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How often do riders win both the Dauphiné and the Tour de France?
1947 saw the first edition of the Dauphiné. Like many bike races it was created to increase sales of local newspaper Dauphiné Libéré. It also coincided with the return of the Tour de France after World War II.
Due to its position in the calendar in early June, the Dauphiné has long been considered the premier warm-up race to the Tour. It makes sense for riders to carry their form from one to the other and it should be an ideal spot for the pre-race favourites to test their legs. But it isn’t always so straightforward.
Only 11 riders – on 14 occasions – have won both the Dauphiné and Tour in the same year: Louison Bobet (1955), Jacques Anquetil (1963), Eddy Merckx (1971), Luis Ocaña (1973), Bernard Thévenet (1975), Bernard Hinault (1979, 1981), Miguel Induráin (1995), Bradley Wiggins (2012), Chris Froome (2013, 2015, 2016), Geraint Thomas (2018) and Jonas Vingegaard (2023).
Louison Bobet became the first man to achieve the feat in 1955. Despite abandoning Paris-Nice, he made his way through the Classics with a win at Ronde van Vlaanderen and podium at Paris-Roubaix before winning the Tour de Luxembourg. He then claimed three stages at the Dauphiné and pressed on at the Tour where he would win two mountain stages and climb up the standings thanks to strong performances on Mont Ventoux and through the Pyrenees.
Jacques Anquetil beat José Pérez Francés at the Dauphiné in 1963 and again at the Tour, winning four stages as Pérez Francés finished third overall. In 1971, Eddy Merckx narrowly defeated Luis Ocaña at the Dauphiné and it was shaping up to be a real fight for yellow between the pair, but Ocaña would crash out on Stage 14 while Merckx would win four stages and the overall by almost ten minutes.
Fast forward to 1979 and Bernard Hinault would be the next man to achieve a Dauphiné-Tour double. An excellent all-rounder, he particularly shone in the time-trials here, winning both in the Dauphiné and all four at the Tour outside of the prologue.
After Induraín and Wiggins notched their doubles in 1995 and 2012 respectively, Chris Froome became the first rider to do it three times with his victories in 2013, 2015 and 2016.
The last rider to achieve the Dauphiné-Tour double was Jonas Vingegaard in 2023. He notched two stage wins at the Dauphiné including on the Col de la Croix de Fer and one time-trial at the Tour. A day after the race against the clock, Tadej Pogačar cracked on the Col de la Loze and Vingegaard finished the stage over seven minutes ahead on GC.
Race against time
Throughout these occurrences, one of the major components to success in doing the double is a strong time-trial.
Bobet won the time-trial at the Dauphiné in 1955 but finished third on the stage at the Tour. Anquetil and Merckx won their time-trials in 1963 and 1971 respectively. Ocaña just missed out on sweeping the lot, victorious at the Dauphiné and winning two of four ITT stages at the Tour.
As for Hinault, he won all six time-trial stages on offer across the races in 1979 (excluding the 5km prologue) but finished second on the stage at the Dauphiné to Bert Oosterbosch in 1981. He turned his fortunes around by claiming all four available including the prologue at the Tour a few weeks later. Induráin won one of two time-trials at the Dauphiné in 1995 and two of three – his only loss being the prologue – at the Tour ahead of Bjarne Riis.
In recent history, Wiggins was narrowly beaten by one second for prologue victory across the 5.7km course but stormed to the win over the 53.5km ITT at the Dauphiné. He claimed two on offer at the Tour as well, missing out on the prologue by seven seconds to Fabian Cancellara. A year later, Froome placed third at the TT at the Dauphiné and raced to the win in one of two at the Tour.
It was a different story in 2015 as there was only a single 13.8km individual time-trial in Utrecht and Froome finished down in 39th place. It wasn’t a dent in his GC hopes though as all the big names were within a handful of seconds of each other. The only other TT that year was a team time-trial, and Team Sky narrowly missed out on the stage win by just one second to BMC. In 2016 he’d lose the prologue before trading wins with Tom Dumoulin later in the race.
Geraint Thomas wasn’t reliant on time-trials for his double, he finished 43rd in the 2018 Dauphiné prologue, though his Sky team did win the TTT. At the Tour he placed third in the individual TT while already in yellow.
In 2023 Jonas Vingegaard raced to second behind compatriot Mikkel Bjerg at the Dauphiné TT but was dominant on the hilly time-trial up the Côte de Domancy to beat Pogačar at the Tour.
The only major anomaly is Bernard Thévenet. He didn’t win the time-trial at the Dauphiné in 1975 and his best position across all on offer at the Tour was second to Merckx, who won two of them, but any shot at overall victory was marred by the actions of angered spectators. He was punched, slapped and later cracked on the final climb to Pra-Loup, ultimately finishing second in the standings to Thévenet.
Of those that raced both an individual time-trial at the Dauphiné and Tour, 85% won at least one. If excluding the prologues, then Anquetil (1963), Merckx (1971), Hinault (1979) and Wiggins (2012) hoovered up all on offer.
Winning the Dauphiné doesn’t automatically equal winning the Tour, but those with a strength in time-trialling are more likely to do so.
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