Posted on December 14, 2008 - by Pierre Jean
The Maillot vert or Green Jersey
The maillot vert, or green jersey, is the cycling shirt awarded to the leading rider in the Tour de France’s points classification.
The green jersey was first introduced in 1953 to complement the existing yellow jersey or ‘Maillot jaune’, which was worn by the overall race leader. The reason green was chosen was because the sponsor at the time happened to a lawn mower manufacturer, although in 1968 a special exception was made and the cycling shirt was red, to satisfy the wishes of that years’ sponsor.
Thor Hushovd
In the early years of the Tour de France, the rider only incurred penalty points for failing to finish with a top position, therefore the cyclist who had the least points was awarded the green jersey.
From the year 1959 onwards, the rules were changed around so that the riders were given points for high ranking scores, with the rider in first place being given the most points. This meant that the lower finishing placings would get successively fewer points.
Similar to rest of the classification shirts in the Tour de France, the maillot vert is produced by Nike sports. The green jersey has been sponsored by PMU since 1991, who are the French national parimutuel betting scheme.
Riders can have points taken away for various violations of the race rules, which can cause some riders finish the Tour de France with negative points.
To summarise, the way that the green cycling shirt points are calculated is by adding up all the points gained in the stage and subtracting any penalty points.
Points are given out to the first racers to cross either the finish line or the intermediate sprint line. Cyclists with the fastest times in the individual time trials, (prologue) are also given points.
Before the race begins, the organisers declare which stages are to be considered “flat”, “medium mountain” and “high mountain”.
If the order in which riders crossed the finish line cannot be accurately determined or if, during the time trials multiple cyclists score exactly the same time, the cyclists share the available points. The points are then rounded up to the nearest half-point.
If a cyclist does not finish a stage, they are subsequently removed from the points classification. At the end of each stage, the leader in the points classification is awarded a green cycling shirt. If cyclists have the same number of points, the rider with the highest number of stage victories is the winner. If that happens to be tie, then the tally of intermediate sprint victories used. If that happens to be a tie too, then the yellow jersey classification is used to decide the winner.