The three most prestigious cycling competitions in racing are the big national tours contested in France, Italy and Spain. These are the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta de España respectively. All of these races see around 200 cyclists at the peak of their fitness pit their skills and endurance against each other in a gruelling road race that takes many days to complete.
The three tours – together called the Grand Tours – each have sections, or stages, suited to sprint racing and others in the mountains, which are better for the hill climbing specialists. Of course, the biggest prize of all is to beat all the other opponents, and this is measured simply by adding up all the times from all the days’ racing to get an aggregate time. The fastest time overall wins!
As the race progresses, at the end of each day there will be a rider whose time for all the previous stages is fastest. For the following stage of the race, this rider will wear a prized cycling jersey, the color of which will depend on which tour is being contested. Most people have heard of the famous yellow jersey. This is worn by the overall – or general classification – leader in the Tour de France. In the other races of the Grand Tours, the cycling shirts colors are different. So in the Spanish race, la Vuelta, the color is similar for the race leader and is called the golden jersey. However, in the Giro d’Italia in Italy, the leader wears the pink jersey.
For the sprint specialists, points are awarded to the fastest cyclists to finish each stage, and their points are accumulated during the competition. In the Tour de France, the racer with the highest aggregate points score has the honor of wearing the green jersey. The same color is used for the points leader in the Spanish tour. However, in Italy, the points leader of the Giro wears a red jersey.
The cycling shirt colors can be a little confusing, and you need to remember which country’s race you are watching because there is a third coveted jersey, reserved for the mountains classification. In the Tour de France, the jersey is unmistakable, and is white with red polka dots. Unfortunately for the spectators, in the other two tours, the colors are red in the Vuelta, and green in the Giro for the “King of the Mountains”. These are the same colors as for the points leader as described above, but simply swapped over!
