wearing the race leader's
yellow jersey as the Tour passed through the
Vosges mountains The Prologue was won by Time Trial Specialist
Chris Boardman giving him the Yellow Jersey for stage one with Ullrich just two seconds behind. Defending champion
Bjarne Riis, who had been preparing for and seeking a repeat victory with Ullrich acting as his Super-Domestique finished outside the top 10 but was in no way concerned as he had come into the Tour in good form. The first four stages were flat stages, the first two of which were won by the infamous Italian sprinter
Mario Cipollini with the third going to
Erik Zabel and the fourth being won by
Nicola Minali. Cipollini would wear the Yellow Jersey following the first few stages due to bonus seconds during the sprint finishes. During the 261 km stage five from Chantonnay to Le Chatre
Cédric Vasseur survived a breakaway and finished nearly two and a half minutes ahead of the Peloton to claim the stage win and the Yellow Jersey, which he would hold on to until the race reached the high mountains. Stage 6 was won by
Jeroen Blijlevens in a sprint finish with
Djamolidine Abdoujaparov finishing 2nd which would be his highest placing in this final TDF of his impressive career. Stages 7 and 8 followed rounding out the first week with sprint finishes, both of which were won by Erik Zabel as he bested
Jaan Kirsipuu and Blijlevens in stage 7 and Minali and Blijlevens in stage 8. Zabel had donned the Green Jersey following stage 3 and would hold it all the way to Paris. Stage 9 was the first stage in the
Pyrenees which included the Col d'Aspin and
Col du Tourmalet as two of the five categorized climbs.
Laurent Brochard won the stage with the elite group of
Richard Virenque, Pantani and Ullrich finishing 0:14 behind. Surprisingly to some defending champion Riis lost nearly thirty seconds to the other contenders coming across in 8th putting him in a tie for 4th in the overall standings with Virenque at 1:43 behind Vasseur after the first major mountain stage. Spaniard
Abraham Olano was in 3rd at 1:14 behind and the next closest GC favorite was Ullrich 0:14 behind him. Stage 10 was another high mountain stage with five climbs and was won convincingly by Ullrich by 1:06 over Virenque and Pantani as Riis and Olano each lost more than three minutes. With the victory Ullrich became the first German rider to wear the
maillot jaune since
Klaus-Peter Thaler in the
1978 Tour de France and only 3rd overall as "Didi"
Dietrich Thurau wore it for 15 days in the
1977 Tour de France. Virenque finished 3rd 1:27 behind Pantani and
Francesco Casagrande finished 4th on the stage while also moving to 6th place in the overall standings. Riis finished 5th, losing nearly another two minutes to Ullrich. In stage 14 Virenque made an attack to win back time on Ullrich, helped by his entire team. The margin was never more than two minutes, and Ullrich was able to get back to Virenque before the final climb. Virenque won the stage, but Ullrich finished in the same time. In stage 15 it was the Pirate attacking and winning his second stage and while he remained more than ten minutes behind Ullrich he did jump Riis in the standings to move in the final podium position. Ullrich remained fully in command as the race progressed and aside from suffering a major crash or failing a doping control there wasn't much chance of him losing the Tour. Stage 18 was the final mountain stage and included a rare climb up the
Ballon d'Alsace, which was a popular stage early in TDF history but hadn't been included since the
1982 Tour de France and was added to the route for only the 4th time since World War II. Frenchman
Didier Rous would win the stage beating the next closest breakaway riders in
Pascal Hervé,
Bobby Julich and
Laurent Roux by more than five minutes to finish the mountain stages with there being no further changes among the
general classification favorites. The final ITT in Stage 20 was won by Olano with Ullrich taking second 0:45 back. The final stage on the
Champs-Élysées was won by Nicola Minali who beat out Zabel, Blijlevens, Henk Vogel,
Robbie McEwen and
George Hincapie in the mass sprint finish. Afterwards on the podiums
Erik Zabel was awarded the green jersey,
Richard Virenque won the
King of the Mountains as well as the Most Combative Rider, in 3rd place on the podium was
Marco Pantani, in 2nd was Virenque and in 1st overall winning the best young rider award, as well as the yellow jersey as champion of the Tour de France was
Jan Ullrich. ==Classification leadership and minor prizes==