Tour de France

[4] IMDB link. Source: NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office. The film is directed by Pepe Danquart who won an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 1993 for Black Rider (Schwarzfahrer). Possible Tsunamis. It is a record of the 90th Tour de France in 2003, the centenary year, from the perspective of Team Telekom. Other tsunamis that have occurred include the following:. In 2005 a film titled Hell on Wheels was released. In light of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, UNESCO and other world bodies have called for a global tsunami monitoring system.

[3]. This is in part due to the absence of major tsunami events between 1883 (the Krakatoa eruption, which killed 36,000 people) and 2004. Noted personalities such as Daniel Baal and Lance Armstrong have denounced probable doping.
Unlike in the Pacific Ocean, there is no organized alert service covering the Indian Ocean. They attribute those speed increases to better performance-enhancing drugs, possibly not detected by current anti-doping investigations.
. Many commentators have remarked that the average speed at which the Tour is run has continued to rise, whereas improvements in training methods, bicycles etc., on a fairly mature sport, should only yield marginal improvements.
.

Although they intend to test the samples once the new test is ready, it is not clear what actions will be taken if the tests come back positive. The disaster prompted a huge worldwide effort to help victims of the tragedy, with billions of dollars being raised for disaster relief. However the samples were not tested for EPO, as the test was not ready for use and would not be until after the race completed. The tsunami killed people over an area ranging from the immediate vicinity of the quake in Indonesia, Thailand and the north-western coast of Malaysia to thousands of kilometres away in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and even as far as Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania in eastern Africa. In 2004, the UCI introduced a somewhat more rigorous testing program, taking urine samples a few times during the race. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which had a magnitude of 9.15, triggered a series of lethal tsunamis on December 26, 2004 that killed approximately 275,000 people (more than 168,000 in Indonesia alone), making it the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. Furthermore, it is claimed that EPO is already passé and that other potent blood replacement products that do not increase the hematocrit rates are already in use in the cycling world. As a result, 202 people on the small island of Okushiri lost their lives, and hundreds more were missing or injured.

This fear is surfacing in other sports, as Major League Baseball and track and field have been dogged by steroid controversies as well in recent years. A devastating tsunami occurred off the coast of Hokkaido in Japan as a result of an earthquake on July 12, 1993. The UCI appears to be too afraid to lose popular Tour riders, and would rather operate under continued controversy than lower participation. The total number of victims of this tragedy was 259 dead, 798 wounded and 95 missing presumed dead. The UCI has done little to address these problems, taking a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" attitude, and running only a small and semi-voluntary drug testing program that is considered trivial to beat. When the Tumaco Tsunami hit the coast, it caused great destruction in the city of Tumaco, as well as in the small towns of El Charco, San Juan, Mosquera and Salahonda on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. Some claim that EPO use is almost universal. The earthquake was felt in Bogotá, Cali, Popayán, Buenaventura and several other cities and towns in Colombia and in Guayaquil, Esmeraldas, Quito and other parts of Ecuador.

In particular there is continued controversy over the use of EPO, a hormone that increases the amount of red blood cells in the blood and thus offers increased cardiovascular endurance. The earthquake and the resulting tsunami caused the destruction of at least six fishing villages and the death of hundreds of people in the Colombian province of Nariño. Professional cycling in general has a reputation for being one of the most doped sports. A magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred on December 12, 1979 at 7:59:4.3 (UTC) along the Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador. However, during the official announcement of the 2006 Tour route in October 2005, an event that typically highlights the previous year's winner, the Tour management scrubbed all mention of Armstrong from the program. The tsunamis were up to 6 m tall, and killed 11 people as far away as Crescent City, California. Armstrong denied using EPO, and because there was no "counter-sample" to test, the UCI would not sanction him. After the magnitude 9.2 Good Friday Earthquake, tsunamis struck Alaska, British Columbia, California and coastal Pacific Northwest towns, killing 121 people.

This claim was based on a newer test on frozen urine samples that had been kept at the French national dope testing laboratory. Nearly 2,000 people were killed. In late August 2005, one month after Armstrong's seventh consecutive victory in the Tour, the French sports newspaper L'Equipe claimed to have uncovered evidence that Lance Armstrong used EPO in 1999, before any EPO test had yet been invented. A tsunami was triggered which swept over the top of the dam (without bursting it) and into the valley below. While Armstrong had been subjected to urine testing after nearly every stage he raced in the Tour, a urine test for EPO was not available until 2002, and even then the test was unable to detect EPO usage after more than a few days. The reservoir behind the Vajont Dam in northern Italy was struck by an enormous landslide. Armstrong, wearing the yellow jersey at the time, took umbrage. The number of people killed by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami is estimated to be between 490 and 2,290.

While he stopped short of directly accusing Armstrong of doping, Christophe Bassons (who is widely cosidered to be one of the few members of the 1998 Festina team who did not dope, and a known opponent of doping) wrote a newspaper diary during the 1999 Tour in which he implied that it was impossible to win the Tour without doping. When the tsunami hit Onagawa, Japan, almost 22 hours after the quake, the wave height was 3 m above high tide. Other athletes have suggested that Armstrong's performances are unnatural without doping. 61 lives were lost allegedly due to people's failure to heed warning sirens. Simeoni's defamation suit against Armstrong is currently scheduled to be argued in the Spring of 2006. The highest wave at Hilo Bay was measured at around 10.7m (35 ft.). Although Simeoni has since signed with the Amore e Vita team, the team that also signed Jesus Manzano, it appears unlikely that he will again ride on a major ProTour team. The first tsunami arrived at Hilo, Hawaii approximately 14.8 hrs after it originated off the coast of South Central Chile.

Simeoni and Armstrong then rejoined the peloton. It spread across the entire Pacific Ocean, with waves measuring up to 25 metres high. Having the race leader in an early break dooms their chances, so the members of the leading group pleaded with Simeoni to return to the peloton and, by implication, to take Armstrong with him. Its epicenter off the coast of South Central Chile, generated one of the most destructive tsunamis of the 20th century. In a highly unusual move for a wearer of the yellow jersey, Armstrong himself chased Simeoni and they rode together to join the break. The Great Chilean Earthquake, at magnitude 9.5 the strongest earthquake ever recorded. Shortly thereafter, during the 18th stage of the 2004 Tour, Simeoni broke free of the peloton in an attempt to join a "break" that was up the road. Note: The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was established to track these killer waves and provide warning.

In a 2003 interview with the French paper Le Monde, Armstrong said that Simeoni was a liar ("menteur absolu"), eventually leading to Simeoni suing him for defamation. The tsunami is locally known in Hawaii as the April Fools Day Tsunami in Hawaii due to people thinking the warnings were an April Fools prank. Armstrong had admitted to using Ferrari's services just before Simeoni's disclosure, leading to questions about whether Armstrong had used EPO. The Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people on Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system, established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean area countries. He also stated that Ferrari had developed a program for EPO use that would remain undetected. The resulting tsunami measured over 7 metres in height and took about 2½ hours to reach the Burin Peninsula on the south coast of Newfoundland, where 28 people lost their lives in various communities. Michele Ferrari as his source of EPO. The quake was felt throughout the Atlantic Provinces of Canada and as far west as Ottawa, Ontario and as far south as Claymont, Delaware.

In 2002, Italian cyclist Filippo Simeoni, while under suspension for doping, began to cooperate with prosecutors and implicated Dr. On November 18, 1929, an earthquake of magnitude 7.2 occurred beneath the Laurentian Slope on the Grand Banks. Controversy continues to surround Lance Armstrong. On the facing coasts of Java and Sumatra the sea flood went many miles inland and caused such vast loss of life that one area was never resettled but went back to the jungle and is now the Ujung Kulon nature reserve. Other members of Cofidis were also implicated by the testimony of fellow rider Philippe Gaumont, who told investigators and the press that doping with steroids, human growth hormones, EPO, and amphetamines was systematic on the team. Tsunami waves were observed throughout the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the American West Coast, South America, and even as far away as the English Channel. Millar later admitted to doping with EPO before the 2003 World Championships -- his title was stripped from him, and he was suspended from professional cycling for two years. A series of large tsunami waves was generated from the explosion, some reaching a height of over 40 metres above sea level.

In 2004, British cylist David Millar of Cofidis, then the reigning time trial World Champion, was taken in for questioning by French police. The island volcano of Krakatoa in Indonesia exploded with devastating fury in 1883, blowing its underground magma chamber partly empty so that much overlying land and seabed collapsed into it. Kelme had refused to renew Manzano's contract after the 2003 season, citing both lack of results and behavioral problems -- Manzano had been kicked out of the 2003 Vuelta a Espana by Kelme, ostensibly for having a girl in his room during the race. The philosophical concept of the sublime, as described by philosopher Immanuel Kant in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, took inspiration in part from attempts to comprehend the enormity of the Lisbon quake and tsunami. In the Spring of 2004, Jesus Manzano, a Spanish rider who had ridden for Kelme from 2000 to 2003, told Madrid sports newspaper As that he had been forced by his former team to take banned substances, and went into considerable technical detail about how riders avoid detection. Philosophers of the Enlightenment, notably Voltaire, wrote about the event. Use of prescriptions unmotivated by medical needs, particularly external corticoids which cannot be distinguished from (prohibited) injected ones, has been described by some cycling insiders as a widespread trick. Europeans of the 18th century struggled to understand the disaster within religious and rational belief systems.

However, sports authorities decided not to apply this article and cleared Armstrong. Historical records of explorations by Vasco da Gama and other early navigators were lost, and countless buildings were destroyed (including most examples of Portugal's Manueline architecture). Although the amount detected both was well below the "positive" threshold and was consistent with the amount that would be used for a topical skin cream, prescriptions must be shown to sports authorities in advance of use (UCI Rules Title XIV Chapter 4 Article 43). The earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent fires killed more than a third of Lisbon's pre-quake population of 275,000. Armstrong explained he had used an external "cortisone" ointment in order to treat a saddle sore, and produced a prescription for it. Before the great wall of water hit the harbour, waters retreated, revealing lost cargo and forgotten shipwrecks. An accusation was made against Lance Armstrong during the 1999 Tour, when a glucocorticosteroid was detected in his urine. Many townspeople fled to the waterfront, believing the area safe from fires and from falling debris from aftershocks.

While Virenque was not sentenced (but had penalties imposed on him by sports authority), the management of Festina, the aides, the doctors, and some pharmacists were found guilty and handed down fines and suspended jail sentences. Tens of thousands of Portuguese who survived the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake were killed by a tsunami which followed a half hour later. During the trial, he confessed to doping himself. January 26 - The Cascadia Earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes on record, ruptures the Cascadia Subduction Zone offshore from Vancouver Island to northern California, creating a tsunami logged in Japan and oral traditions of the American First Nations. In 2000, he and the management of the Festina team were tried. In 2002 it was suggested that the Bristol Channel floods of 1607 in England and Wales, UK, may have been caused by a tsunami. This denial sounds as convoluted in French as it does in English, and the mock news show Les Guignols de l'Info quickly catapulted the phrase into French popular culture. Santorini is regarded as the most likely source for Plato's literary parable of Atlantis.

Richard Virenque denied doping himself and said that if he had been doped, it was not willfully (literally, "à l'insu de mon plein gré"). At some time between 1650 BC and 1600 BC (still debated), the volcanic Greek island Santorini erupted, causing a 100 m to 150 m high tsunami that devastated the north coast of Crete, 70 km (45 miles) away, and would certainly have wiped out the Minoan civilization along Crete's northern shore. (Daniel Baal, Droit dans le mur). In the North Atlantic Ocean (Norwegian Sea), the Storegga Slides were a major series of sudden underwater land movements over the course of tens of thousands of years, which caused tsunamis and megatsunamis across a wide area. Polemics ensued, especially alleging the weakness of UCI's measures compared to the measures decided by the French cycling federation. Very small tsunamis, non-destructive and undetectable without specialized equipment, occur frequently as a result of minor earthquakes and other events. In the end the "Tour of Shame" continued after the UCI backed down and promised to limit the heavy-handed actions, although several teams were forced to withdraw from the race. Tsunamis occur most frequently in the Pacific Ocean, but are a global phenomenon; they are possible wherever large bodies of water are found, including inland lakes, where they can be caused by landslides.

UCI, the international sport body for cycling, promised tough measures. See also List of historic tsunamis by death toll.. The Spanish teams quit the Tour in a show of solidarity led by the ONCE team. While it would take some years for the trees to grow to a useful size, such plantations could offer a much cheaper and longer-lasting means of tsunami mitigation than the costly and environmentally destructive method of erecting artificial barriers. In response the riders started a "sit-down strike" and refused to ride, thereby putting millions of dollars of endorsements and advertising revenue in jeopardy. [5] Environmentalists have suggested tree planting along stretches of sea coast which are prone to tsunami risks. On July 23, 1998, French police forces acting on search warrants raided several teams in their hotels and found significant quantities of doping products in the hotel and cars of the TVM (cycling team) team. In one striking example, the village of Naluvedapathy in India's Tamil Nadu region suffered minimal damage and few deaths as the wave broke up on a forest of 80,244 trees planted along the shoreline in 2002 in a bid to enter the Guinness Book of Records.

The team's lawyer was Thibault de Montbrial. Some locations in the path of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami escaped almost unscathed as a result of the tsunami's energy being sapped by a belt of trees such as coconut palms and mangroves. Well-known riders on the 1998 Festina team included Laurent Brochard, Christophe Moreau, Didier Rous, Richard Virenque, and Alex Zülle. The effects of a tsunami can be mitigated by natural factors such as tree cover on the shoreline. It was argued that doping was generalized inside the cycling world, at least for racers who wanted to achieve major results. The wall may have succeeded in slowing down and moderating the height of the tsunami but it did not prevent major destruction and loss of life. In the 2000 criminal trial that ensued, it became apparent that the management of the Festina team had deliberately organized doping inside the team, including the hiring of a physician (Doctor Eric Rijkaert) because, the director sportif of the team Bruno Roussel later said, it was thought safer for the athletes than if they were left to their own individual doping schemes without competent medical advice. The port town of Aonae was completely surrounded by a tsunami wall, but the waves washed right over the wall and destroyed all the wood-framed structures in the area.

He later revealed many common practices of the cycling world in his book, Massacre à la Chaîne. For instance, the tsunami which hit the island of Hokkaido on July 12, 1993 created waves as much as 30m (100 ft) tall - as high as a 10-story building. On July 8, 1998, a major scandal erupted when French Customs arrested Willy Voet, one of the soigneurs for the Festina cycling team, for the possession of illegal quantities of prescription drugs and narcotics, including erythropoietin (EPO), growth hormones, testosterone and amphetamines. However, their effectiveness has been questioned, as tsunamis are often higher than the barriers. The 1998 Tour de France was perhaps the most scandal-ridden Tour in recent memory. Other localities have built floodgates and channels to redirect the water from incoming tsunamis. On July 13, 1967, British cyclist Tom Simpson died climbing Mont Ventoux following excessive usage of amphetamines, probably complicated by the now defunct practice of limiting daily water intake to only four bidons, circa 2 litres. Japan has implemented an extensive programme of building tsunami walls of up to 4.5m (13.5 ft) high in front of populated coastal areas.

As time went by, riders began using substances as a means of increasing performance rather than dulling the senses, and organizing bodies such as the Tour and the International Cycling Union (UCI), as well as government bodies, enacted policies to combat this practice. While it is not possible to prevent a tsunami, in some particularly tsunami-prone countries some measures have been taken to reduce the damage caused on shore. Early tour riders have been said to have consumed alcohol and used ether among other substances as a means of dulling the agonizing pain of competing in endurance cycling. Some scientists speculate that animals may have an ability to sense subsonic Rayleigh waves from an earthquake minutes or hours before a tsunami strikes shore (Kenneally, [4]).. Analysis of the 2005 competitors shows that:. The phenomenon was also noted in Sri Lanka in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake ([3]). That said, even a rider who is chosen to ride but does not finish the race will have had to have been very fit to be selected. The Lisbon quake is the first documented case of such a phenomenon in Europe.

To finish the Tour de France, a cyclist must be in a very good physical state. Many animals sense danger and flee to higher ground before the water arrives. In terms of nationality, riders from France have won most Tours (36), followed by Belgium (18), United States (10), Italy (9), Spain (8), Luxembourg (4), Switzerland and the Netherlands (2 each) and Ireland, Denmark and Germany (1 each). One of the early warnings comes from nearby animals. Gino Bartali holds the record of longest time span between titles, having earned his first and last Tour victories 10 years apart (in 1938 and 1948 respectively). Computer models can roughly predict tsunami arrival and impact based on information about the event that triggered it and the shape of the seafloor (bathymetry) and coastal land (topography).[2]. Three other riders have managed to win the Tour three times:. In some communities on the west coast of the United States, which is prone to Pacific Ocean tsunamis, warning signs advise people where to run in the event of an incoming tsunami.

Four other riders have managed to win the Tour five times:. Regions with a high risk of tsunamis may use tsunami warning systems to detect tsunamis and warn the general population before the wave reaches land. Lance Armstrong (United States) holds the record as the only rider to have won the Tour seven times (consecutively 1999–2005); he retired after the 2005 Tour. In a low-lying coastal area, a strong earthquake is a major warning sign that a tsunami may be produced.
. Again, being educated about a tsunami is important, to realise that when the water level drops the first time, the danger is not yet over. . In instances where the leading edge of the tsunami is its first peak, succeeding waves can lead to further flooding.

For the upcoming tour, a route description is given. People unaware of the danger may remain at the shore due to curiosity, or for collecting fish from the exposed sea bed. For previous tours this includes detailed results. If the slope is shallow, this recession can exceed many hundreds of metres. Note: Hyperlinked tour numbers point to more information on that particular tour. In instances where the leading edge of the tsunami wave is its trough, the sea will recede from the coast half of the wave's period before the wave's arrival. Terms specific to the Tour de France include:. Tsunamis cannot be prevented or precisely predicted, but there are some warning signs of an impending tsunami, and there are many systems being developed and in use to reduce the damage from tsunamis.

Much of the terminology used to describe the Tour de France is frequently used in bicycle racing across the world. The following have at various times been associated with a tsunami [1]:. As the Tour becomes ever more international and commercial, it remains to be seen whether the customs of the past will continue to be observed. As a result, Hilo suffered worse damage than any other place in Hawaii, with the tsunami/seiche reaching a height of 14 m and killing 159 inhabitants. Other riders may just be ill or slightly injured and unwillingly end up as the lanterne rouge. That meant that every second wave was in phase with the motion of Hilo Bay, creating a seiche in the bay. Thus, in the past many riders have attempted to engineer themselves into last place by artificial means. The natural resonant period of Hilo Bay is about thirty minutes.

The money a rider can generate through publicity is much greater if he finishes last than second from last. For instance, the tsunami that hit Hawaii on April 1, 1946 had a fifteen-minute interval between wave fronts. The rider may just be a lowly domestique, but such is the sympathy of the French public that finishing last is actually very prestigious. Local geographic peculiarities can lead to seiche or standing waves forming, which can amplify the onshore damage. The lanterne rouge is the rider ranked last in the general classification, who may wind up in Paris with an overall time five or more hours longer than that of the winner. They also need not be symmetrical; tsunami waves may be much stronger in one direction than another, depending on the nature of the source and the surrounding geography. Unless the final stage is a time trial--or in the case of Pedro Delgado attacking the yellow jersey of Stephen Roche in 1987 on the Champs-Elysées--riders generally do not launch attacks on the leader of the tour on the final stage, giving the leader one final day to bask in the glory of winning the yellow jersey. However, tsunami waves can diffract around land masses (as shown in this Indian Ocean tsunami animation as the waves reach southern Sri Lanka and India).

One does not attack a leading rider who has suffered a mechanical breakdown or other misfortune, one who is eating in the feed zone or one who is enjoying un besoin naturel (roughly translated to a natural need, the practice of answering nature's call). Tsunamis propagate outward from their source, so coasts in the "shadow" of affected land masses are usually fairly safe. Whenever reasonably possible, one allows a rider to lead the peloton when the race passes through his home village or on his birthday, and it often happens that the winner of the stage held on Bastille Day is French. There is no proof for this. The riders, unlike some of their fans, have traditionally tempered their competitiveness and enthusiasm with an elaborate but unwritten code of honor. This gives the transient pressure built up during the quake as equal to twice and in addition to the hydrostatic pressure. As word passes that the riders are approaching, the fans begin to encroach on the road until they are often just an arm’s length from the riders. The passing "hump" mentioned earlier is a "momentum flux" equal to density multiplied by the square of the velocity.

Any amateur rider or, in fact, just about anyone, is free to attempt the course on his bicycle in the morning, and after that there begins a garish cavalcade of advertising vehicles blaring music and tossing hats, souvenirs, sweets and free samples of all sorts. However a conjecture exists for velocities. In the hours before the riders pass, a carnival atmosphere prevails. At a water depth of 40 m, the speed would be 20 m/s (about 72 km/h or 45 mi/h), which is much slower than the speed in the open ocean but the wave would still be difficult to outrun. Millions of spectators line the route every year to see the Tour first-hand, some of them having encamped a week in advance to get the best views. For example, in the Pacific Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4000 m, a tsunami travels at about 200 m/s (720 km/h or 450 mi/h) with little energy loss, even over long distances. It is said that any rider who has worn the yellow jersey, even for a day, will never go hungry or thirsty again in France. Shallow-water waves move at a speed that is equal to the square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s²) and the water depth.

Any Frenchman who has won the Tour becomes an object of public adoration in his native land. A wave becomes a 'shallow-water wave' when the ratio between the water depth and its wavelength gets very small, and since a tsunami has an extremely large wavelength (hundreds of kilometres), tsunamis act as a shallow-water wave even in deep oceanic water. The Tour is immensely popular and important in France, not only as a sporting event but also as a matter of national identity and pride. As a wave goes down the whip from handle to tip, the same energy is deposited in less and less material, which then moves more violently as it receives this energy. The Tour alternates between starting inside and outside France; traditionally, the first few stages are in a neighbouring country. The steepening process is analogous to the cracking of a tapered whip. In some years, like 2005, there is no prologue. While a person at the surface of deep water would probably not even notice the tsunami, the wave can increase to a height of 30 m or more as it approaches the coastline and compresses.

Usually one town will host the prologue (which is too short to go between towns) and also the start of stage 1. As the wave approaches land, the sea shallows and the wave no longer travels as quickly, so it begins to 'pile-up'; the wave-front becomes steeper and taller, and there is less distance between crests. The prologue and first stage of the Tour are particularly prestigious to host. The wave travels across the ocean at speeds from 500 to 1,000 km/h. Sometimes the Tour will jump very long distances between stages, requiring a rest day to allow riders to be transported. The energy of a tsunami passes through the entire water column to the sea bed, unlike surface waves, which typically reach only down to a depth of 10 m or so. Whereas formerly each stage would start at the preceding stage's finish line, making a continuous course for the race, nowadays each stage can often start some distance from the previous day's finish, to allow more towns to share in the glory. This is often practically unnoticeable to people on ships.

To host a stage start or finish brings prestige, and a lot of business, to a town. The actual height of a tsunami wave in open water is often less than one metre. The Tour usually features only one of these two climbs in a year. This is very different from typical wind-generated swells on the ocean, which might have a period of about 10 seconds and a wavelength of 150 metres. Another famous mountain stage is the climb of the Mont Ventoux, often claimed to be the hardest climb in the Tour due to the harsh conditions there. In open water, tsunamis have extremely long periods (the time for the next wave top to pass a point after the previous one), from minutes to hours, and long wavelengths of up to several hundred kilometres. This seems less likely to be repeated, following complaints from the riders. A single tsunami event may involve a series of waves of varying heights; the set of waves is called a train.

In 2004, in another experiment, the mountain time trial ended at Alpe d'Huez. This is the two-dimensional equivalent of the inverse square law in three dimensions. The particularly tough climb of Alpe d'Huez is a favourite, providing a stage finish in most Tours. Although the total or overall loss of energy is small, the total energy is spread over a larger and larger circumference as the wave travels, so the energy per linear meter in the wave decreases as the inverse power of the distance from the source. It is unlikely that this would be repeated in the future. A tsunami can cause damage thousands of kilometres from its origin, so there may be several hours between its creation and its impact on a coast, arriving long after the seismic wave generated by the originating event arrives. Most famously, the final stage of the 1989 Tour saw Greg LeMond overtake Laurent Fignon's overall lead by just 8 seconds, the closest winning margin in the Tour's history. Tsunamis act very differently from typical surf swells; they are phenomena which move the entire depth of the ocean (often several kilometres deep) rather than just the surface, so they contain immense energy, propagate at high speeds and can travel great trans-oceanic distances with little overall energy loss.

In recent years the Tour organisers have experimented with holding the final time trial as the final, rather than as the penultimate, stage. Large objects such as ships and boulders can be carried several miles inland before the tsunami subsides. (In fact he was caught, he and Roche both finished in the peloton, and Roche thereby won the Tour.). The sheer weight of water is enough to pulverise objects in its path, often reducing buildings to their foundations and scouring exposed ground to the bedrock. In 1987, with Stephen Roche leading Pedro Delgado by only 40 seconds after the final time trial, Delgado broke away from the peloton on the Champs-Elysées, threatening to snatch victory at the last minute. Most of the damage is caused by the huge mass of water behind the initial wave front, as the height of the sea keeps rising fast and floods powerfully into the coastal area. There have been exceptions, however. Instead it looks rather like an endlessly onrushing tide which forces its way around and through any obstacle.

This stage is not usually competitive in terms of the overall lead since it is a flat sprinters' stage, and the leader is likely to have a sufficiently large margin to be unchallengeable. Although often referred to as "tidal waves", a tsunami does not look like the popular impression of "a normal wave only much bigger". The race takes multiple turns over the avenue, which is lined with enormous spectator crowds. However, an extremely large landslide could generate a megatsunami that might have ocean-wide impacts. Since 1975, the final stage always finishes on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, which, being cobbled, is an unpleasant surface to cycle on, though not as much as the famous Paris-Roubaix. These events can give rise to much larger local shock waves (solitons), such as the landslide at the head of Lituya Bay which produced a water wave estimated at 50 – 150 m and reached 524 m up local mountains. Jan Ullrich on Team Bianchi in the 2003). Tsunamis caused by these mechanisms, unlike the ocean-wide tsunamis caused by some earthquakes, generally dissipate quickly and rarely affect coastlines distant from the source due to the small area of sea affected.

There is, however, no evidence that indicates this is true, and it is more reasonable to conclude that the new rules are simply designed to limit how much time any legitimate contender for the overall win could lose in the TTT stage due to being on a weak team (e.g. These phenomena rapidly displace large volumes of water, as energy from falling debris or expansion is transferred to the water into which the debris falls. Some people speculate that the motivation behind the TTT rule change was an attempt by the race organisers to "Lance-proof" the Tour, limiting how much time Lance Armstrong could gain in this stage. In the 1950s it was discovered that larger tsunamis than previously believed possible could be caused by landslides, explosive volcanic action and impact events. If they finished in sixth place (still assuming two minutes behind the winning team), they would lose only one minute (per the table). Waves are formed as the displaced water mass moves under the influence of gravity to regain its equilibrium and radiates across the ocean like ripples on a pond. However, if they finished two minutes behind (still assuming 14th place), they would only lose the two minutes. Similarly, a violent submarine volcanic eruption can uplift the water column and form a tsunami.

For example, riders on a team that finished in 14th place, six minutes behind the winning team, would lose only two minutes and 20 seconds in the General Classification relative to the winners of the TTT. Sub-marine landslides; which are sometimes triggered by large earthquakes; as well as collapses of volcanic edifices, may also disturb the overlying water column as sediment and rocks slide downslope and are redistributed across the sea floor. The following table indicates the time penalty added to the winning team's time that a member finishing with his team will receive, according to his team's placing, if their actual time is greater than the winning team's time plus this penalty. Subduction earthquakes are particularly effective in generating tsunamis, and occur where denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates in a process known as subduction. However, since the 2004 Tour, the only riders that necessarily receive actual time are those on the winning team; members on trailing teams (who finish ahead of or with the fifth member of their team) receive either the fifth member's actual time, or a computed time based on the winning team's time plus a penalty based on their team's placing in that stage, whichever is lower. Such large vertical movements of the earth's crust can occur at plate boundaries. Traditionally, riders received the actual time recorded by the fifth member of their team in that stage. Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water.

Members who finish clearly behind the fifth member of their team receive their individual actual time for the stage. An earthquake which is too small to create a tsunami by itself may trigger an undersea landslide quite capable of generating a tsunami. Each member of the team who crosses the finish line ahead of or with the fifth (or last, if the team has less than five riders) member of the team is credited with the time of the fifth (last) team member to cross the finish line; this is the middle member of a nine-person team. However, the most common cause is an undersea earthquake. Often in the first week of the Tour there is a team time trial (TTT). A tsunami can be generated by any disturbance that rapidly moves a large mass of water, such as an earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide or meteorite impact. Although other riders had used aerodynamic aids in previous tours, LeMond's aero handlebars and helmet were considered a major factor in his victory. .

Fignon wore the yellow jersey for the final stage, with a narrow lead of 50 seconds, and was beaten by LeMond's superior time trial performance. However, since they are not actually related to tides the term is considered misleading and its usage is discouraged by oceanographers. The most recent occasion on which this was done, in 1989, yielded the closest ever finish in Tour history, when Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds overall. Tsunamis have been historically referred to as tidal waves because as they approach land they take on the characteristics of a violent onrushing tide rather than the sort of cresting waves that are formed by wind action upon the ocean (with which people are more familiar). On a few occasions, the race organisers made the final stage into Paris a time trial. A tsunami is not a sub-surface event in the deep ocean; it simply has a much smaller amplitude (wave heights) offshore, and a very long wavelength (often hundreds of kilometres long), which is why they generally pass unnoticed at sea, forming only a passing "hump" in the ocean. Traditionally the final time trial has been the penultimate stage, and effectively determines the winner before the final ordinary stage which is not ridden competitively. The term was created by fishermen who returned to port to find the area surrounding the harbour devastated, although they had not been aware of any wave in the open water.

One of these may be a team time trial (see below). Although in Japanese tsunami is used for both the singular and plural, in English tsunamis is well-established as the plural. There are usually three or four time trials during the Tour. The term tsunami comes from the Japanese language meaning harbour ("tsu", 津) and wave ("nami", 波 or 浪). The purpose of the prologue is to decide who gets to wear yellow on the opening day, and provide a large and prestigious spectacle for one lucky city. The effects of a tsunami can range from unnoticeable to devastating. Here, riders start in reverse order of race number, meaning the weakest rider on the lowest ranked team will be first off, with the final rider being the defending champion, wearing Number 1. Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and large meteorite impacts all have the potential to generate a tsunami.

The first stage of the tour is often a time trial, known as a prologue. A tsunami (IPA pronunciation /suˈnɑːmi/ or /tsuˈnɑːmi/]) is a series of waves generated when water in a lake or the sea is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. In an individual time trial each rider rides individually. 16 October 1979 23 people died when the coast of Nice, France, was hit by a tsunami. With the exception of the now traditional finish at the Champs-Elysées all famous stages, like Alpe d'Huez and Mont Ventoux, are mountain stages, and these often bring out the most spectators who line up the roads by the thousands to cheer and encourage the cyclists and support their favorites. 4 July 1992 - Daytona Beach, FL. The so called mountain stages are often the deciding factor in determining the winner of the Tour de France. 19 May 1964 - Northeast USA.

On ordinary stages that do not have extended mountain climbs, most riders can manage to stay together in the peloton all the way to the finish; during mountain stages, however, it is not uncommon for some riders to lose 40 minutes to the winner of the stage. 21 September 1938 - Hurricane, NJ coast. Some ordinary stages take place in the mountains, almost always causing major shifts in the General Classification. 19 August 1931 - Atlantic City, NJ. The final kilometre is indicated in the race course by a red triangular pennant - known as the flamme rouge - raised above the road^[2]. 8 August 1924 - Coney Island, NY . A crashed sprinter inside the final kilometre will not win the sprint, but avoids being penalised in the overall classification. 6 August 1923 - Rockaway Park, Queens, NY .

This prevents riders from being penalised for accidents that do not accurately reflect their performance on the stage as a whole given that crashes in the final kilometre can be huge pileups that are hard to avoid for a rider farther back in the peloton. 9 June 1913 - Longport, NJ. Riders who crash within the last kilometer of the stage are credited with the finishing time of the group that they were with when they crashed. 35 Million years ago - Chesapeake Bay impact crater, Chesapeake Bay. These bonuses generally are a maximum of 20 seconds, and can allow a good sprinter to qualify for the Yellow Jersey early in the Tour. 18 August 1946 - Dominican Republic. Time bonuses are awarded at some intermediate sprints and stage finishes to the first three riders who reach the specified point. 4 August 1946 - Dominican Republic.

It is not unusual for the entire field to finish in a single group, taking some time to cross the line, but being credited with the same time as the stage winner. 9 January 1926 - Maine. This avoids what would otherwise be dangerous mass sprints. 18 November 1929 - Newfoundland. While only finishers are awarded sprint points, all riders finishing in an identifiable group (with no significant gap to the rider in front, as determined by race officials) are deemed to have finished the stage in the same time as the lead rider of that group for overall classification purposes. 11 October 1918 - Puerto Rico. In the first week of the Tour, this usually leads to spectacular mass sprints. 17 November 1872 - Maine.

The one who crosses the finish line first wins. 18 November 1867 - Virgin Islands. The latter is called drafting and is an essential technique. 14 November 1840 - Great Swell on the Delaware River. Riders are permitted to touch (but not push or nudge) and to shelter behind each other, in slipstream ^[1]. The villages of Arop and Warapu were destroyed. The real start (départ réel) usually is some 2 to 5 km away from the starting point, and is announced by the Tour director in the officials' car waving a white flag. While the magnitude of the quake was not large enough to create these waves directly, it is believed the earthquake generated an undersea landslide, which in turn caused the tsunami.

In an ordinary stage, all riders start simultaneously and share the road. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake 24 km offshore was followed within 11 minutes by a tsunami about 12 m tall. Its King of the Mountains wears a green jersey. 17 July, 1998: A Papua New Guinea tsunami killed approximately 2200 people [7]. The Giro d'Italia notably differs in awarding the overall leader a pink jersey, having been organized and sponsored by La Gazzetta dello Sport, an Italian sports daily newspaper with pink pages. May 26, 1983: 104 people in western Japan were killed by a tsunami spawned from a nearby earthquake. For example, the Tour of Britain has yellow, green, and polka-dot jerseys with the same meaning as in the Tour de France. 1976: On 16 August (midnight) a tsunami killed more than 5000 people in the Moro Gulf region (Cotabato City) of the Philippines.

The Tour's jersey colours have been adopted by other cycling stage races, and have thus come to have meaning within cycling generally, rather than solely in the context of the Tour. It travelled at over 150 kph. No jerseys are exchanged in this situation. This happened in the fjord shaped Lituya Bay, Alaska, USA. Sometimes a rider takes the overall lead during a stage and gets sufficiently far ahead of the yellow jersey wearer such that his current time lead is greater than his time deficit to the yellow jersey in the general classification; when this happens, this rider may be referred to as being "the yellow jersey on the road". July 9, 1958: A huge landslip caused the highest ever reported tsunami which was 524 metres high. They also get a high-quality jersey to keep as a souvenir: the ones that are worn get dirty and are sometimes damaged by the day's cycling. 1946: An earthquake in the Aleutian Islands sent a tsunami to Hawaii, killing 159 people (five died in Alaska).

Overnight, a high-quality jersey is printed to be worn the next day. A wave more than seven stories tall (about 20 m) drowned some 26,000 people. The jersey bears their team logo, and the copy that they are awarded immediately after the stage end must have the logo attached in a matter of minutes, so this is done by a rapid process that can be done in the field but which yields an inferior jersey. One of the worst tsunami disasters engulfed whole villages along Sanriku, Japan, in 1896. A rider who leads a classification for a stage of the Tour gets three copies of the coloured jersey. January 26, 1700: the Cascadia Earthquake (estimated 9.0 magnitude) caused massive tsunamis across the Pacific Northwest. At the end of the tour an award is given to the rider who was thought to be the most aggressive bike racer throughout the entire three week tour. The cause of the flood remains disputed, it is quite possible that it was caused by a combination of meteorological extremes and tidal peaks (discussion).

While this is usually is given to the winner of the previous stage, it is not always, especially during a mass sprint. January 20, 1606/1607: along the coast of the Bristol Channel (main article) thousands of people were drowned, houses and villages swept away, farmland was inundated and flocks were destroyed by a flood that might have been a tsunami. Not an actual jersey, a red number is given to and worn by the rider who a panelist of judges deemed the most aggressive bike racer the day before. circa 500 C.E.: Poompuhar, Tamil Nadu, India, Maldives. In this case the leading rider will wear the yellow jersey and the rider placed second in the points competition will wear the green jersey. As the wave approaches, the top of the wave may glow red. For example, in the first week it is common for the overall classification (yellow jersey) and points (sprint) competition (green jersey) to be led by the same rider. A flash of red light might be seen near the horizon.

Where a single rider leads in the competition for more than one jersey, they wear the most prestigious jersey to which they are entitled, and the second-placed rider in each of the other classifications becomes entitled to wear the corresponding jersey. The sea may recede to a considerable distance. Jerseys are awarded in a ceremony immediately following the stage, sometimes before trailing riders have finished the stage. or a whistling sound. The rider leading a classification at the end of a stage is required to wear the corresponding jersey during the next stage. or a noise akin to the periodic whop-whop of a helicopter,. Often, therefore, national championship titles are held by domestiques or young, "up-and-coming" riders. a roaring noise as of a jet plane.

National championships are held the weekend before the tour starts, and many of the tour favourites and team leaders do not compete in them. A thunderous boom may be heard followed by