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With Lance Armstrong out of retirement and racing in the current Tour de France, we take a look back at the history of this annual bicycle race.

Bicyclists from around the world compete in this 23 day long race throughout France and bordering countries for more than 3,500 kilometers. The race is divided into day-long segments, called stages, with a course that changes every year but the finish line is always in Paris. The racer with the lowest cumulative time by the end of each day gets to wear a yellow jersey the following day with great pride so that the overall leader can be easily identified. In the end, the racer with the lowest overall time wins the race.

But how did this all start?

The race originally began as a publicity stunt to sell L’Auto newspapers, resulting in the downfall of the paper’s rival, Le Velo. Le Velo was the first daily newspaper in France by the end of the 19th century, selling over 80,000 copies per day. Meanwhile, people in France were taking sides over the issue of whether a soldier, Alfred Dreyfus, had sold secrets to the Germans. While Le Velo supported Dreyfus’s innocence, some of the newspaper’s largest advertisers felt otherwise. After a great deal of friction between the two, the advertisers rallied up to create a rival paper, L’Auto.

The idea of the race came from L’Auto’s head cycling journalist, Géo Lefèvre. After discussing the plan with his editor, Henri Desgrange, they announced the race in January of 1903. While originally conceived as a five-week race, the Tour de France was eventually cut to 19 days due to a lack of cyclists, and premiered later that summer in July.

This year’s race

This year’s Tour de France marks the 96th race in the cycling tradition. With 20 teams participating, the race is exploring through a total of 6 countries: France, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, Switzerland and Italy. The winner will receive €450,000 for the final placing, and each of the 21 stage winners will win €8,000 as a prize.