RadioShack–Nissan).[9] The Saur–Sojasun cyclists had the youngest average age while RadioShack–Nissan cyclists had the oldest.[10]