Do Americans care about the Tour de France?

The Tour de France, the world’s premier bicycle race, started in Italy over the weekend but will not end in Paris for the first time since 1905 because of the Olympics.

The race won’t have its traditional finish on the Champs-Élysées in the French capital due to security and logistical reasons associated with the Summer Games. The 111th edition of the Tour will conclude in Nice on July 21. The Olympics will open in Paris five days later. The 21-day race, covering 2,173 miles, set off June 29 from Italy, marking another first.

And yet in another first, Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay became the first Black rider to win a Tour de France stage, sprinting to the finish line ahead of the pack in the 144-mile third leg from Piacenza to Turin on Monday.

While the Tour de France draws tens of millions of viewers worldwide every year, American audiences have largely passed on professional cycling since the fall from grace of Lance Armstrong. This year’s firsts and other storylines could change that.

NBC News reports that after years of disinterest, American viewership might be on the rebound thanks in part to the release of “Unchained,” a Netflix show by the producers of the blockbuster “Drive to Survive” docuseries, which focuses on Formula 1 racing. “‘Unchained’ goes behind the scenes of cycling’s biggest rivalries, capturing in vivid detail the commitment, sacrifice and zeal needed to conquer the Tour de France. Think violent crashes, uncontrollable sobbing and inter-team mudslinging,” per NBC.

Who are the Americans in the Tour de France?

While Jonas Vingegaard, of Denmark, and Tadej Pogacar, of Slovenia, who have each won two of the last four races, figure to battle for the top spot again, at least one of the three Americans in this year’s Tour has a shot to make the podium.

Matteo Jorgensen, who grew up in Boise, Idaho, is being touted as one of the top riders on the world tour after winning Paris-Nice this year, the first American to do so since 2006. He also won Dwars door Vlaanderen and finished second in the Critérium du Dauphiné, just eight seconds behind Slovenian Primoz Roglič, a pre-race Tour de France favorite. A teammate of Vingegaard on Visma-Lease a Bike, Jorgensen showed well in the Tour in 2022 and 2023.

“This guy has improved so much over this year,” said Tejay van Garderen, a former grand tour rider who is making his debut as a race commentator on NBC Sports this year. “From what I’ve seen from Matteo Jorgenson, he can podium in the Tour de France.”

Visma-Lease a Bike lead director sportif Merijn Zeeman downplayed Jorgenson’s status as a title contender this year and emphasized his role in supporting Vingegaard.

“I really believe that Matteo Jorgenson will be a very good rider in the future, he will have a chance to win the Tour de France in his career as well but he is still developing,” Zeeman told reporters last week before the race, per Cycling News.

A crash Sunday on Stage 2 left Jorgenson with road rash but he still finished with the main group of riders. He sits 13th overall after Monday’s stage, just 21 seconds behind the leaders.

“I surprisingly feel quite OK, when I went down I was going super fast so I expected to be much more hurt. But I got up and somehow I just lost skin, basically,” he said, according to Cycling News.

Jorgenson’s cycling career began on the streets of Idaho’s capital city, with the Boise Young Rider Development Squad or BYRDS, per the Idaho Statesman.

“I am super proud to be from Boise and come from such a cycling-friendly city,” said Jorgenson, who turned 25 on Monday. “It was an amazing place to grow up and start cycling with BYRDS.”

A versatile cyclist, Jorgenson is also a strong contender for the Tour’s white jersey, which recognizes the best rider under age 26.

The other two Americans in this year’s Tour de France are Neilson Powless and Sean Quinn, who both ride for the Education First-EasyPost team. Powless is riding his fifth Tour, while Quinn is making his debut. Powless is known for getting into breakaways and climbing. He led the King of the Mountain classification for half of the 2023 race before ultimately being edged out by another rider.

Powless, 26, who grew up in Roseville, California, is the first tribally recognized Native North American to compete in the Tour de France. His late grandfather belonged to the Oneida tribe. Powless is 25% Oneida, the minimum percentage required for tribal membership, according to Outside magazine.

Quinn, a native of Los Angeles, grew up watching the Tour with his parents and soon was riding mountains in California pretending they were the Alps. He excels as a climber and is a good sprinter.

Why is Sepp Kuss not racing in the Tour?

While Jorgenson pushes for a top-three finish, Sepp Kuss, of Durango, Colorado, is watching his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates from home after not recovering fully from COVID-19, which forced him to drop out of the Critérium du Dauphiné, per Cycling News.

“Bummed to miss out on the TdF this year after struggling with COVID complications now for a few weeks,” Kuss posted on Instagram last week.

Kuss has arguably been Vingegaard’s most important support rider in the past two Tours, pulling him through the grueling mountain stages and putting him in position to win. Kuss’ own major wins include the Vuelta a España in 2023, Stage 15 of the Tour de France in 2021 and the now-defunct Tour of Utah in 2018.

Who was the last American to win the Tour de France?

Greg LeMond is the only American winner of the Tour de France, winning it in 1986, 1989 and 1990. Armstrong won a record seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005 but was stripped of his titles after an investigation into doping allegations found he used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career. Floyd Landis in 2006 would have been the third American winner but was disqualified after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

An American has not pulled on the race leader’s yellow jersey outright since van Garderen wore it for one day in 2012, though he was involved in a rare tie for the jersey after a team time trial in 2018. His teammate was awarded the overall race lead because of higher finishes in previous stages of the race.

Kuss’ 2021 stage win ended a 10-year drought for Americans.