page_title: 1966 Tour de France
section_title: Race overview
hierarchical_section_title: 1966 Tour de France / Race overview
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Tour de France , finish te Doornik, voorop Reybroeck (1), links Sels (3) en rechts Jan Janssen (2).
context_page_description: The 1966 Tour de France was the 53rd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 21 June and 14 July, with 22 stages covering a distance of 4,329 km.
  Lucien Aimar was a domestique of 5-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil. Aimar joined a breakaway in the middle of the tour and ended up on the leader board. Anquetil then began helping Aimar win the Tour, to make sure and deny it to his then-enemy Raymond Poulidor. After stage 18 Aimar's victory was certain barring disaster. Anquetil rode hard that day to ensure it and then quit the race.
  The points classification was won by Willy Planckaert, and the mountains classification by Julio Jiménez. The team classification was won by Kas–Kaskol.
  During the Tour, word spread that there was going to be a dope test, and all the riders but Raymond Poulidor, the darling of French cycling fans, left their hotels. The other riders staged a strike in protest during stage nine dismounting and walking their bicycles. Eventually they started riding again, but only after arguing with officials.
context_section_description: Rudi Altig won the first stage with a small advantage. In the next stages, no big time differences were made, so Altig was able to defend his lead until the mountains.
  The first mountains were in the tenth stage. A group including Lucien Aimar and Jan Janssen gained time on pre-race favourites Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor, and Tommaso de Pra won the race and became the new leader. The next stage, Lebaube became the leader, and Kunde took over in the twelfth stage.
  In the time trial in the fourteenth stage, Anquetil was defeated by Poulidor. Kunde remained the leader, with Janssen in second place. In the sixteenth stage, Julio Jiménez escaped in the Pyrenées, and he was followed by a group including Janssen, Anquetil and Poulidor, but without Kunde. Jiménez stayed away, but Janssen became the new leader.
  Even though the seventeenth stage included two mountain climbs, it was not considered too difficult, because these climbs were located in the first half of the stage. The cyclists made the climbs in one large group, but in the descent, a large group escaped. They were chased by teammates Anquetil and Aimar, and when most of the escapees were caught, Aimar continued on his own, and surprised Janssen by this. Janssen lost time on Aimar, and Aimar became the new leader.
  In the eighteenth stage, Janssen wanted to attack, but Aimar and Anquetil stayed close to him. Poulidor, sixth in the general classification, managed to escape, but Anquetil led the chase on him. The next day, Anquetil left the race, sick and no longer able to win himself.
  Janssen managed to win back some time on Aimar in the final time trial, but it was not enough, and Aimar became the winner of the Tour. Janssen became the first Dutch cyclist to reach the podium in the general classification in the Tour de France.
caption: The finish of the stage two in Tournai, Belgium, won by Guido Reybrouck
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