1982 Tour de France

The 1982 Tour de France was the 69th edition, held from 2 to 25 July over 22 stages and 3,507 km, and was won by Bernard Hinault, his fourth victory. A record 170 riders started in seventeen teams of ten; the organisers had rejected a suggestion to cut teams to nine, and the French sports minister Edwige Avice, objecting to the amount of advertising in the 1981 race, had urged a return to national teams, which the Tour could not afford. The American national team was offered an automatic place but did not apply. Hinault, winner in 1978, 1979 and 1981 and leader when he quit in 1980, was the clear favourite even though his only major win that spring had been the Giro d'Italia, and he was aiming to become only the fourth rider, after Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx, to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year.