The Tour de France was always linked to trademarks. Since its inception their cyclists were sponsored on a personal level, but Henri's desire to break Objectives, did not start until 1930, then with the formula of the national teams.
After that period the commercial teams took over and the brands found the ideal trampoline to make themselves known, based on showing off in the jersey of the great champions.
We have selected ten of the squads that have marked the most
The Tour de France throughout its history, by palmarés and to earn a hole in the memory of the fans.
Peugeot
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French cyclist Raymond Delisle, of the Peugeot team, during the 1976 tour (Image: René Milanese, Creative Commons)[/caption]
The Peugeot cycling team holds the vitola to be the longest and most laureate of the history of the Tour de France, with a trajectory that covers from 1904 to 1989. He participated in a total of 36 editions and his runners won the general classification ten times, the general classification, Adding a total of 123 stage victories, a record in line with what the lion brand represented in cycling, even before the tour was born.
Its founder, Armand Peugeot, began to manufacture bicycles and tricycles in 1886 and ten years later the production already exceeded 9,000 units per year, a figure that was growing to the point of turning the brand into the main bicycle supplier of the French army bicycles and the large number of cycling races that were already organized in France at the end of the 19th century.
With these credentials Peugeot was a brand that left its mark on the Tour de France since its inception in 1903, understanding that the promotion of its products had necessarily going through sponsoring races and corridors, which resulted in the creation of a team of a team of competition from 1904.
Since in those first tours it was not allowed to run as a team, following the idea of the patron Henri Desigrange to convert the race into an individual challenge stripped of all external aid, Peugeot began by sponsoring cyclists on an individual basis, and several cast came out several of the champions who dominated the palmarés of the Tour de France until the First World War: Louis Trosellier (1905); René Pottier (1906); Lucien Petit Breton (1907 and 1908) and Philippe Thys (1913 and 1914) won the tour for the Lion's brand, in a domain that was especially overwhelming in 1908, when their runners won each and every one of the 14 stages of that edition , with Petit Breton (5) and François Faber (4) at the head.
The domain of the Peugeot runners reappeared after the parenthesis of the First World War, with the triumph of the Escalator Firmin Lambot in 1922, and a harvest of 18 stage victories between that edition and that of 1923. It was the way to overcome the crisis postwar, in which the brand had to form a consortium for three years with other squads to survive, under the name of the Sportive.
When in 1930 the Tour de France decided to open the competition to the teams, he did it through national teams, so that the visibility of commercial brands, as we know it today, did not reach until 1962. Peugeot opened from That year a second golden age, in which the brand revolutionized its image with the creation of the mythical chess chess in black and white, a design that also moved to its bicycles.
The Great Eddy Merckx ran with Peugeot in 1966 and 1967, achieving victories of great prestige, such as two milan - San Remo, the arrow - Vallea and La Gante - Wevelgem, in addition to stages in the Tour of Italy and the Paris Niza, among others Many races. However, the Belgian did not run the Tour of France with the team, since his debut would end up arriving in 1968 with the FAEMA.
To see Peugeot win again in Paris, the two victories of Bernard Thévenet had to , until touching half a million units.
The Peugeot team continued winning secondary stages and classifications in the Tour de France with corridors such as the Australian Phil Anderson or the Scottish Robert Millar, until in 1989 the historic firm decided to remove its sponsorship and the weight of the structure fell to Z, the brand of children's clothes with which he had begun to collaborate in 1987 to form the remembered Z-Peugeot.
Saint Raphäel - Bic
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The BIC had mythical cyclists in its ranks, such as the Pentacampeón of the Anchetyl Jacques Tour (Image: Creative Commons).[/caption]
The Saint Raphaël was the first French cycling team to receive the sponsorship of a company not related to the world of sport, where appropriate a brand of snacks. He began his journey in 1954, with Raphael Geminiani in his ranks as a corridor and and copatrocator, through his own bicycle brand. The last name Geminiani was the first of the various that had the structure, before BIC, the famous brand of disposable products, assumed the sponsorization until 1974.
In its 20 years of experience, the French team was erected in one of the undisputed referents of the Tour de France: it reaped five wins in the general classification, three with its great banner, Jacques Anquetil, and two others with Lucien Aimar and Luis Ocaña. In their ranks, other figures of the time ran, such as the British Tom Simpson, the German Rudi Altig, the Frenchman Jean Stablinski, the Dutch Jean Janssen, the Spanish Julio Jiménez, or the Portuguese Joaquim Agostinho.
That cast of great level gave up to 35 stage victories in the Tour de France -12 with the firm of Anquetil-, and four wins in the general by teams, in addition to victories such as Julio Jiménez in the mountain classification ( 1966), or that of Rudi Altig in regularity (1962).
His best year at the Tour de France arrived in 1973, when Luis Ocaña achieved an overwhelming victory in the general and the team won in eight stages, six of them with the signing of the Spanish champion, and two with those of José Catieu and Joaquim Agostinho.
Mercier
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Raymond Poulidor (left), was one of the great figures of the Mercier team.[/caption]
The French bicycle brand Cycles Mercier sponsored from 1935 to one of the most legend teams in the Tour de France, and the longest after the Peugeot, with a trajectory that reached until 1984 under different denominations. Mercier was the team where Cyrille Guimard began to run, the legendary director of Hinault and Fignon in the Renault, and also that of figures such as Roger Lapébie, Antonin Magne, Louison Bobet, Raymond Poulidor or Joop Zoetemelk.
These five cyclists added a total of 25 podiums and seven absolute victories in Paris, although a good part of that harvest is not the exclusive property of the French squad: Magne, which would later lead the team for 17 years, reaped his successes in the Tour with the French team, unable to run with Mercier, and the same case occurred with Roger Lapèbie in 1937 and with the three Bobet triumphs in the fifties.
With Jop Zoetemelk something even more curious happened: the Dutch took four times to the podium of Paris with the Mercier's jerse that ran for the British. Then, in 1982, Zetemelk returned to Mercier and was again second in the tour.
These cases, together with the eight podiums exempt from absolute victories by Raymond Poulidor, explain why in the Palmares of the French squad there is no individual victory in the tour, although it can boast five victories in the team classification per time, and three more in the points.
The fusion with the Spanish team of the Fagor in 1970 made Mercier in the second sponsor of the structure, later opening the sponsoring to brands such as Hutchinson, Gan, Miko and Coop. The latter assumed the cyclist template in 1984, when Mercier closed his cycle of almost half a century as a sponsor.
Molteni
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The Belgian Eddy Merckx was the great star of the Molteni team.[/caption]
The Molteni was not only the team with which Eddy Merckx won three of his five Tours of France, in 1971, 1972 and 1974, in addition to three turns in Italy and a return to Spain, but it was the most powerful cycling squad of his Time, with 663 victories between 1958 and 1976.
Created by Pietro and Renato Molteni to promote the Italian brand of Salami that carried the family last name, the team began on the path of the great victories in the Tour of Italy, thanks to the figures of Guido de Rosso and Gianni Motta. The latter premiered the Palmarés in the Tour de France with a third position in 1965, which was followed by his triumph in the 1966 Corsa. Motta came to contribute a total of 48 victories, the best individual brand in the early years of Molteni .
A year earlier, in 1965, the team had incorporated the German Rudi Altig, one of the stars of the moment in track cycling, which would later be proclaimed world champion en route. However, the great impulse came when Molteni incorporated Eddy Merckx in 1971, from Faemino - Faema, with which he had already won the tour twice.
The arrival of
The cannibal He led to the signing of other Belgian corridors who had already been his gregarious, such as Julien Stevens or Herman Van Springel, a transfer that also also included the prestigious sports director, Guillaume Driessens, with whom Merckx had triumphed in the FAEMA.
The Molteni gained 37 stages of the Tour de France in eight participations, between 1965 and 1975. A total of 20 took the signature of Eddy Merckx, eight of them achieved in their overwhelming absolute victory of 1974. The triumphs of the Belgian, added To the general quality of the team, the orange jersey - or pink - with a blue molteni band, even today a piece for vintage sportswear collectors became iconic.
Kas
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The members of the Kas-Kaskol, during the 1964 Tour of France (Dutch National Archives, Creative Commons).[/caption]
The Basque team of the KAS was one of the most powerful of the international platoon in the sixties and seventy from its birth in Vitoria in 1958 until the end of its glorious first stage in 1979. The famous brand of sodas again relaunches it in 1985, obtaining An important number of victories with the Irish are Kelly, in addition to two stages in the Tour de France with the Portuguese Acácio da Silva, but without reaching the splendor of the first era.
The Kas came to have Bahamontes, Julio Jiménez and José Manuel Fuente in its ranks
The Tarangu, three of the best of the climbers in the history of cycling. Bahamontes was in the team when he won the Tour of France in 1959, but the mythical yellow jaw of the Kas could not show off in that victory because the Toledo ran with the Spanish team.
Those who could exhibit it in the Tour were Julio Jiménez and Source: The Abulense won six stages in the 1964 and 1965 editions, in addition to the classification of the mountain; and the Asturian went up to the podium of Paris as third classified in 1973, after having added two partial wins in 1971.
Beyond these three great climbers, the Kas gathered in its ranks the best Spaniards of the moment, in addition to expanding its structure with runners from other nationalities, especially French. Miguel Mari Lasa, Vicente López Carril, Paco Galdós, José Antonio González Linares, José Pérez Francés, Patxi Gabica, Txomin Perurena or José Pesarrodona were some of the cyclists capable of maintaining the great level of victories that the kas exhibited in the three big laps , with the support of corridors such as the Belgian Claude Crikquelion, the Dutch Lucien van Impe, or the Portuguese Joaquim Agostinho.
The numbers of the Alava squad were spectacular in the Tour of Spain: six wins in the general, with José Manuel Fuente (2), Patxi Gabica, José Presarrodona, Eric Caritoux and Sean Kelly; and a total of 66 stage triumphs.
These statistics fell in the Tour of France, participating in less editions (17 by 25), but still the Kas rounded a very important record, in addition to having a great weight in the race.
The individual general did not win, but he won four times in the team classification of the Tour (1965, 1966, 1974 and 1976), 16 stages was awarded and managed to climb the podium with Enrique Martínez Heredia as the best young man in the edition of 1976.
When it disappeared in 1979, Kas had marked an era and became considered one of the best teams in Spanish cycling history.
Renault
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Bernard Hinault won with the Renault four Tours team, two turns and two laps to Spain (Dutch National Archives, Creative Commons)[/caption]
The great French cars brand appeared in cycling when he acquired the gitane bicycle factory in 1974, the brand that Jacques Anquetil had used in two of his victorious France tours and that had been allied with the firm Campagnolo to create a team of Success competition.
When Renault assumed that structure in 1978, 16 stage victories were already included in the Palmares in the Tour de France and the absolute triumph in Paris de Lucien Van Impe.
The Renault - Gitane team marked a time of dominance during its eight years of experience, thanks to figures such as Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond, and to the wise direction of Cyrille Guimard, whose figure is key to understanding the amazing chain of victories that They achieved between 1978 and 1985.
Bernard Hinault won with Renault four Tours of France, two turns from Italy and two laps to Spain. And Laurent Fignon added the tours of 1983 and 1984 to close the brightest cycle. Between both champions they won 28 of the 36 stages of Renault in the Tour, in addition to leading their two victories in team classifications in 1979 and 1984.
To those triumphs were added the three white maillots of the classification of young people, won by Jean René Bernudeau (1979), Laurent Fignon (1983) and Greg Lemond (1984). That first podium in Paris of the American cyclist was one of the latest achievements of the Rombo brand, since Renault decided to retire as a sponsor of the team at the end of 1985, after Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond went to Vie Claire, the Millionaire project with which the businessman Bernard Tapie was introduced into cycling.
Cyrille Guimard still gave continuity to the structure, creating the Système-U, then the Castorama and later the Cofidis, but the mythical jersey of the Renault no longer reappeared in the Tour of France.
The Vie Claire
1985 It was the last year of Renault, with Laurent Fignon in front and Guimard in the car trying to face the team that would mark the Tour of France in the following years: Vie Claire.
The creation of Bernard Tapie, from the sponsorship of a healthy food brand, marked territory from the beginning, with the millionaire signing of Bernard Hinault and its clear objective of achieving the fifth victory in Paris, which he could not achieve in his debut With the team in 1984, and that of Greg Lemond, who arrived in that year of 1985, being already a route world champion and a potential tour winner.
The duel between the two squads had no color in that edition: with Fignon absent due to injury, the best Renault in the general was the French Marc Madiot, more than half an hour from the Hinault - Lemond tandem. The Breton won his fifth tour and Lemond was second, after the Vie Claire exercised a broad dominance of the race.
The order was invested the following year, with the victory of the American and the last podium in a great return of Hinault, which retired that year. Both champions shone under the direction of the Swiss Paul Köchli, a former Professional Cyclist with a short career who, however, introduced very innovative methods in the preparation and control of athletes, with whom he won respect even Cyrille Guimard.
The Vie Claire gave way to Toshiba, still with Köchli in the direction. But the Lemond hunting accident at the beginning of the year and its later sequelae moved him away from the top of the tour. His last podium brought the signature of the Frenchman Jean François Bernard, who finished third that year after Stephen Roche and Perico Delgado. From there to its end, in 1991, Toshiba did not appear again to the first positions, given that Lemond's triumphal return in 1989 took place with the Ad Renting's jersey.
Movistar (Reynolds / Banesto / Caisse d’Epargne)
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The current Movistar team was founded in 1980 with the sponsorship of Reynolds.[/caption]
The Navarra structure is currently the dean of the international squad, exceeding the 40 seasons of experience since its creation in 1980 under the denomination of Reynolds. Since then, the Tour de France has won seven times: five with Miguel Induráin (1991-1995) one with Pedro Delgado (1988) and another with Óscar Pereiro (2006).
Others is the cycling squad that has been imposed most times in the team classification, with seven victories, two of them with the sponsorship of Banesto and five with that of Movistar, and in its four decades in the Tour has achieved 34 stage victories .
The team was created thanks to the sponsorship of the Navarra company of Inasa Aluminum, which already collaborated with the base cycling of the Foral Community since 1974, with youth and fans teams. Hence the figure of José Miguel Echávarri, who was the first sports director of the new professional team.
Corridors such as Ángel Arroyo, Julián Gorospe or Pedro Delgado were arriving at the structure, capable of taking Reynolds to the fight for the big laps: Arroyo was second in the Tour of France of 1983, in which Delgado also began to stand out. The Segoviano gave the structure his first yellow jersey in 1988, in addition to adding two more podiums, with the second square of 1987 and the third of 1989.
From that last year, Bansto Banco assumed the sponsorship and the team entered its most glorious time, with the historical tacada of the five tours of Miguel Induráin. In those nineties, Banesto also won the team classification twice and reached number 1 in the UCI ranking (International Cycling Union), thanks to an important harvest of victories in other races, such as those achieved by Induráin in the Italy spin. This collective success would be repeated up to four consecutive times, and with Movistar in sponsorship.
After the Navarro champion, the leadership was in the hands of the Guipuzcoan Abraham Olano and the Abulense José María
El Chava Jiménez, two cyclists who, without reaching the excellence of Induráin -olano did not go from fourth place in the tour-, did marked Spanish cycling with different styles, with partial and absolute victories in the return and, in the case of the Basque, in the World Cup in Route of Colombia.
The last victory of the Navarro team in the Tour de France arrived in 2006, already under the sponsorship of the French banking group Caisse d'Epargne, and was achieved by the Galician Óscar Pereiro, although it had to wait for the disqualification of the American Floyd Landis for celebrate it. Pereiro picked up that yellow jersey four months after climbing to the podium of Paris as second classified.
By then Alejandro Valverde was in the team, which had arrived from the Kelme, endorsed by excellent results in all types of races. The Murcian champion has since adding up to seven podiums wearing the team's jersey in the three great rounds, highlighting his victory in the Tour of Spain of 2009 and third place in the Tour de France of 2015.
To these successes Valverde added in 2018 the archíris male of world champion, the greatest international triumph of a team member in recent seasons. However, the greatest possibilities of the Navarro team in the Tour de France came from the hand of the Colombian Nairo Quintana, with its two second positions of 2013 and 2015, and the third place obtained in 2016. The eighth victory in Paris is still resisting .
Telekom / T-Mobile
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The German Jan Ullrich won the 1997 Tour with more than 9 minutes of advantage over the second classified.[/caption]
The Telekom went down in the history of the Tour de France for ending Miguel Induráin, exercising a great dominance in the race in his two -year -old in Paris, first with the Danish Bjarne Rijs in 1996, and the following year with the young German Jan Ullrich, who would later add four more podiums.
The team was born in 1988 by the former world champion en route, Hernnie Kuiper, who achieved the sponsorship of the city of Stuttgart to form an entirely German squad, captained in its beginnings by Uudo Bölts, which would later be a fundamental gregarious in the Telekom
The German telecommunications company began its sponsorship in 1991 and took the decisive step towards success a year later, with the hiring of Walter Godefroot, a great popcmarés who had jumped to the address in teams such as Capri, Lotto or the Weinmann.
With Godefroot the best cyclists in Germany arrived, including Erik Zabel and Jan Ullrich, in addition to the Danish Bjarne Rijs, who came from doing third in the Tour of France of 1995. Already in 1996, the qualitative leap was spectacular: Rijs won the tour From France and Ullrich emerged as the great promise of world cycling, winning the jersey of young people and ending second in the general. Incidentally, Erik Zabel took two stages and the green jersey of the points, while the Telekom achieved the second position in the team classification, which would then win twice.
All expectations about the Domain of Telekom were confirmed in the 1997 Tour of France, in which Jan Ullrich overwhelmed, surpassing the second classified in more than nine minutes, the Frenchman Richard Virenque. Of course, the Rostock cyclist again wrapped the white jersey of young people, in addition to finishing second in the mountain. If he had removed the lunar jersey to Viranque, the Telekom would have made Erik Zabel repeated in Paris with the green jersey and the Telekom won the team classification.
This overwhelming domain ended up receiving a serious setback in the 1998 Tour of France, which Jan Ullrich came as a clear favorite not only to achieve a second triumph, but also to mark an era. However, the Italian Marco Pantani broke all the schemes in the historic stage of Galibier, where he dismissed the leadership of the German and catapulted towards the victory in Paris. Ullrich ended second and no longer won the Tour again, weighed by the 1999 lesion and by the subsequent appearance of Lance Armstrong.
Beyond the figure of Ullrich, the German team continued to show himself as one of the most powerful squads of the tour, with Zabel dominating the massive arrivals, until he achieved six green jerse The German Andreas Klöden, who added three more podiums in the Tour of France.
The Walter Godefroot squad came to win the team classification three consecutive, already under the name of T-Mobile, the telekom subsidiary company that took over from 2004. However, the great time of the team began to come Below with the departure of Walter Godefroot in 2006 and the doping scandals that affected their figures: Ullrich, involved in Operation Puerto, was fired in July 2006, and Erik Zabel and Bjarne Rijs ended up confessing that they were equipped during the more period Glorious team.
Telekom took a fulfillment and withdrew the sponsorship in 2007, although it promised to pay the budget of the 2008 season in exchange for the company's name disappearing. With that money -it was then talked about 15 million euros -a new team was created: the Team High Road.
Team Sky / INEOS
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The Team Sky was born with a talonario coup with a single objective: that a British cyclist won the Tour de France. At the moment they have six: four from Froome, one from Wiggins and another from Thomas (depositphotos).[/caption]
The Team Sky, current INEOS, is the active cycling team with the most victories in the Tour de France, matched seven with the Movistar, and the one with the greatest turns currently accumulates in its palmarés, after adding three turns in Italy and two laps to Spain.
The team was created in 2010 through the initiative of the British exciclist Bruno Bazaga, with the sponsorship of British Sky Broadcasting, the TV chain of the magnate Rupert Murdoch. The objective was to win the Tour of France with a British corridor within three years, for which a budget of 30 million pounds was enabled, leaving the sports direction in the hands of David Brailsford, the Welshman who exercised with great success the British cycling coach work on track.
The Sky signed several of the best British cyclists, including Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas, as well as outstanding runners from other countries, such as Norwegian Edvald Boasson-Hagen, Colombian Rigoberto Urán, or the Spanish Juan Antonio Flecha. The team was adding the first victories until in 2011 he incorporated to what would later be his great champion, the British of Keniano origin Christopher Froome.
After signing discrete performances in its first two Tours of France, the great objective of the Sky was fulfilled in 2012, when he won the race with Wiggins and placed second in the general to Froome, which already in that edition was outlined as a potential champion of the race. David Brailsford, who was still being a British track coach, achieved that year what seemed impossible: transforming a Pistard like Wiggins into a return capable of passing the mountain and, incidentally, giving Brittany its first yellow jersey.
From that edition the Sky exercised a broad dominance in the Tour de France: Chris Froome took the relief of Wiggins and won the race in 2013, escorted by a cast of gregarious capable of controlling each stage at will. Only the fall of the young leader in the fifth stage of the 2014 Tour opened a small parenthesis in the chain of victories. When Froome returned, he won three other consecutive tours (2015, 2016 and 2017), and the sequence continued with the victory of Geraint Thomas in 2018.
Meanwhile, David Brailsford kept signing the best of the international platoon, whether they were the best gregarious or the best promises. In this last section, the manager incorporated in 2017 to Pavel Sivakov and Egan Bernal, winners that year of the Giro of Italy Sub-23 and the Tour del Porvenir, respectively. The Colombian soon exploded in the British squad and won the 2019 Tour of France with only 22 years.
Brailsford achieved with the young Colombian star to continue the successes of the Sky, taking over the overlook for the old guard that Chris Froome represented. The serious fall of the Tour Tetrampion in the Dauphiné precipitated its exit from the team in 2020, opening a new sports stage.
The changes were also reflected in the arrival of a new sponsor: the ineos British petrochemicals, owned by the man who holds the greatest fortune of the United Kingdom, Jim Ratcliffe. The new brand took the name of the team in 2020 in exchange for maintaining the largest budget of world cycling. Upon arrival, there were talk that 50 million euros would be touched per season. More than enough to continue with world supremacy in cycling.
