The Tour de France bicycle race is held annually. Its route passes through the territory not only of France, but also of neighboring states. It takes cyclists three weeks to cover this distance.
Most of the Tour de France international cycling races start in early July and end at the end of the same month. But an exception was made for the 2012 event. It will start on June 30 and end on July 22.
The route of the race is selected anew each time. For this reason, the distance that riders have to travel is constantly changing. So, in 2012 it will be 3479 km. This time the race will start in the city of Liege (Belgium) and end at the Champs Elysees, in the center of the French capital.
All events of the Tour de France series consist of stages of three types. The principle of the first is that cyclists do not compete in the beginning, and they are not required to overtake each other. For several kilometers, they move in the same order in which they started. Then the representative of the organizer raises the white flag, and from this moment the competition begins. Now each of the riders strives to come to the finish line first. They are allowed to lightly touch each other, but it is forbidden (on pain of disqualification) to push. The winner is the first competitor to reach the finish line.
At the stages of the second type, the riders start individually. From the moment of the start of each of them, an individual stopwatch is started. After that, the cyclist does not pay attention to the others - his goal is to keep the time interval from start to finish as short as possible. Finally, the stages of the third type differ in that not individual riders, but their teams start in turn. The time spent by each participant to overcome the track is also recorded by stopwatches.
The time periods spent by each of the riders to overcome all stages are added up. Then, the smallest of these values is chosen, and the corresponding cyclist is declared the winner. Winning in any of the individual stages is also considered prestigious.
