It’s every cyclist’s dream to win the Tour de France, but a lucky few know what it’s like to win multiple editions of the race in succession.
To win any Grand Tour race takes a combination of talent, supreme mental strength, and a loyal team pushing you on all the way, so to do so on consecutive occasions demonstrates that a rider is of the highest rank and class.
With the 2022 race in full flow, and as fans pore over the Tour de France odds to try and pick the winner, let’s take a look at the five cyclists who have most recently claimed successive victories in Tours de France.
Laurent Fignon
Where better to start than with a Frenchman? Along with Bernard Hinault and Bernard Thévenet, Laurent Fignon helped France enjoy a period of dominance in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Across nine Tours in that time, a French rider was the victor on eight occasions. While Hinault was the more successful of the three, Fignon still got his hands on two consecutive yellow jerseys in 1983 and 1984 respectively for the Renault-Elf team.
The 1983 Tour saw Fignon win one stage and secure his overall victory by a margin of just over four minutes. However, it was the 1984 race where Fignon really excelled, claiming victory in five individual stages whilst winning the race by a margin of 10 minutes and 32 seconds. No rider has won by a greater distance in the years since.
Greg LeMond
Since Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France triumphs, Greg LeMond now holds the honour of being the most recent American to have won the historic race. He first triumphed in 1986 for La Vie Claire, before winning back-to-back Tours in 1989 and 1990 for AD Renting and Z-Tomasso respectively.
LeMond’s 1989 victory still stands as closest Tour de France win of all time, with the American succeeding by just eight seconds.
Miguel Indurain
Spanish cycling legend Miguel Indurain is the next cyclist to feature on our list, having been the most successful Tour de France rider in the 1990s. Incredibly, Indurain won five consecutive Tours between 1991 and 1995, all for Banesto, now known as Movistar Team.
All of Indurain’s triumphs saw him win by a fairly comfortable margin, with the Spaniard winning three individual stages in the 1992 race.
Chris Froome
Looking at the more recent history of the Tour de France, Chris Froome stands as one of the event’s true legends. The Brit won four editions of the race in total for Team Sky, including three consecutive triumphs between 2015 and 2017.
Froome’s 2015 victory saw him win both the general classification and mountains classification, while also picking up two stage wins.
Tadej Pogačar
And now, to the man of the moment. Slovenian Tadej Pogačar has won the two most recent editions of the Tour de France, and is the favourite in the Tour de France predictions to make it three on the spin in 2022.
Pogačar burst onto the scene in the 2020 race, where he pipped Primož Roglič to the yellow jersey, and he backed up his credentials with a sensational performance last year as well. At just 23 years of age, the future looks very bright indeed for the talented Slovenian.