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[[folder:General]]
* Winning the race is a moment of awesome for practically any rider.
** Really just finishing the damn thing regardless of ranking in the classification.
* Any time a rider refuses to wear the yellow jersey. In many cases it also counts as [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments heartwarming]], since it's generally out of respect for the rider who lost it.
** In 1950, the Italian teams, including race leader Fiorenzo Magni, pulled out of the Tour after stage 11 because they felt threatened by the spectators (they had punched and kicked Magni as he got up from a fall caused by them pressing in). The new leader, Ferdi Kubler, elected not to wear the yellow out of respect. Kubler went on to win the race that year.
** Eddy Merckx refused to wear the yellow jersey on stage 15 in 1971, after his rival Luis Ocaña crashed on the previous stage, out of respect for his rival. He even considered quitting the race, not wanting to win from Ocaña's bad luck. Merckx went on to win the race.
** In 1980, Bernard Hinault left the race with a knee injury after stage 12. On the following stage, Joop Zoetemelk did not want to wear the yellow jersey out of respect and tradition. Zoetemelk, previously known for [[AlwaysSecondBest having finished second five times]], went on to win the race.
** Greg [=LeMond=] refused to wear the yellow jersey on stage 6 of the 1991 edition, where Rolf Sørensen had crashed near the finish line and broken his clavicle, which forced him out after completing his stage. [=LeMond=] refused to wear the leaders jersey because he hadn't earned it. Indurain won that year; [=LeMond=] finished seventh.
** In 2005, Lance Armstrong initially refused taking the yellow jersey from compatriot, and former team mate, David Zabriskie after the team time trial, however race organizers forced him to wear it.
** In 2007, Alberto Contador got the race lead after a harsh move against Michael Rasmussen by ASO and UCI. Some sources say that ASO didn't want the yellow jersey to be worn on stage 17, other sources say that Alberto Contador did not want to wear it. It's a known fact that ASO and UCI did not like Rasmussen, while Contador is usually a [[NiceGuy friendly and respectful]] person.
** In an echo of the 1991 incident, in 2015 Tony Martin crashed in the last 3 kilometers of stage 6, breaking his clavicle, but getting up and finishing the stage. He withdrew afterward, leaving Chris Froome ahead in the general classification. Froome declined to wear the yellow jersey for stage 7, wishing Tony Martin a good recovery. Froome eventually went on to win.
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[[folder:Pre-2000]]
* Gino Bartali's win in 1948 was one for a simple reason: it ''stopped an impending civil war in Italy''. During the tour, Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, had been shot and was comatose, there were great tensions in the country, including a general strike, and right as Italy was ready to collapse in a civil war Bartali won his third stage in a row, and the tensions were drowned in the enthusiasm for his impending victory.
* Eddy Merckx's win in 1969. He won not only the yellow jersey for the general classification, but also the points classification, the mountains classification, and the combination classification[[note]]A points competition based off the rider's placement in the other three classifications[[/note]]. His margin of victory in the GC? [[CurbStompBattle 17 minutes, 54 seconds]]. And this was his ''first'' Tour de France. (He would go on to win four more.)
* Marco Pantani's record time at Alpe d'Huez, 37 minutes and 35 seconds, set in 1997 after a full stage. What's so awesome about that, aside for holding the record? In 2004, the climb up Alpe d'Huez was a time trial, which Armstrong won. Armstrong didn't beat Pantani's record though, being only one second slower.

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[[folder:2000s]]
* Filippo Simeoni's way of defying Armstrong's dominance in the peloton in 2004. Almost nothing good came of it, as he didn't quite have this skill to deal with the strong US Postal team. The one good thing was that Simeoni gave a big middle finger to a man who was a bit of a tyrant in the pack back in his days.
* YMMV on this one, but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cGK25uZwpc Alexandre Vinokourov's attack]] during the last stage of the 2005 edition, joining the breakaway of Fabian Cancellara (who finished third) and Bradley [=McGee=] (finished second) to cheat the sprinters out of a win and advance to (then) fifth in the general classification.
* Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw's victory on the Champs-Élysées in 2009. Renshaw was Cavendish's [[TheLancer lead-out man]], where he managed to finish second after the Brit. The Champs-Élysées stage is seen as the biggest sprinters' stage of the entire year. Video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4fslfSAN1A here]], go to 3:40 for said sprint.
* The entire race in 2009 was one huge [=CMoA=] for Alberto Contador. He started out having a shared captaincy of his team with Armstrong, ending up obliterating all competition and showing ''Armstrong'' who was the boss.
** "Shared captaincy" is arguable, since team management favored Armstrong, who ended up in third.
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[[folder:2010s]]
* Johnny Hoogerland was crashed into a barbed wire fence at about 40 km/h, and had to get 33 stitches in his legs. He still managed to complete the 2011 edition of the race. Badass. Video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYPDAry-A-s here.]]. Flecha, who was hit by the car, also completed the race. Said breakaway also led to...
* Thomas Voeckler's way of riding in the 2011 edition. Voeckler, primarily known for chasing breakaway victories and one-day races, managed to get himself into the yellow jersey and mount a heroic defense, despite being part of one of the smallest teams of Le Tour. He eventually finished fourth.
* Speaking of 2011: Andy Schleck's stage victory at Galibier, attacking with 60 km to go and winning the stage by 2 minutes.
** The actual plan was to have Andy attack, wear down the other GC-competitors trying to catch up, then have his brother and teammate Fränk counterattack and win this way. Plan didn't work out, but the Schleck brothers and their Leopard-Trek team were probably happy either way (Fränk finished second on that stage).
* Stage 9 of the 2013 edition became a crowning stage of awesome. Attacks from the beginning by riders capable of doing stuff in the general classification, in order to wear down the Sky team, in a highly paced and exciting stage, where the plan somewhat succeeded (Froome got isolated, but stayed with the big guns). Stages like this is why cycling fans love the sport.
* 2014 became this for French cycling. A second and a third place on the podium, as well as a sixth place. Two of said riders were in contention for the white jersey as well, meaning that they have plenty of time to improve.
** An awesome race for the winner, too; Vincenzo Nibali won the race with a time gap over ''[[CurbStompBattle seven and a half minutes]]''--the largest such gap since 1997--and held the yellow jersey for all but two stages. Even if Froome and Contador had been at their full capacity from beginning to end (they had both been forced to withdraw by the end of stage 10 due to injury), Nibali would have been a difficult rider for them to catch. Speaking of runaway wins, Peter Sagan won the green jersey by 149 points despite never winning a stage.
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[[folder:2020s]]
* The 2020 edition had what looked like a completely dominant victory by Primož Roglič of the Jumbo-Visma team, at least until the [[DownToTheLastPlay final time trial]], 36 km, the last six of which were up the steep La Plance des Belles Filles climb. The stage and the Tour ended up being won by Tadej Pogačar, who flipped the one-minute advantage held by Roglič, becoming the second youngest winner in Tour de France history.
* Pogačar's victory in 2021 was [[CurbStompBattle completely dominant]], starting by winning the time trial on stage five and annihilating the field on stage 8, putting 3.20 into the other GC contenders. Tours have been won by smaller margins, and everyone else were riding for second afterwards.
* Mark Cavendish also deserves a shout for his 2021 Tour. Coming into Quick Step's Tour squad after Sam Bennett's injury, having struggled with Epstein-Barr virus for years, he managed to pick up four stage wins, tying him with Eddy Merckx for most stages won in total. Cavendish also picked up the points jersey
* The 2022 edition became a major one for Team Jumbo-Visma, having leared from 2020, as they took [[CurbStompBattle nearly every competition available]] (general, points and mountains classifications to be specific).[[note]]They had no riders eligible for the youth classification and did not win the team classification.[[/note]]
** Domestiques Nathan Van Hooydonck, Tiesj Bennot, Sepp Kuss and Steven Kruijswijk laid the foundation for the team to achieve this amazing feat
** Christophe Laporte could be added to the above list, but he managed to cap it off with a clever and daring stage win
** Primož Roglič went down hard on stage 5, and fell a few minutes behind in the general classification. Despite being in searing pain, caused by two fractured vertebrae, he continued for nine stages before pulling out and helped with...
** Stage 11. After the team set a hard pace, Roglič decided to try to do one-two attacks with co-leader Jonas Vingegaard to soften up defending champion Pogačar. This resulted in Pogačar getting isolated, not getting enough food, and allowed Vingegaard to put nearly three minutes into the defending champion, taking the race lead with a very favorable lead
** Vingegaard defending his lead brilliantly against every attack Pogačar would bring, never losing time against him (save for time bonuses) in the mountains, until driving in the final nail by taking the last mountain stage to Hautacam by a minute, leaving the mountains with an insurmountable lead - which he extended at the final time trial for good measure - and eventually winning overall, and taking the mountain classification too.
** The act of sportsmanship by Vingegaard before the climb to Hautacam has to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnSL0PHW69Y seen]] to be believed.
** Last, but definitely not least, Wout van Aert managed to win the points classification by earning [[CurbStompBattle nearly twice]] as many points as the runner up in said classification and taking three stage wins. He did that while being an extremely effective domestique for Vingegaard's effort to win the general classification, always being there when the Dane needed him, culminating in a gravity-defying move to dislodge Pogačar on the final climb.
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