Nobel Prize Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays and Philipp Lenard's work on cathode rays. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize. In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the Academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize". The Academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in chemical thermodynamics. The Swedish Academy chose the poet Sully Prudhomme for the first Nobel Prize in Literature.
Christian Prudhomme strengthened its opposition to doping. In 2007, two teams – Astana and Cofidis – withdrew from the Tour after doping scandals. In 2008, the ASO withdrew the Tour from the aegis of the UCI to implement its own anti-doping regime. Astana was not invited and, that same year, Saunier Duval-Scott withdrew after Riccardo Riccò's test for third-generation synthetic EPO. Prudhomme suggested that the positive test was part of a doping programme organised by the team manager. Christian Prudhomme Christian Prudhomme (born 11 November 1960 in Paris) is a French journalist and general director of the Tour de France since 2007.