It’s the 50th anniversary of the polka dot jersey and whether or not you knew this already, you might be tired of hearing this repeated many times in the coming weeks
Anniversary or not it’s something to celebrate. The jersey is genuinely iconic and it along with the rider wearing it can enjoy mythical status at times too. Here’s a look at the competition and the contenders.
It’s worth emphasising it’s just a points competition and the meilleur grimpeur / “best climber” label is now an appendage. There’s no Strava-like timing contest as interesting as that might be. It’s about in-race arithmetic and the competition tends to reward raiders who can collect points on the big mountain stages. This century it’s only gone four times to the eventual Tour winner (Froome 2015, Pogačar 2020, 2021, Vingegaard 2022).
The 2025 scoring system:
- Col de la Loze: 40-30-24-20-16-12-8-4 points
- Hors Catégorie (8 in total): 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-2 points
- Category 1 climbs (5): 10-8-6-4-2-1 points
- Category 2 (12) 5-3-2-1 points
- Category 3 (16): 2-1 points
- Category 4 (26): 1 point
It’s the same system since 2022 where only one climb getting double points. It’s a big factor in the competition, 40 points for this for the Col de la Loze at the finish of Stage 18 is more than the totality of winning every climb en route from Stages 1 to 9 (34 points), or more than winning everything on Stage 10 or 12 (37 and 36 points respectively). It’d be improbable to sweep up every point like this, the lesson is more that aceing the first ten stages is an improbable and costly strategy to win outright. Better to aim for the high mountains.
But the jersey each day is a valuable prize it itself. In a race often dominated by a handful of riders it’s an opportunity for others, think of Jonas Abrahamsen last year and the attendant publicity.
How to win…
It’s normally for a rider who gets in the breakaway and wins maximum points on several climbs on a big mountain stage, and repeats this on another stage or two.
When Tadej Pogačar won in 2021 by accident on his way to winning the race outright the rules were modified such that the last HC climb of every day no longer got double points to tilt it back towards the breakaway riders; Vingegaard duly won it on his way to the win in 2022 but in the last two years it’s reverted to breakaway baroudeurs like Giulio Ciccone and Richard Carapaz.
Stage 18 is the big day with 40 points at the finish line but also two 20 pointers which are in range for the breakaway. The other key feature of this route is the number of HC climbs, there are nine including the Loze and this is double the usual amount. Four sit mid-stage, five are summit finishes.
Both Pogačar and Vingegaard’s wins in this competition are instructive because their teams chased down the day’s breakaway to set their leader up for the win. Pogačar took five mountain stages at the Tour last year, and likewise in the Giro too. This dominant, monopolistic way of racing increases the chances of the overall winner taking the mountains competition along the way.
The mythology
The polka dots, a lone rider away in the mountains, the little guy trying to stay away… there’s something special about the jersey and it excites fans more than its green cousin. On a mountain stage there can be a real communion with the crowd. Nostalgia plays a part too, memories of baroudeurs and raids in your chosen era of the good old days while the less memorable exploits have fallen away.
The polka-dotted paradox
It’s also a competition… that’s often lacked competition. Richard Carapaz was a fine winner last year but nobody troubled him; in years when there has been a contest with riders jostling for the jersey this can be exciting, until it suddenly isn’t. Because if riders are scrapping for the jersey it’s lively to watch but also means they don’t pull out a big lead. This leaves them at risk of being overtaken by the GC contenders; we saw this in 2021 when Michael Woods, Wout van Aert and Wout Poels were all going for the polka dots well into the third week only for Pogačar to win it; the same in 2022 when Simon Geschke and Giulio Ciccone lost out to Vingegaard.
The Contenders
It’s a difficult one to forecast. Go back to last year’s Tour and after Stage 16 eventual winner Richard Carapaz only had 22 points and this more by virtue of his GC bid, Pogačar was far ahead on 77 points. But as Carapaz’s goal faded he switched tactics and took a stage win the next day at Superdévoluy, but only got 12 points that day. Even with a mountain stage to his name he was far from an obvious contender. It wasn’t until Stage 19 that he got on the breakaway again and started collecting points, including the Cime de la Bonette and took the jersey. So a rider might look unlikely to win the competition even once Mont Ventoux is done on Stage 16 but can still mount a bid in the Alps. Still some likely names…
Tadej Pogačar (UAE) is the safe pick, it’s not something he’ll target but it’s easy to see him winning a mountain stage or three and scoring big. He might even want to get revenge on the Col de la Loze after cracking on its slopes the last time. Likewise for Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-LAB), we’ll compare the two in more detail for the overall preview later this week but if he’s on top then he can win it.
EF won the jersey last year with Richard Carapaz and probably had plans to repeat but he’s fallen ill and is out. Ben Healy can do mountain raids but in his own words he can’t sprint which makes scoring harder; Neilson Powless can sprint and he’s had the jersey before but the hard part was keeping it in the high mountains.
Is Primož Roglič (Redbull-Bora-hansgrohe) a GC contender? He’s expected to be but at the age of 35 it’s not getting easier. His speciality has been sniping uphill sprints so he could be made for this competition, although his wins have often come after being pulled by a train of riders rather than being entrepreneurial. If he can’t make the podium this would be a good consolation and a boost to his popularity.
Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) had an excellent Dauphiné, he could aim for a solid GC finish as a top-10 would be a coup for the team. But he’s punchy and could parlay form into polka dots.
Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) is here for GC but he’s been chasing his form, his win in the one-day race in Andorra the other day was as much about grit than climbing ability. If he has to switch to a Plan B he and the team would take it.
Lenny Martinez (Bahrain) is here for stage wins and given he won’t be bothering the sprinters success here means he’ll gather mountains points. He looks like a pure climber but has more punch, and is crafty too. The competition feels too random to award chainring picks but if forced he would be up there, and fitting if he joins his grandfather Mariano who won in 1978. Santiago Buitrago is here for GC but could copy Carapaz’s 2024 method and go for it in the third week.
Einer Rubio (Movistar) is a pure climber and that’s almost a problem as he’ll need to sprint to take points but it’s possible.
Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) was climbing well in the Tour de Suisse and he’s won this competition before. But does his form extend to sprinting at the top of long Alpine climbs? There’s a good chance he’ll go for it anyway and much like Thomas Voeckler’s racing he gets energy for the crowd. Michael Storer is form unknown but a contender too.
Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Caps) is coming for GC but has a good kick for points. Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B) likewise although he’s fixated on the first week that visits home roads. Clément Berthet (Decathlon-Ag2r) is a good climber in search of a result but a long shot to see him ahead of the rest. Clément Champoussin (XDS-Astana) could feature, likewise Joe Blackmore (IPT). Finally TotalEnergies is a team of baroudeurs and Jordan Jegat is one to watch but good luck getting ahead of the rest.
Potted polka dotted history
- The meilleur grimpeur “best climber” prize goes back to 1905 when the L’Auto newspaper, organisers of the race, started to label a rider, this was a subjective award
- 1933 saw the first formal points classification for the mountains competition
- The competition got a dedicated jersey in 1975
- The polka dot design after Tour boss Félix Lévitan remembered the 1930s track cyclists Henri Lemoine and Marcel Guimbretière racing together in a red and white polka dot jersey inspired from the silk shirts worn by jockeys
- The red matched the branding of Poulain, a chocolate maker that sponsored the jersey
- The red dot design has stuck despite the change of sponsors
- It’s become so symbolic that many races use a dotted jersey for the mountains competition too
- It’s the polka dot jersey in English, the maillot à pois or “pea jersey” in French
- To celebrate the 50th anniversary the first rider to score 50 points in the competition wins a token cash prize
- There’s also 210, 150 and 110 UCI ranking points for the first three riders (the same for a stage win, although there points go down to 5 for 15th) so coming second isn’t just anecdotal
- The record is seven titles held by Richard Virenque
I think I’d put Oscar Onley above many of those mentioned.
A good pick too, climbing well and punchy. For him the challenge is the really long HC climbs in the Tour, several are an hour long and he’s so far been excellent in 10-20 minute climbs; but so has Lenny Martinez and so on.
With Picnic’s desperate need of UCI points they are probably better served by Onley targeting tenth place on GC and a handful of stage placings rather than a risky and unpredictable bid for the mountains jersey. It might not be very romantic though it could be a pragmatic route to WT survival.
Very few riders seem to target the mountain jersey: Astana did very well by going for the mountain jersey in the Giro, and it was probably an easier way to get UCI points than trying to top-10 on GC.
As illustrated by Carapaz last year but many other riders, it’s often a third week decision by a rider who has seen their GC ambitions collapse and so gets space to go in the breakaways for the second set of mountains (eg the Alps this year after the Pyrenees) rather than a constructed effort made in across mountain ranges and topped up elsewhere.
Has it ever been timing based or am I thinking of another race?
There’s been talk online of having timed segments instead of a finish line for the climb. Logistically it can be done with timing chips and mats. But it’d be a hard contest to see on TV, is the fastest rider the first to the top, or the one who starts from further back, possibly in the vehicle convoy even?
Ha that is a good point. Could also be useful for rider safety though as well. A rider going 60 kph and then suddenly 0 kph could trigger an alert. I realize that’s not exactly the topic of this post tho!
In “The Great Bike Race”, Geoffrey Nicholson’s book on the 1976 Tour, he describes the new mountains jersey as “a white jersey with red blobs” and comments “it is a bit of an embarassment, and will probably be changed”
I wonder why it stuck? It was picked by the two track riders because it was so visible, people remembered them because of their jerseys. By the early 1980s Bernard Vallet won the jersey and said he loved it because he felt so recognisable, the people could see the jersey and him from afar.
Loved the Jersey as in the Alaphilippe photo. Sporadic dots. Don’t like it now all the dots are in a grid pattern
This blog’s now old supporter jersey and the mountains jersey today share the same creator in Fergus Niland who works for Santini so can’t be too harsh 😉
It’s the new sponsor, Leclerc and their branding that matches this. I’m in two minds, the older more random patten did look like measles, especially when combined with matching shorts.
The dots have changed over time. As a student of all things 1989 that year the red dots a mountains motif inside them, it was original but looked odd at the same time. Either way it remains distinctive, the design changes but is instantly recognisable.
There are so many mountain stages that finish with an HC climb that I think it is going to be very difficult to stop Pogi winning it this year. This is especially true if the Col de la Loze stage is won from the GC-group rather than the break. If a breakaway rider wins the Col de la Loze stage, then they should, I think, end up winning the Polka-dot jersey.
Likewise, I think the Loze is the central case here. There’s room for other scenarios given the amount of HC climbs but it requires a good scorer, someone who can master multiple HC climbs.
Hopefully there’ll be a decent contest.
All leader’s jersey look dreadful with shorts of the same colour, but none more so than the polka dots.
Black shorts with a leader’s jersey. Always.
I don’t know. I think I disagree. I don’t like the yellow pants or the green pants in the tour, but the polka dots are fun–they look like clowns. I like that this little honour looks so silly, especially when so much of racing is so serious.
I think if you’re in the Tour of [mediocre region] then no team or rider will go there but at the Tour de France it’s “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”.
To the point that sometimes the riders don’t have much choice either as their team and suppliers want publicity turned up to the max. As you can see from the pictures above, many teams will show up to the race with trucks stashed with boxes of polka dot shorts, helmets etc just in case.
I normally think about what the Jayco alula point of view.
Eddie Dunbar should go for this jersey. There is nothing in his recent form to suggest a top 10 is possible. So unless Ben O’Conner is going well in GC and requires backup the jersey would be a good goal for Dunbar.