Eddy Merckx (1969-1975) – 96 yellow jerseys

With 525 race wins to his name, including 11 Grand Tour titles and multiple victories at all five Monument Classics, there is very little Eddy Merckx didn’t achieve in his career.

And The Cannibal pulled on the yellow jersey 96 times in all, on his way to five Tour de France victories.

Merckx pulled on the yellow jersey for the first time when his Faema team won the stage 1b team time trial in the 1969 race, and was back in yellow on stage six after victory in Ballon d’Alsace – carrying the jersey all the way to Paris.

That year he also topped the points, mountains and – unsurprisingly – now-defunct combination classifications, and Faema were first in the team classification.

Merckx won the Tour in each of the next three years too, pulling on the yellow jersey after the prologue in all three, before later reclaiming the race lead to carry the jersey to Paris.

– Who has won the most Tour de France stages? –

After missing the 1973 Tour de France, Merckx returned to the top of the podium in 1974 – his record-equaling fifth victory (the only five Tours he had raced at that point), and, thanks to his eight stage wins (another joint record), the year he moved top of the list of all-time stage winners. Already Giro d’Italia champion, he finished the year as world champion, too – the first rider to win cycling’s Triple Crown.

Merckx wore the yellow jersey for the final times in his career in 1975, assuming the race lead on stage six after winning a 16km time trial at Merlin Plage.

He continued to lead the race through to the final rest day, but was punched by a spectator climbing the Puy de Dome. Badly bruised as a result, Merckx lost the race lead when racing resumed, after cracking on Pra Loup – that yellow jersey, the 96^th of his career, would prove to be his last as he finished the race in second place.

Miguel Indurain (1991-1995) – 60 yellow jerseys

Miguel Indurain dominated the Tour de France in the early 1990s, collecting 60 yellow jerseys in all on his way to five consecutive overall victories between 1991 and 1995.

Big Mig’s ability against the clock saw him win the prologues in 1992 and 1993 to wear the yellow jersey early in the race, and he recorded individual time trial victories in all five of his victories.

Indurain, despite his considerable frame, could also climb too – he pulled on the yellow jersey for the very first time after distancing Greg LeMond on a mountainous stage in the Pyrenees in 1991.

Indurain dropped LeMond over the top of the Tourmalet, put time into him again on the Col d’Aspin and then stayed away with eventually stage winner Claudio Chiappucci.

Indurain was second again on Alpe d’Huez later in the race – proving that, while all ten of his stage victories between 1991 and 1995 were against the clock, the mountains held no demons for the Spaniard.

He last wore the yellow jersey on the final stage into Paris in 1995 as the following year he struggled at the Tour, suffering from illness, so ending his years of dominance.

Chris Froome (2013-) – 59 yellow jerseys

Chris Froome pulled on the yellow jersey for the first time after a blistering attack on Ax 3 Domaines to win stage nine of the 2013 Tour de France.

That came a year after Froome finished second overall behind Team Sky team-mate and fellow Brit Sir Bradley Wiggins, and he didn’t relinquish the maillot jaune from that point on – winning two further stages, one atop Mont Ventoux and one in a mountain time trial, to consolidate his lead.

The following year proved to be a bit of a disaster for the Kenyan-born Brit – a crash at the Criterium du Dauphine had already hit his form before he crashed several times on a wet stage five and had to abandon.

In 2015, Froome roared back however – he pulled the maillot jaune on after finishing second on the Mur de Huy to take him past Wiggins’ British record of 14 yellow jerseys in the process.

Froome was happy to surrender the lead to Tony Martin on a cobbled stage the following day, but retook the yellow jersey when Martin abandoned injured and held it all the way to Paris, winning atop La Pierre-Saint-Martin in a stunning display of dominance on the race’s first mountain stage.

– Yellow jersey: the eight British riders to have led the Tour de France –

The 2016 Tour de France then saw Froome extend his tally of yellow jerseys to beyond 40, first pulling it on following a stunning – and unexpected – descent of the Col de Peyresourde on stage eight.

He reached the 40-mark after putting time into his rivals on the hors categorie Finhaut-Emosson climb on stage 17, and remained race leader all the way to Paris where he sealed a third overall title – his 44th maillot jaune.

And in 2017 he pulled on the jersey after stage five, on La Planche des Belles Filles – scene of his first ever Tour de France stage win – protecting it in the mountains prior to the first day, and completing his half-century on stage ten.

Though he briefly lost the jersey to Fabio Aru (Astana) for two stages, Froome reclaimed the race lead on an uphill finish into Rodez and went on to seal his fourth overall victory.

In the current peloton, following the recent retirements of Fabian Cancellara and Thomas Voeckler, 2014 champion Vincenzo Nibali is next on the list – just the 40 behind Froome on 19 yellow jerseys.

In 1961, Anquetil was in a race-winning breakaway on the first part of the opening day’s split stage – won by sprinter Andre Darrigade – and then took the yellow jersey with victory in the individual time trial in Versailles that same day.

With Anquetil already boasting a commanding lead as a result of those two stages, no other rider came close to yellow that year as the French team controlled the racing with ease.

The following year was a different story – it was not until the stage 20 individual time trial that Anquetil took the race lead, while it was a rare stage win in the mountains, followed by consolidating his lead in an individual time trial which earned him victory in 1963.

Anquetil’s final win in 1964 was perhaps his most famous. He took the race lead after another time trial on stage 17 but it was on the Puy de Dome climb where he faced his toughest battle to hold it as he rode shoulder-to-shoulder with Poulidor.

Poulidor would win the stage, but Anquetil’s efforts had been enough to keep hold of the yellow jersey. Victory in the final time trial into Paris gave him the win by 55 seconds – at that point the smallest margin in the race’s history.

His final maillot jaune completed a half-century of yellow jerseys – the first man to reach that landmark – and also proved to be the last time he ever led the Tour.