Tours de France in World Cup years: Drama, scandal and ever-present Messi
Correlation does not imply causation, but World Cup years have tended to throw up memorable Tours de France in the 21st century.
The past five editions of the World Cup have produced five different winners — and in the same corresponding years, the defending champions of the Tour de France failed to retain their titles.
Lance Armstrong, a seven-time winner until he wasn’t, was absent in 2006; Alberto Contador was later stripped of his 2010 title for a doping infraction after a thrilling and controversial tussle with the Schleck brothers, Andy and Fränk; Chris Froome crashed out of the 2014 race; Geraint Thomas took four-time winner Froome’s top spot in 2018; and Jonas Vingegaard spectacularly denied Tadej Pogačar in 2022.
That trend seems like it will end in 2026, with Pogačar having a firm grip on the Tour, and Argentina back in the World Cup final and with a chance to become the first team to retain the trophy since Brazil in 1962.
Either way, World Cup years have coincided with era-defining racing in France. Whether it has been legendary battles for the yellow jersey, or epic performances from unlikely sources, while much of the world has been focused on events on the soccer pitch, cycling’s biggest event also served up plenty of storylines.
We begin our non-scientific thesis in 2006, for no other reason than Armstrong defended his title in 2002 — before all seven of his Tour wins were eventually stripped. 2006, the first post-Armstrong year, is when the World Cup and the Tour de France truly aligned with one another.
A farmer’s display honours the Tour and France’s World Cup campaign in 2018 (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
2006
Germany was at the centre of the footballing world in 2006 for the most recent World Cup held on western European soil. But just weeks before a ball was kicked came a police raid that eventually led to Jan Ullrich’s doping confession and Germany falling out of love with bike racing for over a decade.
Operación Puerto, however, was not to be the only scandal affecting the summer of sport.
Overshadowing the World Cup was the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal in Italy that resulted in Juventus, giants of the Italian game, being relegated to the second division Serie B. The Italy national team were not affected, though, going onto win their fourth World Cup title, beating France in a penalty shootout in a final best remembered for Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt on Marco Materazzi.
There were plenty more controversies during the month of football, not least Cristiano Ronaldo finding his face superimposed on dartboards as the English press fumed over his infamous wink after England’s Wayne Rooney was sent off during a highly-charged quarter-final with Portugal.
There was a debut too for a player you may have heard of: Lionel Messi. The Argentine maestro made his bow as an 18 year old and scored in a 6-0 win over Serbia and Montenegro.
The Tour was not without drama, too: American Floyd Landis, for many years riding in support of Armstrong, shipped 10 minutes on stage 16 while in the race lead, seemingly exiting the race for yellow. But just a day later he launched an astonishing 125km solo attack to win a shark-tooth Alpine stage by five minutes, and eventually the Tour.
It was an unbelievable ride in more ways than one: just a few days after Landis had stood on the top step of the Tour podium in Paris, news came through that he had tested positive for testosterone in an anti-doping sample taken minutes after the completion of his stage 17 heroics. Spain’s Óscar Pereiro was awarded the win.
Both 2006’s World Cup and Tour de France are best remembered for their scandals and outrage, as much as the performances of the protagonists.
Floyd Landis celebrates his astonishing stage 17 win in 2006, a result that was later stripped (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)
2010
Many people’s recollections of the 2010 World Cup will be the official anthem Waka Waka, the incessant sound of the vuvuzela, and of Paul the Octopus correctly predicting match outcomes.
Frank Lampard’s goal-that-never-was for England against Germany and Luis Suarez’s on-the-line handball for Uruguay that all-but-denied Ghana a spot in the semi-final were highlights away from Spain winning their first title.
At the end of the Tour in Paris, Spain thought they had sealed the soccer/cycling double, with defending champion Contador beating Andy Schleck by 39 seconds. The same margin of time that he had gained on the Luxembourger on stage 15 when he attacked at the exact moment that Schleck suffered a dropped chain in the Pyrenees.
Contador rebuffed claims of unsportsmanlike behaviour, but he wouldn’t be able to defend — no matter how hard he tried — what came a few months later.
The Spaniard had tested positive for a tiny amount of the banned substance clenbuterol while at the Tour, and claimed that it was from contaminated meat. Despite the very low trace amount, his defence wasn’t successful, and in early 2012 Schleck was subsequently awarded the win. It was the last Tour awarded in the courtroom.
Schleck leads Contador in the Col du Tourmalet in 2010 (Lionel Bonanventure / AFP via Getty Images)
The Contador-Schleck rivalry wasn’t the only interest, though. Mark Cavendish sprinted to five stage victories, while the French public had something to celebrate about with six stage victories. That soothed the huge disappointment of their soccer team — World Cup runners-up in 2006 — who went on strike and refused to train before crashing out of the group stages.
2014
A great summer for German sport. The football team produced probably the most remarkable (and unexpected) result in World Cup history, beating Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final, before then denying Argentina and Messi in the final.
Their cyclists then matched the exploits, Marcel Kittel picking up four stage victories, his sprint rival André Greipel one, while Tony Martin won the race’s only time trial and again from the break on stage nine.
Italy’s footballers did not have much to sing about, knocked out in the group stage along with England. It was left to Vincenzo Nibali to put a smile on the nation’s face, when the Shark of Messina won his only Tour — and by seven minutes too.
Nibali handled the wet, northern cobbles much better than the other GC contenders in 2014 (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Nibali, who had won the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España in his illustrious career, was the only GC rider to escape injury on stage five’s cobbles, the day where defending champion Froome crashed out and Contador lost time before eventually withdrawing five days later.
It ended up being a procession for Nibali, but just like James Rodríguez’s emergence at the World Cup (the Colombian won the golden boot with six goals, including an memorable 25-yard volley against Uruguay), cycling was introduced to a new fan favourite: Thibaut Pinot.
The 24-year-old Frenchman finished third overall, behind his much older compatriot Jean-Christophe Peraud, and secured the white jersey for the best young rider. His attacking bravado and panache would endure for almost a decade more.
2018
At the World Cup in Russia, a new but controversial invention was introduced for the first time: VAR. The video assistant referee, on the whole, was judged to have been a success.
The same cannot be said for a new but controversial invention at the Tour de France: a Formula One-like grid start on stage 17 on a short but brutal stage in the Pyrenees. It was intended to force from-the-gun attacks but riders just didn’t play ball, waiting for their teammates to catch up. The grid start was never again repeated.
The Tour’s riders line up in their grid formation ahead of stage 17. The experiment has never been repeated (JEFF PACHOUD/AFP via Getty Images)
Thomas, for so many years the understudy to his Team Sky teammate Froome, finally got his moment in the sun, winning back-to-back mountain stages, including stage 12 to Alpe d’Huez, to win the race overall. Froome was third, with Tom Dumoulin sandwiched between them.
The inter-team rivalry between Froome and Thomas was a fascinating subplot, with Thomas later revealing that Sky were reluctant to favour him over Froome.
French dreams of the yellow jersey never really got going, but Julian Alaphilippe did win two stages and the polka dot jersey, a precursor to his valiant and oh-so-close GC tilt the following year.
But the nation’s football team did provide significant joy, winning a thrilling final against Croatia 4-2 to earn their second star.
It was mostly the World Cup of surprises. Germany were knocked out in the group stage, continuing the curse going back to 2010 of defending champions failing to reach the knockout rounds.
Belgium’s golden generation almost came good on their promise, and were treated like winners when they returned home after securing third-place. Greg van Avermaet mirrored that Belgian success, holding the yellow jersey for eight days.
2022
The best World Cup final of all time came five months after the best Tour de France this century — and possibly in the top-three of all time. Certainly, stage 11 to the Col du Granon is a contender for the best stage in the modern history of the race.
Pogačar went into the race as winner of the past two editions, but he was undone by a Jumbo-Visma masterclass on the slopes of the Col du Galibier, an epic ambush that paved the way for Vingegaard’s devastating attack on the Granon.
Pogačar crosses the line on stage 11 after being thoroughly worked over by Jumbo-Visma (ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images)
A week later, Wout van Aert in the green jersey (usually held by the best sprinter), paced Vingegaard in yellow and Pogačar in white (as best young rider) up the Hautacam — regarded as one of cycling’s toughest climbs — before Vingegaard sealed victory. It was an epic team performance from Jumbo-Visma.
Equally as epic was the winter World Cup in Qatar — even if it was set to the backdrop of controversy. Morocco became the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of football’s biggest tournament, while Saudi Arabia produced one of the all-time shocks by beating Argentina in the first group game.
A few weeks afterwards, however, the Argentines atoned for their embarrassment, with Lionel Scaloni’s men — led by the imperious Messi — prevailing on penalties against Kylian Mbappe’s France in a pulsating final held just a week before Christmas.