The 2020 Tour de France was the 107th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Tour began in Nice with a hilly stage on 29 August, and Stage 11 occurred on 9 September with a flat stage to Poitiers. The race finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 20 September.
Classification standings
Stage 1
29 August 2020 – Nice to Nice,
The main break of the day was made by Cyril Gautier (), Michael Schär (), and Fabien Grellier (), who split the six mountain points on offer evenly between themselves; Grellier was awarded the King of the Mountains jersey by virtue of having scored his two points first. The break was caught with 100 kilometers still to go, after which it started to rain. This made the downhill portions of the stage very slippery and caused several crashes, with Pavel Sivakov and Miguel Ángel López among those to fall. Eventually, the riders, led by Tony Martin, agreed a truce in the peloton. On the riders returned to the flat roads in the run-in to the finish, a late breakaway attempt by Benoît Cosnefroy with around 20 kilometers left was short-lived. A large pileup occurred with 3 kilometers to go, but the riders involved were all credited with the same time as the stage winner as per race regulations. In the final sprint, Alexander Kristoff won, narrowly holding off the fast-approaching defending World Road Race Champion Mads Pedersen, to take the first yellow jersey of the race. As a result of the crashes, 's Rafael Valls and duo John Degenkolb and Philippe Gilbert withdrew from the race, while several other riders, notably Sivakov, were left severely injured.
Stage 2
30 August 2020 – Nice to Nice,
Stage 2 was a noticeably sunnier affair compared to the wet and dreary conditions on stage 1. The early break consisted of seven riders: Benoît Cosnefroy (), Lukas Pöstlberger and Peter Sagan (), Matteo Trentin (), Anthony Perez (), Kasper Asgreen (), and Toms Skujiņš (). Sagan began his points classification title defense as he tried to go for a record eighth green jersey, but he was pipped at the intermediate sprint by Trentin. Cosnefroy and Perez scored 18 points across each of the two category 1 climbs, and Cosnefroy was awarded the polka dot jersey on tiebreakers. With around 40 kilometers left, the rest of the breakaway were caught by the peloton. On the final climb, the Col des Quatre Chemins, Julian Alaphilippe, Marc Hirschi and Adam Yates made a late break and maintained a narrow lead over the peloton to the finish, where Alaphilippe took the sprint and claimed the yellow jersey. Alexander Kristoff was dropped early on in the stage and finished over 28 minutes behind Alaphilippe, but the Norwegian was able to keep the green jersey.
Stage 331 August 2020 – Nice to Sisteron, As the race headed out of Nice, a trio of French riders formed the main breakaway of the day: Benoît Cosnefroy (), Anthony Perez (), and Jérôme Cousin (). Cosnefroy and Perez were tied on points in the mountains classification, though the former wore the polka-dot jersey on tiebreakers, and they wrestled for points across the early pair of category 3 climbs. Perez managed to outsprint Cosnefroy on both of those climbs, putting the former into the virtual mountains classification lead. Shortly thereafter, they both rejoined the peloton while Cousin soldiered on alone. On the next climb, the category 3 Col des Leques, Cousin crossed over first and two points, while in the peloton behind, Cosnefroy managed to outsprint Perez to take the solitary point left over. It was reported that Perez crashed on the descent of the Col des Leques with around 70 kilometers to go and had to abandon the race, meaning that Cosnefroy kept hold of the polka-dot jersey. At the sole intermediate sprint of the day at Digne-les-Bains, Cousin crossed over first, while the sprinters behind raced for the remaining points, with Peter Sagan being the best of the rest. Cosuin was finally caught with 16 kilometers to go; for his efforts, he was given the stage's most combative rider award. In the final kilometer, took to the front to try and lead out Cees Bol. Sagan and then Sam Bennett led the sprint, but Caleb Ewan, coming from some distance back, weaved through the throng of sprinters and overhauled the Irishman on the finish line. With his fifth place result, Sagan took the green jersey.