Tour de France 2014: A Race for the Ages

At the beginning of the 2014 Tour de France, both the oldest and youngest riders in the tour were riding for one team, Trek Factory. Jens Voigt is 42, and his teammate, Danny Von Popple, was 20.

Henri Cornet, youngest winner of the Tour de France.

Henri Cornet, youngest winner of the Tour de France.

Firmin Lambot, oldest winner of the tour.

Firmin Lambot, oldest winner of the tour.

The combination might make you wonder a little about the ages of the tour riders, both in this year’s 101st edition of the tour and in years’ past. The oldest competitor ever was Henri Paret, who at the age of 50 competed in the very first tour, held in 1903. The youngest competitor ever was Camille Fily, 17 years and two months old when he started the 1904 tour.

As with Fily, the youngest rider to win the tour, Henri Cornet, competed in 1904, finishing fifth but ascending to the yellow jersey when the four riders ahead of him were disqualified. Firmin Lobot was the oldest rider to win the yellow jersey. He was 36 years and four months old when he won in 1922.

So what about this year? The graph below shows each team with the ages of its riders toted up. Trek Factory, despite having the youngest rider in the tour, ended up with the grand-daddy of all ages, 292, calendaring an average of 32.4 years per rider. The youngest team, meanwhile, is Garmin Sharp at 246 total years, or an average age of 27.3 years per rider. Garmin’s oldest rider barely crests Trek’s average.

Bar graph showing combined team agesLooking at individual ages, you’ll find in the next graph that the highest number of riders who share the same age are those who are 29 years of age. The median age, that is the age half way between the oldest age and the youngest age, is 31.

A bar graph showing number of riders with the same age.When all the riders’ ages are added up and averaged out, though, the age closest to the average turns out to be that of Tom Veelers, the Team Giant-Shimano rider who held the Point d’Appui after Stage 5.

On a sentimental note, I have to cheer for Koen de Kort, also of Giant-Shimano. De Kort was born on September 8, 1982, the same date as my own birth, albeit it mine was some 24 years earlier. As it happens, I was on my first cross-country bicycle tour the day that de Kort was being born. I was camping the night among the Douglas fir of the Cascade range in Oregon. My wife, on the other hand, gets to cheer for Peter Sagan, who shares the date of his birth with her.

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