Yellow jersey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Commercial version of maillot jaune, 2004

Maillot jaune (pronounced [majo ʒoːn]) is the jersey worn by the leader of many multi-stage bicycle races, originally and most notably the Tour de France. It is French for "yellow jersey." It allows the rider who was in the overall lead at the end of the previous day to be easily identified .

The leader is the one with the lowest cumulative time for the race so far, minus any time bonuses, plus any time penalties. It is therefore possible for the final winner to take first place only on the last day, and thus not have worn the maillot jaune until awarded it on the final podium. This happened in 1947 (Jean Robic) and 1968 (Jan Janssen) editions. Greg LeMond nearly duplicated this feat in his last Tour win in 1990, as he did not earn the maillot jaune until the next-to-last day of the Tour. (In his 1989 win, when he took yellow on the final day, he had won and lost the jersey earlier in the Tour.)

The time bonuses are awarded for finishing well in daily stages and in intermediate sprints within stages.

There is doubt over the origin of the yellow jersey. The Belgian rider Philippe Thys, who won the Tour in 1913, 1914 and 1920, recalled in "Champions et Vedettes" when he was 67 that he was awarded a yellow jersey in 1913 when the organiser, Henri Desgrange, asked him to wear a coloured jersey. Thys declined, saying making himself more visible would encourage other riders to ride against him.

He said: 'He then made his argument from another direction. Several stages later, it was my team manager at Peugeot, the unforgettable Baugé, who urged me to give in. The yellow jersey would be an advertisement for the company and, that being the argument, I was obliged to concede. So a yellow jersey was bought in the first shop we came to. It was just the right size, although we had to cut a slightly larger hole for my head to go through.'

He spoke of the next year's race, when 'I won the first stage and was beaten by a tyre by Bossus in the second. On the following stage, the maillot jaune passed to Georget after a crash.'

The Tour historian Jacques Augendre called Thys "a valorous rider... well-known for his intelligence" and said his claim "seems free from all suspicion". But: "No newspaper mentions a yellow jersey before the war. Being at a loss for witnesses, we can't solve this enigma."

The formal history, therefore, is that the first yellow jersey was worn by the Frenchman Eugène Christophe in the stage from Grenoble to Genève in 1919. The colour was chosen either to reflect the yellow newsprint on which the newspaper L'Auto (later L'Équipe) - the chief sponsor of the event - was printed - or it was because yellow was an unpopular colour and therefore the only one available with which a manufacturer could create jerseys at late notice. Christophe disliked wearing it, anyway, and complained that spectators imitated canaries whenever he passed. It was a habit encouraged by his popular nickname of Cri-Cri (from "Christophe") which is French babytalk for a bird.

After Desgrange's death, his stylised initials were added to the yellow jersey. They were removed in 1984 to make way for a commercial logo but reappeared in 2003 as part of the Tour's centenary celebrations. One set of initials is now worn on the upper right chest of the jersey.

Since 1931, the overall leader in the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) has been awarded the maglia rosa (pink jersey), also reflecting the paper colour of the sports newspaper (La Gazzetta dello Sport) originally sponsoring the race. The leader in the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain) wears a "golden jersey".

Lance Armstrong, during his seven Tour de France wins, gained the nickname "Mellow Johnny" from his US Postal/Discovery Channel teammates. The name pokes fun at his not-so-mellow demeanor, and the team joked that it was the Texan pronunciation of maillot jaune. Armstrong regularly checks into hotels under the pseudonym "Johnny Mellow" or "Jonathan Mellow."