2004 Tour de France

The 2004 Tour de France was the 91st edition, held from 3 to 25 July, and has no overall winner: Lance Armstrong originally won a record sixth Tour, but in August 2012 the United States Anti-Doping Agency disqualified him from all results since 1998, the UCI endorsed the sanction in October 2012 and decided not to award the victories to anyone else. The race opened with a 6.1 km prologue in Liège, Belgium, and 21 teams of nine started after Kelme was dropped following Jesús Manzano's doping revelations; shortly before the start the British favourite David Millar was arrested in Biarritz on suspicion of doping, and the book Confidentiel, by David Walsh and Pierre Ballester, accused Armstrong of doping.

The surprise of the race was the French newcomer Thomas Voeckler, who took the yellow jersey on stage 5 and held it for ten stages before Armstrong took it in the mountains, with his US Postal teammates Hincapie, Landis, Azevedo and Rubiera filling the next places that day. The last week held two individual time trials, one of them up Alpe d'Huez, and the route's high point was the Col de la Madeleine at 2,000 m on stage 17. On stage 18 Armstrong was criticised for his treatment of Filippo Simeoni.