If you are looking out for the colors of the cycling shirts during a race on TV, make sure you know which race you are watching! There are several European Tours, not to mention the Tour of America and Tour of Britain. And just to make things interesting, each race awards different colored jerseys to the various classification leaders.
Well which races should we be looking out for? I mentioned in a previous post that the most famous road tour is the Tour de France. The other important European road races are the Giro d’Italia, the Vuelta a Espana and the Eneco Tour of Benelux.
The four main classifications, each having their own distinctive cycling shirt colors, are Overall Leader, Points Leader, Mountains Leader and Young Star (awarded to the leading under-25 rider and indicating a potential future star). Here is an overview of the colored jerseys each leader wears when participating in the major tournaments.
Tour de France
Just as a quick reminder from my previous post, the jersey colors in the Tour de France (Le Tour) are yellow for overall leader; green for the points leader; red and white polka-dots for the mountain stage leader (the King of the Mountains); and white for the young star.
Giro d’Italia
When the cycle race is in Italy – commonly called the Giro – the riders’ cycling shirts change their colors. Now the overall leader wears a pink jersey. Then it’s mauve (or cyclamen) for the points leader; green for the mountains leader; and again white for the young category leader.
Vuelta a Espana
The action has now gone to Spain and La Vuelta. The overall leader’s cycling shirt is back to yellow. The points leader however wears a blue jersey; for the mountain stages leader it’s an orange jersey; and in La Vuelta there is no jersey awarded for the under-25s leader.
Eneco Tour of Benelux
In this tour, the racing winds its way through Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The Benelux tour was devised to provide a more challenging race as the Tour of the Netherlands was deemed not to be hard enough. However the separate Tours of Belgium and Luxembourg still exist in their own rights. The overall leader in the Eneco Tour wears a red jersey; the points leader wears the blue shirt; there is no jersey award for mountain stages in the Eneco Tour; and in Benelux the yellow jersey is worn by the under-25s young star.
So remember when you get excited watching the progress of the guy in the yellow cycling shirt, make sure you are watching Le Tour or La Vuelta, because if it’s the Eneco Tour you’ll be looking at the bright young thing coming through, rather than the overall leader!
