What Is the Lanterne Rouge? Cycling’s Race to Finish Last

The lanterne rouge is the rider who finishes dead last in the overall standings of the Tour de France — and, strange as it sounds, it was once a title worth fighting for. The name is French for “red lantern,” borrowed from the red lamp that hung on the back of a train. It is not an insult and it is not a wooden spoon: to be the lanterne rouge you have to survive all three weeks and finish, which is more than dozens of stronger riders manage. Here is what it means, where it came from, and why men once schemed to come last.

Where the name comes from

Look at the back of an old train and you would find a red lantern hung on the final carriage. Signalmen watched for it: if the red light passed, they knew no carriages had come uncoupled in the dark and the whole train was accounted for. Cycling borrowed the image whole. The lanterne rouge is the last man in the race — the rider at the very back of the classification who is still, against everything, part of the train. The distinction matters: the title goes to the rider who finishes last, not to anyone who climbs off and quits.

Why finishing last was once worth money

Here is the part that sounds invented. For much of the twentieth century, being the lanterne rouge was genuinely lucrative. Finishing last at the Tour brought a peculiar celebrity, and that celebrity brought invitations to the post-Tour criteriums — the lucrative exhibition races held across Europe in the weeks after Paris, where riders were paid appearance fees to show up and perform. The notoriety of the last man could be worth more in criterium money than a quiet finish in fortieth place. So riders did the maths, and some of them decided that last was exactly where they wanted to be.

The year a rider raced to lose — and lost everything

The scheme reached its absurd conclusion in 1979. Philippe Tesniere, who had taken the lanterne rouge the year before, held last place going into the final days and, alive to the publicity, set out to keep it. In the penultimate-stage time trial he rode deliberately slowly to protect his position at the bottom. It backfired in the cruelest way: he rode so slowly that he missed the time cut — more than twenty per cent off the winner’s pace — and was thrown out of the race entirely. Gerhard Schonbacher inherited last place and rode it into Paris. The organisers, unamused that men were competing to fail, brought in a rule for 1980 eliminating the last-placed rider on the general classification after certain stages, purely to kill the incentive. Schonbacher’s answer was to finish last again in 1980 anyway.

Last is not the same as eliminated

This is the rule that makes the lanterne rouge an achievement rather than a failure. Every day, every rider must finish inside that stage’s time cut — a set percentage of the winner’s time — or be removed from the race. Miss the cut on a single mountain stage and you are gone, no matter how well you rode the fortnight before. So the lanterne rouge is the rider who came last while never once missing a cut: three weeks, every col, every time limit, survived. Tesniere’s downfall is the whole point. Last is a place you have to earn. Out is out.

The men who wore it

Some riders own the back of the race the way others own the front. Belgium’s Wim Vansevenant is the record-holder — the only man to finish last three times, and in consecutive years, from 2006 to 2008, a loyal domestique who spent his Tours in service of his leaders. Britain’s Tony Hoar was the lanterne rouge in 1955. Sam Bennett came last in 2016, reportedly riding much of it with a broken finger, then returned in 2020 to win the green points jersey outright — from the very back to the very top in four years. There is even a well-regarded book on the subject, Max Leonard’s Lanterne Rouge, built entirely around the men at the wrong end of the results.

Why it still matters

The criterium money has largely dried up and the joke has faded, but the lanterne rouge endures because it honours something the podium ignores. Most of a Tour peloton will never win a stage or wear a jersey; they are there to work, to suffer, and above all to finish. The last man home has done the hardest version of the same job as the winner — the same mountains, the same time cuts, the same three weeks — with none of the glory and all of the grind. Is that not worth a red lantern? For how the rest of the race is won, see our guide to how the Tour works and what the jerseys mean, and our explainer on the domestiques who so often bring up the rear.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Lanterne rouge
• Wikipedia — Gerhard Schonbacher (the 1979-80 story)
• Wikipedia — Wim Vansevenant
• Max Leonard — Lanterne Rouge: The Last Man in the Tour de France

Related reading

• The Tour de France, Explained: How Cycling’s Biggest Race Works
• What Is a Domestique? Cycling’s Selfless Workers, Explained
• Race Results

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CyclingFreePress is a cycling news digest. This explainer summarises information reported by cycling reference sources and independent outlets; historical details are as recorded by those sources. Check the official Tour de France website for current rules and classifications.