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UNIT 5
Reading Passage
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Listening
There is a saying in France that states: "The government could fall, the Louvre¹ could be broken
into, or aliens could land on Earth, but if any of these things happened during the Tour de France,
no one would notice." The Tour de France is the most famous cycling race in the world. The
which is held in July every year, consists of twenty one-day stages, plus several rest days.
The course follows a clockwise route around France, and often neighboring countries,
including Luxembourg, Belgium, and Italy. The winner is the rider who completes all twenty
stages of the race in the shortest overall time.
race,
The Tour de France first started on July 1, 1903, when sixty cyclists left from in front of The
Alarm Clock Café, just outside of Paris, and rode 467 kilometers to Lyon. The first race consisted
of six legs, each of which was about 400 kilometers long. At that time, there were no rest days
the winner was the rider who finished the race in the shortest total time. The winner of the
first Tour de France, Maurice Garin, the most popular cyclist in France at that time, received 2,000
francs (about $350). It took him 94 hours and 33 minutes to ride all 2,428 kilometers of the race,
three hours faster than the runner-up.² Over the weeks during which the race was run, the idea
of the Tour de France slowly caught on with the people of France. The race has been held every
year since that time, except during the years of World Wars I and II.³
The Tour de France has developed several special honors for which racers compete. The highest
honor is the "yellow jersey." Henri Desgranges, the founder of the race, introduced the yellow
jersey in 1919 to show the leading racer each day of the Tour de France. Each day, the officials
who keep track of all of the riders' times compare each rider's total time up to that point. The
racer with the lowest overall time wears the yellow jersey during the following day's race. Other
honors include the "green jersey," which is given to the best sprinter, and the "polka dot jersey,"
a white jersey with red dots, for the best rider in the mountains along the route.
Over the years of the race, the competitors have gained a reputation for good sportsmanship. For
example, if a lead rider falls off his bike, it is common for the following riders to slow down to
allow the fallen rider to catch up. Some watchers are surprised by this, but as German rider Jan
Ullrich, who came in runner-up in 2002 after waiting for winner Lance Armstrong, says, "Of
course I would wait. If I would have won this race by taking advantage of someone's bad luck,
then the race was not worth winning."
1 the Louvre a famous museum in Paris
2
runner-up someone who comes second in a race or other competition
3 World Wars I and II 1914-1918 and 1939 - 1945
abent ages
