The 1903 Tour de France

Discovered recently that The Tour De France started as a small cycling race put together by the newspaper L’Auto as a way to raise awareness and increase circulation.

Six years after the launch of Le Tour, Italian sports paper, Gazzetta dello Sport organises the first Giro D’Italia and following their success Spanish paper Informaciones organises La Vuelta Ciclista a España.

The three largest cycling stage races in the world today all began as “side projects” aimed at increasing circulation. Decided to write about it

Fair play - I had no idea about any of these coming from newspapers! Maybe the Daily Sport invented the World Cup for all we know?