Can a competitor win the Tour de France (or similar competitions) without winning a single leg of the Tour de France?
I would like to know if it analogous to the FEDEX Cup on the PGA Tour. The media (and some bloggers) keep obsessing about one player who this week could possibly win the Fedex Cup without winning a Golf Tournament all year.
Henrik Stenson can finish as low as third in the Tour Championship this week and still win the $10 Million Fedex Bonus.
Sure can. I’m pretty sure it’s been done at least once.
ETA:Six.
The yellow jersey is given to the one with the lowest aggregate time. I suppose there could be a case where one person consistently finished second or third, but had a lower time than anyone else.
Pretty sure one of Lemond’s wins was done without a stage win. Certainly possible in principle.
Would be quite rare - you obviously need to be consistently strong day in day out to win the Tour, which usually gives you the opportunity to win a stage or two.
Thanks for the info.
And one could win several stages and finish last.
Probably not, since at least a few riders drop out very early on most years. Anyone who won a few stages would at least beat them.
Typically only the riders that finished get counted. So you can only finished last if you actually finish. It’s actually a position that riders strive for (or at least used to), as the “Lanterne rouge” could make more money in the criteriums following the Tour.
The winner of this year’s Vuelta a Espana, Fabio Aru, won the general classification but did not win a single stage.