Paris, France, July 21, 1986

Maria Canins, the winner of the 1986 Tour de France Féminin, shares the final podium in Paris with runner-up Jeannie Longo of France and third-placed Inga Thompson, from the United States of America. 

It was the second successive victory for the Italian rider in the iteration of the women’s Tour de France which ran between 1984 and 1989, and the second successive year that Longo had finished runner-up.

Canins, a late convert to cycling after a successful career in cross-country skiing, was by far the best climber in the world at the time, and laid the foundations for her victory in the mountain stages. She put five minutes into Longo, the best of the rest, in the Pyrenean stage to Bagnères-de-Luchon, which crossed the Cols de Peyresourde and d’Aspin, and on the big Alpine stage to the Col du Granon, she did the same again.

She gained two and a half minutes apiece in the Saint-Étienne and Puy de Dôme stages, and her final margin of victory over runner-up Longo was 15 and a half minutes. Third-placed Thompson was a further six and a half minutes behind, with fourth-placed Valerie Simonnet of France a distant 34:31 behind Canins.

Longo’s consolation was taking the blue points jersey. A superior sprinter to her Italian rival, she won five stages, came second in four more, and in total finished in the top three 11 times in 16 stages, and in the top 10 every day. Canins also won five stages, but didn’t score so highly elsewhere. And though Thompson was wearing the polka-dot jersey, she was actually lying third in the competition behind Canins and Longo.

To read more about the 1980s iteration of the race, see our feature on the history of the Tour de France Féminin.

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