The Tour de France emerged amid competition between the newspapers Le Vélo and L’Auto. Journalist Géo Lefèvre proposed a stage race around France to Henri Desgrange. On 1 July 1903, sixty riders assembled outside the Le Réveil-Matin café in Montgeron for an opening stage of 467 kilometres to Lyon.
From 1 to 19 July, six stages covered 2,428 kilometres. Overall positions were decided on time, with one to three rest days between stages. Twenty-one riders finished. Maurice Garin won the overall classification and three stages.
Six stages therefore did not mean a short challenge. The first Tour is a reminder that the difficulty of a race also depends on individual stage distances and opportunities to recover, rather than simply the number of days on the calendar.