1961 Tour de France

The teams entering the race were:^[1][2]

Since Jacques Anquetil had won the 1957 Tour de France, he was unable to repeat it, due to illness, tiredness and struggle within the French team. For 1961, he asked the team captain Marcel Bidot to make a team that would only ride for him, and Bidot agreed. Anquetil announced before the race that he would take the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification on the first day, and wear it until the end of the race in Paris.^[3]

Gastone Nencini, who won the previous edition, did not enter in 1961, but Graziano Battistini, his teammate and runner-up of 1960, started the race as leader of the Italian team. If the French team would again have internal struggles, the Italian team could emerge as the winner.

The Spanish team had two outsiders, José Pérez Francés and Fernando Manzaneque. The last outsider was Charly Gaul, winner of the 1958 Tour de France, who rode in the mixed Luxembourg/Swiss team. He considered his teammates so weak that he did not seek their help, and rode the race on his own.^[3] Raymond Poulidor was convinced by his team manager Antonin Magne that it would be better to skip the Tour, because the national team format would undermine his commercial value.^[4]

The 1961 Tour de France started on 25 June in Rouen, and had one rest day, in Montpellier.^[5] For the first time the finish on top of the Superbagnères was included to the race.^[6] The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,115 m (6,939 ft) at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet mountain pass on stage 17.^[7][8]

Stage characteristics and winners^{[9][5][10][2][11]}

Stage	Date	Course	Distance	Type		Winner
1a	25 June	Rouen to Versailles	136.5 km (84.8 mi)		Plain stage	André Darrigade (FRA)
1b		Versailles	28.5 km (17.7 mi)		Individual time trial	Jacques Anquetil (FRA)
2	26 June	Pontoise to Roubaix	230.5 km (143.2 mi)		Plain stage	André Darrigade (FRA)
3	27 June	Roubaix to Charleroi (Belgium)	197.5 km (122.7 mi)		Plain stage	Emile Daems (BEL)
4	28 June	Charleroi (Belgium) to Metz	237.5 km (147.6 mi)		Plain stage	Anatole Novak (FRA)
5	29 June	Metz to Strasbourg	221 km (137 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Louis Bergaud (FRA)
6	30 June	Strasbourg to Belfort	180.5 km (112.2 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Jozef Planckaert (BEL)
7	1 July	Belfort to Chalon-sur-Saône	214.5 km (133.3 mi)		Plain stage	Jean Stablinski (FRA)
8	2 July	Chalon-sur-Saône to Saint-Étienne	240.5 km (149.4 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Jean Forestier (FRA)
9	3 July	Saint-Étienne to Grenoble	230 km (140 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Charly Gaul (LUX)
10	4 July	Grenoble to Turin (Italy)	250.5 km (155.7 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Guy Ignolin (FRA)
11	5 July	Turin (Italy) to Antibes	225 km (140 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Guido Carlesi (ITA)
12	6 July	Antibes to Aix-en-Provence	199.0 km (123.7 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Michel Van Aerde (BEL)
13	7 July	Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier	177.5 km (110.3 mi)		Plain stage	André Darrigade (FRA)
	8 July	Montpellier			Rest day
14	9 July	Montpellier to Perpignan	174 km (108 mi)		Plain stage	Eddy Pauwels (BEL)
15	10 July	Perpignan to Toulouse	206 km (128 mi)		Plain stage	Guido Carlesi (ITA)
16	11 July	Toulouse to Superbagnères	208 km (129 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Imerio Massignan (ITA)
17	12 July	Luchon to Pau	197 km (122 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Eddy Pauwels (BEL)
18	13 July	Pau to Bordeaux	207 km (129 mi)		Plain stage	Martin Van Geneugden (BEL)
19	14 July	Bergerac to Périgueux	74.5 km (46.3 mi)		Individual time trial	Jacques Anquetil (FRA)
20	15 July	Périgueux to Tours	309.5 km (192.3 mi)		Plain stage	André Darrigade (FRA)
21	16 July	Tours to Paris	252.5 km (156.9 mi)		Plain stage	Robert Cazala (FRA)
	Total		4,397 km (2,732 mi)[12]

André Darrigade won the opening stage, and it became the fifth time that he won the opening stage.^[6] Darrigade had been in a small group that broke away, which included Anquetil. Other competitors, such as Gaul and Battistini, already lost more than 5 minutes.^[3] After that, there was a time trial, won by Jacques Anquetil. Anquetil became the leader of the race, with his teammate Joseph Groussard in second place, almost five minutes behind him.^[3]

The second stage, run in bad weather, featured small roads in Northern France. Several cyclists got into problems, and seven cyclists already had to leave the race; the favourites were not harmed.^[13] In the sixth stage, West German Horst Oldenburg fell down on the descent of the Col de la Schlucht, and the Dutch team captain Ab Geldermans ran into him. Geldermans was taken to the Belfort hospital by helicopter, and the Dutch team had lost its captain.^[13]

Unlike previous years, the French team continued without fights, and won five of the first eight stages.^[3] The ninth stage included four major climbs. On the second climb, Gaul escaped. He crashed on the descent of the third mountain, but managed to stay away and win the stage; Anquetil was not far behind and kept the lead.^[3] Anquetil had a five-minutes margin on the second-placed rider, which was Manzaneque. In the eleventh stage, Graziano Battistini was hit by a car, and had to leave the race.^[13] This situation had not changed when the sixteenth stage started. It was expected that Gaul, in third place more than six minutes behind, would attack, but this did not happen,^[3] because Gaul had been injured in his crash in the previous stage.^[13]

The last chance for the opposition to win back time on Anquetil was in the seventeenth stage, but Anquetil stayed close to his direct competitors, and only allowed lower classified riders to escape. The press criticized Anquetil's tactics, saying he was riding passively.^[14] In the nineteenth stage, an individual time trial, Gaul was on his way to win back a little time on Anquetil, when he crashed heavily, and could not find his pace again. Anquetil won almost three minutes on Gaul and extended his lead to more than ten minutes.^[15]

In the final two stages, Anquetil did not get into problems. His main rival Gaul even lost time in the last stage, and conceded his second place to Guido Carlesi.^[13]

There were several classifications in the 1961 Tour de France, two of them awarding jerseys to their leaders.^[16] The most important was the general classification, calculated by adding each cyclist's finishing times on each stage. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey; the winner of this classification is considered the winner of the Tour.^[17]

Additionally, there was a points classification. In the points classification, cyclists got points for finishing among the best in a stage finish. The cyclist with the most points lead the classification, and was identified with a green jersey.^[18]

There was also a mountains classification. Most stages of the race included one or more categorised climbs, in which points were awarded to the riders that reached the summit first. The climbs were categorised as third-, second- or first-category, with the more difficult climbs rated lower. The cyclist with the most points lead the classification, but was not identified with a jersey.^[19]

For the team classification The calculation was different from previous years. Before 1961, the classification was based on time, but in 1961, it was based on points; times of the best three cyclists per team on each stage were added; the team with the lowest time on a stage won the team prize for that stage.^[20] The overall team classification was calculated by counting the number of team prizes.

In addition, there was a combativity award, in which a jury composed of journalists gave points after each stage to the cyclist they considered most combative. The split stages each had a combined winner.^[21] At the conclusion of the Tour, the entire West/South-West team won the overall super-combativity award, also decided by journalists.^[5] The Souvenir Henri Desgrange was given in honour of Tour founder Henri Desgrange to the first rider to pass the summit of the Ballon d'Alsace on stage 6. This prize was won by Jef Planckaert.^[22][23]

Classification leadership by stage^[24]

Stage	Winner	General classification	Points classification	Mountains classification[a]	Team classification	Combativity award	Bad luck award
1a	André Darrigade	André Darrigade	André Darrigade	no award	France	Jacques Anquetil	José Pérez Francés
1b	Jacques Anquetil	Jacques Anquetil	Jacques Anquetil
2	André Darrigade		André Darrigade			Pierre Beuffeuil	no award
3	Emile Daems			Eddy Pauwels		René Vanderveken	Jos Hoevenaers
4	Anatole Novak					Bernard Viot	Dieter Puschel
5	Louis Bergaud			Louis Bergaud		Stéphane Lach	Jos Hoevenaers
6	Jozef Planckaert			Eddy Pauwels		Jef Planckaert	Albertus Geldermans
7	Jean Stablinski					Fernando Manzaneque	René Vanderveken
8	Jean Forestier					Stéphane Lach	Joseph Wasko
9	Charly Gaul			Charly Gaul		Charly Gaul	no award
10	Guy Ignolin			Imerio Massignan		Guy Ignolin	Netherlands
11	Guido Carlesi					Guido Carlesi	Graziano Battistini
12	Michel Van Aerde					Édouard Bihouée	Valentin Huot
13	André Darrigade					Antoine Abate	Bernard Viot
14	Eddy Pauwels					Joseph Wasko	Jan Westdorp
15	Guido Carlesi					Seamus Elliott	Jean Stablinski
16	Imerio Massignan					Ken Laidlaw	André Le Dissez
17	Eddy Pauwels					Marcel Queheille	Friedhelm Fischerkeller
18	Martin Van Geneugden					Joseph Wasko	Guy Ignolin
19	Jacques Anquetil		Jean Gainche			Jean Gainche	Guido Carlesi
20	André Darrigade		André Darrigade			Guy Ignolin	no award
21	Robert Cazala					Marcel Queheille	Jean Forestier
Final		Jacques Anquetil	André Darrigade	Imerio Massignan	France	West/South-West	Graziano Battistini

As Anquetil had led the race after every stage, there was not much competitiveness, which organiser Jacques Goddet termed a "fiasco".^[4] After the race, the system with national teams was abandoned, and it was announced that the 1962 Tour de France would be run with sponsored teams.^[4]