The Tour de France organisers have explained the logic behind how bib numbers are designated in their race, with reasons ranging from the results of the 2025 Tour to the UCI points system and even, sometimes, the number of World Championships won by certain riders.
It will come as no surprise that defending Tour champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) will be race bib number 1, with his teammates then having their numbers allotted in alphabetical order from 2 to 8. Similarly, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), second overall both last year and in 2024, is number 11, again followed by his teammates from 12 to 18.
More striking is the decision to award Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM) the 'lucky' bib number 51, considered to bring good fortune to the wearer as four former Tour de France winners Eddy Merckx (1969), Luis Ocaña (1973, Bernard Thévenet (1975) and Bernard Hinault (1978) all wore that number within a ten-year period. (Last year, however, 51 was worn by Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) who finished 40th overall, so perhaps it could be up to the rider to make their own luck.)
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Tour director Thierry Gouvenou explained to L'Équipe that race bib numbers are not decided mainly by chance in the Tour, as is the case at other events, rather it is all down to a combination of different priorities and previous results in the Tour. However, as he pointed out, while each team will be assigned a particular 'decade' – 1 to 8 for UAE in 2026, 11 to 18 to Visma, 21 to 28 to Red Bull, and so on – within that decade, it's up to the team to decide which rider gets which specific number.
Tour de France start list
"I know some organisers like to go with strict alphabetical order, but here we prefer to look at what the past palmarès is in the Tour," Gouvenou said.
Designated in inverse order to their position in the unofficial ranking, "We also pay special attention to the current state of play in cycling and [teams'] current sporting value, so to speak, also comes into play. We also pay a little bit of special attention to who will get number 51."
The defending champion automatically gets number 1, Gouvenou explained. Then the podium of the previous year is the next most important factor, followed by the top three-ranked squads in the Tour's team classification. (This was won last year by UAE, followed by Visma and Red Bull, the same order as the individual podium with Pogačar, Vingegaard and Lipowitz).
Yet more factors kick in after that to decide the number, including the teams that field the points, mountains and best young rider winners in the previous year, and then the UCI points ranking also plays a part.
This year, too, there's also the team time trial to consider, where the starting times are in inverse order to the race numbers, so again, Gouvenou said, that was something the Tour took into consideration. Most of the big GC contenders' teams, given the importance of the TTT, have been given lower numbers, with Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, the wildcard squad from Spain, the highest set, from 221 to 228, meaning they will roll down the start ramp first in Barcelona.
Not only that, bib numbers can be the Tour's way of recognising riders' achievements beyond the race, Gouvenou explained. That was the case in the edition when the Tour organisers decided to give now-retired Peter Sagan – "a rider we really appreciated" – the number 111.
"We couldn't give Sagan the number 1, but as a three-time World Champion, it was our way of paying homage to that," Gouvenou told L'Équipe, with the three '1s' acting as a visual reminder of Sagan's three rainbow jerseys, taken in 2015, 2016 and 2017. "But above all, it [deciding the race bib numbers] is something we enjoy."
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