The 2004 Tour de France was the 91st, taking place from July 3 to July 25, 2004. It consisted of 20 stages over 3391 km.
The race victory is currently voided, originally Lance Armstrong had become the first to win six Tours de France, before his disqualification. Armstrong had been favored to win, his competitors seen as being German Jan Ullrich, Spaniards Roberto Heras and Iban Mayo, and fellow Americans Levi Leipheimer and Tyler Hamilton. A major surprise in the Tour was the performance of French newcomer Thomas Voeckler, who unexpectedly won the maillot jaune in the fifth stage and held onto it for ten stages before finally losing it to Armstrong.
The route of the 2004 Tour was remarkable. With two individual time trials scheduled in the last week, one of them the climb of Alpe d'Huez, the directors were hoping for a close race until the end. For the first time in years, the mountains of the Massif Central made an appearance.
On 24 August 2012, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that they had disqualified Armstrong from all his results since 1998, including his victory in the 2004 Tour de France. In October 2012 the Union Cycliste International (UCI) accepted USADA's verdict and stripped his titles since August 1998, including the 2004 Tour de France.
Read more about 2004 Tour De France: Participating Teams, Stages, Doping, Teams
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“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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