Nicolas Sitter
Projects

The archive

Thirteen years of L’Étape du Tour

10 editions, 107,795 classified finishers, and three years with no race at all. Every figure on this page is read from the timing provider’s own results and re-checked against the database that stores them.

Editions
10
2014 – 2026
Finishers
107,795
classified, all editions
Women
5,907
5.5% of the total
Course length
122–181 km
never the same twice
The size of the field, 2014-2026

Classified finishers per edition, from zero — so a point's height is the size of the field. The gaps are real, and not all the same: 2018 was raced but its results are absent from the timing provider's database, while 2020 and 2021 were cancelled outright.

05,00010,00015,0002014201620182020202220242026Classified finishers per edition, 2014 to 2026

The size of the field, 2014-2026. Use the left and right arrow keys to read each point.

2026 is the only edition whose feed publishes riders who did not finish, so it is the only year where an abandon rate could be computed at all.

Show the numbers
YearFinishers
20148,459
20159,774
201610,982
201711,234
2018
201910,159
2020
2021
20228,706
202311,485
202410,614
202513,649
202612,733

You cannot compare the times. You can compare the speeds.

The Étape reproduces a Tour de France stage, so the course changes completely every year — 122 km at Morzine in 2016, 181 km to Col d'Izoard in 2017. A chart of finishing times across editions would be a chart of the parcours. So everything below is a rate.

Even then the ground keeps moving. The fastest winning average in the archive is 34.43 km/h (2017, BriançonCol d'Izoard); the slowest is 27.91 km/h (2015). That gap says more about how much climbing was in the route than about how the riders have changed.

Speed, not time — because the course is never the same twice

From 122 km in 2016 to 181 km in 2017. Comparing finishing times across editions would compare the parcours, so everything here is km/h — and the axis runs from zero, so the median rider's speed is genuinely two thirds of the winner's.

WinnerMedian riderSlowest tenth
0 km/h10 km/h20 km/h30 km/h40 km/h2014201620182020202220242026Winner, median and 90th-percentile speed per edition in km/h

Speed, not time — because the course is never the same twice. Use the left and right arrow keys to read each point.

Show the numbers
YearWinnerMedian riderSlowest tenth
201430.8 km/h17.0 km/h13.9 km/h
201527.9 km/h14.0 km/h11.7 km/h
201634.3 km/h17.7 km/h13.7 km/h
201734.4 km/h18.7 km/h15.2 km/h
2018
201928.5 km/h16.0 km/h13.0 km/h
2020
2021
202231.5 km/h17.2 km/h14.5 km/h
202332.0 km/h17.2 km/h13.9 km/h
202429.5 km/h16.1 km/h13.2 km/h
202529.6 km/h15.9 km/h12.8 km/h
202631.8 km/h17.1 km/h14.3 km/h

Three years with no race

The archive has holes, and they are not all the same kind of hole. Two are history; one is a gap in the data itself, which is a different claim and is worth keeping separate.

2018no results published

Raced — Annecy to Le Grand-Bornand, 169 km — but the timing provider holds no results for it. The event and the race both exist in the API, and the race returns zero rows; resolving the event by its internal id reaches the same empty race. The data is absent at source, not missing from this import.

2020cancelled

Scheduled for 5 July at Nice, postponed to 6 September, then cancelled outright on 28 July 2020 — the first cancellation in the event’s history. Entrants received an 18-month credit. A separate virtual edition ran on Zwift alongside the Virtual Tour de France.

2021cancelled

The deferred Nice edition was set for 4 July 2021 and cancelled in late May, in agreement with the City of Nice and following the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture. Entry fees were refunded. ASO ran its autumn road races that year, but L’Étape sat before that reopening and was not moved.

Edwige Pitel, first woman home four editions running

The same name appears at the top of the women’s results in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 — four consecutive editions of the race. Her best is 2017, when she came 55th of 11,234 on the 181 km to the Col d’Izoard, the longest course in this archive and the best placing by any woman in it. She was 48.

Women in the field

Share of classified finishers. This is the main Étape only — the Étape du Tour de France Femmes is a separate event with its own results.

0%2%4%6%8%2014201620182020202220242026Women as a share of classified finishers per edition

Women in the field. Use the left and right arrow keys to read each point.

Best placing by a woman, by edition: 2014 Magdalena de Saint Jean (154th), 2015 Edwige Pitel (85th), 2016 Edwige Pitel (70th), 2017 Edwige Pitel (55th)…

Show the numbers
YearWomen
20143.3%
20154.1%
20165.4%
20175.3%
2018
20196.4%
2020
2021
20224.4%
20236.5%
20246.5%
20256.8%
20265.2%
How French the field is

Share of finishers registered with a French nationality. The line stops at 2025 on purpose.

0%20%40%60%80%2014201620182020202220242026French share of finishers per edition, 2014 to 2025

How French the field is. Use the left and right arrow keys to read each point.

In 2026 the timing feed carries a nationality for only 4.5% of finishers. Plotting that year would show a cliff that is a missing column, not a change in who turned up — so it is left out rather than drawn.

Show the numbers
YearFrench
201461.6%
201564.1%
201660.9%
201765.3%
2018
201969.7%
2020
2021
202277.2%
202379.1%
202473.9%
202577.5%
2026

Every edition

YearCoursekmFinishersWinnerWinning timeMedian
2014PauHautacam
Côte de Bénéjacq · Côte de Loucrup · Col du Tourmalet · Hautacam
1488,459Loïc Herbreteau4h 48m 25s8h 42
2015Saint-Jean-de-MaurienneLa Toussuire
Col du Chaussy · Col du Glandon · Col de la Croix de Fer · Col du Mollard · La Toussuire
1389,774Jérémy Bescond4h 56m 38s9h 50
2016MegèveMorzine
Col des Aravis · Col de la Colombière · Col de Joux Plane
122(146.5 official)10,982Tao Quéméré3h 33m 35s6h 53
2017BriançonCol d'Izoard
Côte des Demoiselles Coiffées · Col de Vars · Col d'Izoard
18111,234Jonas Abrahamsen5h 15m 26s9h 40
2019AlbertvilleVal Thorens
Cormet de Roselend · Côte de Longefoy · Val Thorens
13510,159Adrien Guillonnet4h 44m 11s8h 27
2022BriançonL'Alpe d'Huez
Col du Galibier · Col de la Croix de Fer · Alpe d'Huez
166.88,706Stefan Kirchmair5h 17m 25s9h 41
2023AnnemasseCol de Joux Plane
Col de Saxel · Col de Cou · Col du Feu · Col de la Jambaz · Col de la Ramaz · Col de Joux Plane
145(157 official)11,485Artus Jaladeau4h 31m 28s8h 26
2024NiceCol de la Couillole
Col de Braus · Col de Turini · Col de la Colmiane · Col de la Couillole
13810,614Damien Jeanjean4h 40m 28s8h 33
2025AlbertvilleLa Plagne
Côte d'Héry-sur-Ugine · Col des Saisies · Col du Pré · Cormet de Roselend · La Plagne
13113,649Victor Vidal4h 25m 17s8h 13
2026Le Bourg d'OisansAlpe d'Huez
Col de la Croix de Fer · Col du Télégraphe · Col du Galibier · Col de Sarenne
17012,733Luca Cavallo5h 20m 20s9h 55

What this archive will not tell you

How many people abandoned. Only the 2026 feed publishes riders who did not finish — 17,439 entrants against 12,733 classified. Every other edition lists finishers only, so its abandon rate would compute as zero. That is a property of the feed, not of the race.

Where the nationalities went after 2025. The 2026 results carry a nationality for 4.5% of finishers, against 100% in every earlier year. The French-share line stops where the data does.

Anything about 2014’s age categories. 99% of that edition’s rows have no category at all, and the handful that do use an incomplete vocabulary. It is left out rather than extrapolated from a neighbouring year.

Where the timing breaks down

Not every edition supports every page, and the reasons are worth stating rather than leaving a reader to infer them from a missing table.

2014–2024results only

The timing provider publishes no intermediate mats for any of these editions — only the finish. So they have no checkpoint pages and no climb leaderboards, unlike 2025 and 2026, and the archive compares them on finishing speed alone. The splits exist upstream for at least 2023 and 2024, but placing them needs a course profile per year that the feed does not carry.

2018absent at source

Raced — Annecy to Le Grand-Bornand, 169 km — and the timing provider holds zero results for it. The event resolves through its internal id and returns an empty set. That is a gap in their database, not in this import.

2026

Nationality is recorded for 4.5% of finishers where every edition from 2014 to 2025 has it for all of them. The French-share series therefore stops at 2025: carrying it into 2026 would draw a collapse in foreign entries that is an artefact of a missing column.

How the results were read

One detail decided whether half this archive was right or wrong. The timing API reports a gun time and a chip time for every rider, and which one the official classification uses changed: the editions from 2014 to 2017 are ranked on gun time, and everything from 2019 onwards on chip time. Since every edition started in waves — up to two hours and fifty minutes separate the first and last rider off the line in 2015 — reading the wrong clock would have sorted a whole field by its start pen.

So the basis was not taken from the API’s own flag, which is unreliable on the newer races. For each edition both candidate times were sorted and compared against the provider’s published ranking; the one that reproduced it was the one used. On the older editions gun time reproduces the classification for 100% of riders and chip time for under half a percent, and after 2019 that reverses.

About this project and its data. The results are Sport Innovation / TimeTo’s — the official timekeeper of the event. They were fetched once after the event and republished here with segment times, recomputed leaderboards and a page per athlete that the official results do not offer. The timing is their work; the analysis is mine, and any mistake in it is mine too. Course details come from Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.), the organiser. Rankings are the provider's own: gun time through 2017, chip time from 2019, established against the published results for each edition. Athletes who asked to be anonymous in the official results stay anonymous here.

Course distances, start and finish towns and the named cols come from the organiser and from contemporary race reports; where the organiser’s distance differs from the timed distance, both are shown.

107,795 finishers across 10 editions · the 2026 explorer has splits, segments and pacing for the most recent edition.