page_title: 1985 Tour de France
section_title: Pre-race favourites
hierarchical_section_title: 1985 Tour de France / Pre-race favourites
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Profronde van Tiel; Bernard Hinault wordt begroet door rondemiss Vanessa (close) 17 augustus 1982
context_page_description: The 1985 Tour de France was the 72nd edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It took place between 28 June and 21 July 1985. The course ran over 4,109 km and consisted of 22 stages and a prologue. The race was won by Bernard Hinault, who equalled the record by Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx of five overall victories. Second was Hinault's teammate Greg LeMond, ahead of Stephen Roche.
  Hinault won the race leader's yellow jersey on the first day, in the opening prologue time trial, but time bonuses saw the lead switch to Eric Vanderaerden after stage 1. Hinault's teammate Kim Andersen then took over the yellow jersey following a successful breakaway on stage 4. Hinault regained the race lead after winning the time trial on stage 8. However, a crash on stage 14 into Saint-Étienne broke Hinault's nose, with congestion leading to a bronchitis, which severely hampered his performances. However, he was able to fight off challenges by teammate LeMond and Roche to win the race overall. For his assistance, Hinault publicly pledged to support LeMond for overall victory the following year.
context_section_description: Laurent Fignon (Renault–Elf) had won the 1984 Tour de France, his second victory in a row, by a substantial margin of more than ten minutes ahead of Bernard Hinault (La Vie Claire), a four-time winner of the Tour. However, he was unable to defend his title, as an operation on an inflamed Achilles tendon left him sidelined. According to Dutch newspaper Het Parool, Fignon missing the race was well received, considering that otherwise the race was expected to be as one-sided as the year before.
  In Fignon's absence, Hinault was considered the clear favourite to achieve his fifth overall victory, which would draw him level with Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx as record winner of the Tour. Hinault himself commented ahead of the prologue: "If I sound sure of myself, it's because I am." Earlier in the year, he had won the Giro d'Italia. Hinault's team had been significantly strengthened for 1985, with the signings of Steve Bauer, Kim Andersen, and Bernard Vallet. The biggest addition to La Vie Claire's roster however was Greg LeMond. Having turned professional with Renault–Elf alongside Hinault and Fignon in 1981, he had enjoyed a steady rise in the cycling world, including winning the road world championship in 1983 and a third place in the previous year's Tour. During that race, La Vie Claire's team owner Bernard Tapie had approached LeMond, offering him the highest-paid contract in cycling history to set him up as a successor to Hinault. LeMond was therefore considered "the other choice as a possible winner". LeMond himself stated that he would work for Hinault, but that he did not doubt that Hinault would do the same for him should he lose his chances. Equally, Hinault declared before the start that either himself or LeMond would win. The amount of individual time trials, a total of 159 km (99 mi), was considered in Hinault's favour, since he excelled at the discipline. Due to the race start in Brittany, Hinault's home region and the large amount of time trialling, commentators jokingly referred to the edition as the "Tour de Hinault".
  The third highly-ranked favourite was Phil Anderson (Panasonic–Raleigh), who had just won both the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré and Tour de Suisse, the most important preparation races for the Tour. Among the other favourites, there were mainly riders who were considered climbers, who ascended well up high mountains, but were inferior in time trials. These included Luis Herrera (Varta–Café de Colombia–Mavic), Robert Millar (Peugeot–Shell–Michelin), Peter Winnen (Panasonic–Raleigh), and Pedro Delgado (Seat–Orbea). Other favourites included Ángel Arroyo (Zor–Gemeaz Cusin), Pedro Muñoz (Fagor), Claude Criquielion (Hitachi–Splendor–Sunair), Stephen Roche (La Redoute), and Sean Kelly (Skil–Sem–Kas–Miko). Kelly was ranked number one in the UCI Road World Rankings, after taking victory at Paris–Nice and winning three stages of the Vuelta a España. His Irish compatriot Roche had displayed good form earlier in the year by winning the Critérium International and the Tour Midi-Pyrénées. Charly Mottet (Renault–Elf), winner of the Tour de l'Avenir, considered the junior Tour de France, in 1984, was considered an outside bet for his team in the absence of team leader Fignon, given his young age.
caption: Bernard Hinault (pictured in 1982), was considered to be the main favourite for the overall victory, which was to be a record-equalling fifth.
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