It takes up to two months to complete, after which the other stages can be run in parallel.

Early stages of the competition were run on a regional basis.

Other than the opening stage on Friday night all stages were run in daylight.

At least one stage was run each day for five consecutive days.

The fourth stage was run as a time trial.

The second stage of the separation must be run much faster than the first, since there is still only a single detector.

The day on which this stage was run also happened to have very heavy rainfall, making the course muddy and dangerous.

The second stage was run as an individual climb time trial.

Traditionally, the last stage is run at a slow pace, because the winners are already known.

The first stages were run in hot weather, and many cyclists had to give up.