Daily Cycling Facts 19.07.2014

Karel Thijs

During the Second World War, La Flèche Wallonne was held on a later date each year than has traditionally been the case. This date, the anniversary of the sixth edition in 1942, is the latest in the race's history. It was 208km long - shorter than before and after the War, but comparable to modern editions - and ran between Mons and Marcinelle. It was the last major victory for Karel Thijs, whose professional career came to an end shortly afterwards.

Percy Stallard
Born above his father's Wolverhampton bike shop on this day in 1909, Percy Thornley Stallard became the man responsible to the reintroduction of mass-start cycling road races in Great Britain.

The ban on road races had come about as the result of an incident in 1890 when a group of cyclists spooked a horse, resulting in an overturned carriage and a complaint to the police; this convinced the National Cyclists' Union that any further complaint would be likely to result in all bikes being banned from the nation's roads and they introduced a rule stating that mass-start races could only be held at velodromes or on sites such as airfields. Individual time trials, in which each cyclist rides alone against the clock, were not banned as the general public are unlikely to realise that a race is even in progress when they see one cyclist and it was easy to hold them in secret; this is the reason that time trials remain more popular in Britain than elsewhere even today and why many cycling clubs like to refer to time trial routes using codes rather than place names - it's also the reason that, until comparatively recently, British cyclists tended to do so badly when they went abroad to compete in road races.

Percy Stallard

In 1936, the Isle of Man held a cycling race on the world famous Tourist Trophy circuit (the Isle has its own government and issues its own passports - NCU laws didn't apply there) and it proved to be a huge success despite the high number of crashes among British cyclists unused to racing in a peloton, rapidly developing into the prestigious Manx International. Stallard took part in the race and finished in 16th place; inspired by it he decided to investigate the possibility of launching a similar event on the British mainland and saw his chance in 1941 when the Second World War caused petrol shortages and traffic levels dropped accordingly, so he wrote to the NCU with his suggestions.

NCU official A.P. Chamberlin was not favourable, writing back to explain the reasons behind the ban and stating that the organisation wouldn't even consider changing its policy. However, now that airfields were being used by the Army and Royal Air Force races were few and far between, so Stallard put the word around that there would be an unofficial meeting at the bottom of Shropshire's Long Mynd, a range of hills that has long been popular among cyclists. It was there that he revealed his plan to hold a 95km on the 7th of July that year from Llangollen in North Wales to Wolverhampton, without the support of the NCU but with the backing of the police - he'd spoken to them to get an idea of how they might react and, rather than threatening a ban, they'd been extremely favourable and offered their help.

The NCU, meanwhile, were furious and set about doing all they could to prevent the race from going ahead, but Stallard would not back down and the race went ahead. A thousand people turned out to see the riders cross the finish line and the event a success by the organisers and the police. Now, the NCU's anger passed beying fury -  Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment.

Encouraged by their success, the BLRC went on to organise Britain's first multi-stage road race which began in 1944 (Stallard won Stage 1, Les Plume won overall); this led in turn to the five-stage Victory Race between Brighton and Glasgow in 1945, organised to celebrate the end of the war - Robert Batot, a Frenchman, won (the race was not recognised by the UCI; Batot and the other five French riders to finish in the top ten came from the BLRC's French counterpart rebel organisation the Fédération Sportive et Gymnastique du Travail - an association of Communist riders - with whom organisers were put in touch by the French owners of a cafe in London's Soho). In 1946, the Victory (now known as Brighton-Glasgow) was held again, then in 1947 it received financial backing from the News of the World newspaper. Their sponsorship ended after that one event but the race took place again in 1948 and 1949, largely paid for by the organisers as had been the case with the first two editions; then in 1950 it was sponsored by the Sporting Record and in 1951 by the Daily Express (which used to be a great newspaper, rather than the rag it is today) - this edition was the first to be named the Tour of Britain (it was joined by an amateur race sponsored the Butlins firm, known as the Butlin Tour, with each stage running between Butlin's holiday camps). The Express remained on board for three years until the constant infighting between organisers and route officials saw them pull out and begin sponsoring motor racing instead, at which point Quaker Oats took over and continued sponsorship for four years. In 1958, by which time the race had become hugely successful, the Milk Marketing Board became sponsor: it was renamed the Milk Race. The final Milk Race was held in 1993, but would be reborn as the PruTour (sponsored by Prudential Insurance) in 1998 and 1999, then vanished once again. In 2004, British Cycling - whom Stallard had despised so much - teamed up with sports and events marketing firm SweetSpot to bring the race back to life. Once again known as the Tour of Britain, it grew to become the largest cycling event in the country and has become an important part of the UCI's EuropeTour racing series.

Stallard was not fundamentally opposed to the NCU itself, but to the entrenched attitudes and beliefs it held - it didn't take long before he started to feel the same way about the BLRC, and he was briefly banned after criticising it. In time, the NCU and BLRC merged to form the British Cycling Federation, which Stallard saw as treason - when one of his employees, Ralph Jones (who had finished in sixth at the Llangollen-Wolverhampton race) went to Spain as part of the group visiting a UCI meeting that led to the BCF becoming recognised as Britain's cycling governing body, he sacked him the day he got back.


Mauro Ribeiro, born in Curitiba, Brazil on this day in 1964, won Stage 9 at the Tour de France in 1991. He was the first Brazilian stage winner in Tour history.

Other cyclists born on this day: Jocelyn Lovell (Canada, 1950); Gorgi Popstefanov (Yugoslavia - now Macedonia, 1987); Edvandro Cruz (Brazil, 1978); Alois Kaňkovský (Czechoslovakia, 1983); Cipriano Chemello (Italy, 1945); Carlos Zárate Fernández (Spain, 1980); Frank Meissner (USA, 1894, died 1966); Vincent Gomgadja (Central African Republic, 1960); Francisca Campos (Chile, 1985); Liudmyla Vypyrailo (Ukraine, 1979); Laurence Burnside (Bahamas, 1946); Victor Hopkins (USA, 1904, died 1969); Rudi Ceyssens (Belgium, 1962).

Daily Cycling Facts 18.07.2014

Fabio Casartelli
16.08.1970 - 18.07.1995

On this day in 1995, during Stage 15 of the Tour de France, 24-year-old Italian rider Fabio Casartelli lost control of his bike whilst descending the Col du Portet d'Aspet at high speed. Several other riders were also involved in the crash but got away with injuries of varying severity; Casartelli's head struck the low wall running alongside the road. Doctors reached him within ten seconds, but although television cameras showed him lying on the tarmac in a pool of blood for only a second or two it was obvious to fans that he had suffered massive head injuries and was very badly hurt indeed. He died in the helicopter on the way to hospital.

The next day, his Motorola team crossed the finish line together with the other riders following slowly behind them. Prizes were handed out as normal, then all recipients pooled them and donated them to Casartelli's family. Lance Armstrong, also with Motorola, dedicated his Stage 18 to him and there is now a memorial at the spot where he fell. Since 1997, the Youth category at the Tour has been known officially as the Souvenir Fabio Casartelli.

Amy Gillett
09.01.1976 - 18.07.2005

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Amy Gillett, who was born in Adelaide in 1976. Originally a world-class rower, Amy had been identified as a track and road cyclist with enormous potential and was predicted to win medals at the 2006 Commonwealth Games but was killed in Germany when a driver lost control of his car and ploughed into a group of cyclists with whom she was training in 2005. Five of her team mates were seriously injured, two sufficiently so that it was thought they also might die. Amy was 29 when she died and was studying for a PhD. She had been married for less than a year and a half.

The Amy Gillett Foundation was set up in her honour, an organisation that aims to cut cyclist fatalities on the road to zero by encouraging safer cycling and increasing awareness of cyclists among other road users as well as funding two scholarships per annum, one to a young female athlete and one to a researcher whose work will assist in reducing cyclist deaths on the roads. You can learn more about their work here.


Gino Bartali
Often, we describe Tour de France winners as heroes - which to cycling fans they are, but to the rest of the world all they've done is won a bike race. Gino Bartali, however, truly was a hero. Born in Pont a Ema on this day in 1914, he was the third child of a farmer and was raised in a poor household. His family were deeply religious, and his Catholic faith shaped his life every bit as much as his powerful physique and natural talent on a bike.

Gino Bartali, who was said to have "looked like a boxer but
climbed like an angel"

At the age of 13 he began racing after being encouraged by colleagues in a local bike shop where he worked to support his family. Success as an amateur brought his first professional contract with Aquilano in 1931, but his career didn't really take off until he joined Frejus in 1935 - in his first year with them he won a number of one-day races, the Tour of the Basque Country, one stage and the overall King of the Mountains at the Giro d'Italia and the National Road Race Championship. At the Giro the following year he won three stages, the King of the Mountains and the General Classification but almost gave up cycling forever when his brother Giulio was killed in a crash while racing. However, he was convinced to continue, and in 1937 he won another National Championship and the Giro's King of the Mountains for the third time and General Classification for a second time.

Bartali entered the Tour de France for the first time in 1937 and won Stage 7, but on Stage 8 he was in a collision on a narrow wooden bridge and fell three metres into a river where he was very nearly swept away by the current - thankfully, Francesco Camusso was nearby and managed to grab hold of him and haul him out. He continued, but lost significant time in the next stages and abandoned in Stage 12. Having been brought up to be respectful, he went to Tour director Henri Desgrange before publicly announcing his decision to leave and Desgrange was touched that he did, because no other rider had ever thought to do so before: "You are a good man, Gino," he told the rider. "We'll see one another again next year, and you will win."

Bartali in 1938

Desgrange was correct - in 1938, the Italian was able to defeat terrible weather and a very strong Belgian team, winning the toughest stage by a margin of 5'18" and finishing up with an advantage of 18'27". Georges Briquet, a radio commentator at the race, remembered: "These people had found a superman. Outside Bartali's hotel at Aix-les-Bains, an Italian general was shouting 'Don't touch him - he's a god.'"

Back in Italy a public subscription fund was started to reward him, the first man to donate money to it being Mussolini. Bartali's feelings about that haven't been recorded, but it's likely that it was a problem for him because, as he would later show, he was very much opposed to the Fascist leader's policies: it was known after the war that he had assisted in efforts to save the lives of Jewish Italians, but it's only comparatively recently that just how far he was willing to go to rescue a fellow human being from almost certain death has become known - not only did he courier information and fake documents around the Italian countryside, he personally transported Jewish refugees in a specially-designed trailer towed behind his bike across the Alps and into neutral Switzerland (if stopped by police, he explained that the trailer was deliberately constructed to be heavy and that towing it over the mountains was part of his training regime. If stopped, he'd almost certainly have been summarily executed or sent to a concentration camp). He was, therefore, a man whose courage went far beyond anything required in a bike race, as he proved when he was arrested and questioned by officers from the notorious SS secret service the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS and would tell them nothing other than that he did what he felt was the right thing to do.

It's estimated that he was responsible for saving more than 800 people, yet Bartali never asked for reward nor even recognition, stating years later that "One does these things, and that's that" and insisting that the only medal he expected for what he had done was the one he wore upon his heart. In 2012, Israel's Yad Vashem announced that it was gathering further information in preparation for declaring him Righteous Among The Nations, an honour bestowed upon those who helped defend and save Europe's Jews from Fascist attempts to exterminate them.

When Bartali returned to the Tour in 1948, he found that the riders he'd known in the past had either been killed or injured in the war or were now too old to compete so he memorised the names of several other entrants in order to be able to talk to them during the race. Prior to traveling to France, the Italian team had argued before the race over whether Bartali or Fausto Coppi, who had already won two Giri d'Italia, should be team leader. The Tour organisers wanted both men in the race and even permitted a second Italian team so they could both lead, but eventually Coppi decided to sulk and refused to take part at all. Bartali was no longer a young man and whilst the war had taken its toll on everyone, he especially didn't look to be in good shape. He won the first stage, but then began to struggle and Louison Bobet had little trouble in gaining the overall lead and keeping it - though he collapsed after Stage 11, he recovered in time to win the next day.

After finishing Stage 12 with an overall disadavantage of 20', Bartali told his team mates that he was going to abandon; but they persuaded him to sleep on it and see how he felt the following day. He did so, but during the night was woken by a phonecall from Alcide De Gasperi - the prime minister of Italy. De Gasperi told him that Palmiro Togliatti, chairman of the Communist Party, had been assassinated. Could Bartali try his very best to win the next day, he asked, in the hope that such good news might prevent the populace rising up and thrusting the country into civil war?

Bartali with Fausto Coppi

Bartali assured him that not only would he win the stage, he would win the race - and he kept both promises. Stage 13 was won with a 6'13" lead after he took on and beat no less a rider than Briek Schotte, reducing the gap between himself and Bobet to 1'06". Then he won Stages 14 and 15 too, which gave him an overall lead of 1'47" - and, more importantly, united Italy in their support for him. He finished 32" behind stage winner Edward van Dijck in Stage 16, but because his rivals lost significant time his overall lead grew to 32'20" and from that point onwards. Ten years after his first Tour victory, he had won another - the longest period between two wins by any one individual in the history of the race. What he may have achieved had the War not interrupted his career and stolen his best years can only be guessed at.

Considering the eras in which he raced, it's remarkable that Bartali appears to have never resorted to doping. However, he was convinced that Coppi did (with good reason: Coppi later admitted it) and took a dim view of it, which led him to try to find evidence to support his suspicions. During the 1946 Giro he saw Coppi drink the contents of a small glass phial which he then threw into the undergrowth at the side of the road, so he stopped his bike and retrieved it. Later, he gave it to his doctor to investigate but it turned out to have contained a legal tonic. He then began closely monitoring his rival and, while he could never prove anything conclusively, became something of an expert in Coppi's habits and was able to predict how he would ride the following day:

"The first thing was to make sure I always stayed at the same hotel for a race, and to have the room next to his so I could mount a surveillance. I would watch him leave with his mates, then I would tiptoe into the room which ten seconds earlier had been his headquarters. I would rush to the waste bin and the bedside table, go through the bottles, flasks, phials, tubes, cartons, boxes, suppositories – I swept up everything. I had become so expert in interpreting all these pharmaceuticals that I could predict how Fausto would behave during the course of the stage. I would work out, according to the traces of the product I found, how and when he would attack me."

Bartali remained a competitive rider until he was 40, when a road accident ended his career. By that time he had given much of his money away to deserving causes and lost most of what remained in ill-advised investments. Fortunately, his fame was so great that he could earn a living from it, becoming the acerbic host of a popular television show and making a few cameo appearances in films. In old age he developed heart problems (not helped at all by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle - Miguel Indurain's manager once warned the five-time Tour winner to avoid being "like Gino Bartali" in his post-racing life) and underwent bypass surgery in 2000; but the operation was not successful. He was given the last rights and died ten days later, after which an official two-day period of mourning was declared throughout Italy. To this day, historians are still discovering the extents of his heroism - as recently as 2010 new evidence came to light proving that he had concealed a Jewish family in the cellar of his home, saving them from death at the hands of the Fascists he detested so much.

Bartali wins the Tour, 1948

Russell Mockridge
Russell Mockridge was born in Melbourne on this day in 1928 and started his career with the Geelong Amateur CC, where he was nicknamed Little Lord Fauntleroy on account of his accent. Then he began winning races - a lot of races - and people called him The Geelong Flyer instead.

Two years later he rode in the Olympics, but his race was ruined by two punctures; at the British Empire Games two years after that he won two gold medals and a silver. Mockridge was selected for the 1952 Olympic team but initially said he would turn down the invitation due to a requirement that athletes on the team remained amateur for two years - no less a figure than Hubert Opperman personally saw to it that the rule was reduced to one year, and Mockridge won another pair of gold medals. He did indeed turn professional a year later and in 1955 came 64th at the Tour de France - one of only 69 riders from 130 starters to finish the race.

Mockridge died on the 13th of September 1958 when he collided with a bus some 3.2km from the start of the Tour of Gippsland. He was only two months past his birthday and left behind his wife and three-year-old daughter.


On this day in 1947, Federico Bahamontes entered his first race - and won it. On this day in 1959, he won the Tour de France.

Leandro Faggin, born in Padua in this day in 1933, won two Olympic gold medals and held three World Championship titles over the course of his career. He died at the age of 37 of cancer on the 6th of December 1970, and since 2000 is frequently included on lists of probable dopers.

Other cyclists born today: Rafał Furman (Poland, 1985); Martin Stenzel (West Germany, 1946); Sergey Kucherov (Russia, 1980); Joseph Racine (France, 1891, died 1914); Stephen Hodge (Australia, 1961); Michael Neel (USA, 1951); José Velásquez (Colombia, 1970).

Daily Cycling Facts 17.07.2014

Noemi Cantele

Noemi Cantele

Born in Varese, Italy on this day in 1981, Noemi Cantele competed in swimming and athletics as a child - but cycling was in her blood; her family having been fans and cyclists for generations. Her grandfather gave her a bike when she was 12 and, almost immediately, she found that she could beat her older brother, who took part in local races.

Having fallen in love with cycling, she joined local club JuSport Gorla Minore where she met Ugo Menoncin - whom she describes as "the man who shaped me, taught me to live and win." With him, she began to win. Not only local races, but big, prestigious ones - like a bronze medal at the Junior World Championships of 1999. In 2002, she joined the Acca Due O team and began taking part in Elite level competition. As is common with most athletes when they first make the transition to the top level of their sport, she says that the increased competition - "promettevo molto e forse non ho vinto in proporzione" ("I promised lots, but my wins were not in proportion") - took her by surprise, but in the first year she won a stage at the Eko Tour Dookla Polski and came third overall. 2003 was far quieter, but in 2004 she went to the Olympics and came 13th in the road race.

2005 would prove to be Cantele's real breakthrough year with second place at Albstadt and the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon, then victory at the GP Ouest France (GP de Plouay); results that brought an invitation to join the world famous Bigla team. She would remain with them for the next four years. Now that she had the support of a world-class team, Cantele began bringing in victory after victory - in 2006, she would win stages at the Route du France, Trophée d'Or and the Giro della Toscana, some of the best-known women's races in the world. The year after that she won the GPs Brissago and Raffeisen, another GP Ouest France and the General Classifications at the Trophée d'Or and Giro della Toscana. She concentrated on the Olympics in 2008 and came 15th, then began to work on her time trial ability, which led to victory at the National Time Trial Championship race in 2009. That same year, she won silver for the time trial at the Worlds (an bronze in the road race), also winning the Emakumeen Saria and - for the first time - a stage at the Giro Donne.

At the Giro del Trentino, 2012

In 2010, Cantele joined the legendary HTC-Colombia team and won more Giro della Toascana stages with them; in 2011 she moved on to the British-based Garmin-Cervelo and rode alongside some of the most famous names in the history of women's professional cycling, riders such as Iris Slappendel, Carla Ryan, Sharon Laws, Lizzie Armitstead and Emma Pooley, and she became Italian Champion in both the road race and the time trial that year. Sadly, Garmin-Cervelo's women's team came to an end at the end of the year when a sponsor withdrew backing (the fact that continuing the women's team would have required the diversion of only a tiny percentage of funds going to the men's team was not missed by fans, though manager Jonathan Vaughters argued this was not possible) and the riders were left in an uncertain position for a while; fortunately the British riders, Australian Ryan and Belgian Jessie Daams all found new homes with AA Drink-Leontien.nl, Alexis Rhodes went to GreenEDGE, Slappendel to Rabobank and Cantele to a new position as captain of the Italian BePink team. With them, she has ventured into new territory and won the GP el Salvador and a stage at the Vuelta Ciclista Femenina el Salvador in South America, as well as the GP Liberazione in Italy and a stage at the Giro del Trentino Alto Adige-Südtirol. She remains with BePink - now Astana-BePink - to this day, and won the Grand Prix de Oriente and two stages (in addition to her team's victory in the team time trial) and the General Classification at the Vuelta Ciclista Femenina a el Salvador  in 2013.

Cantele is a regular on Twitter, where she regularly chats with fans and posts interesting insights into races. She also has an excellent and informative website.


Belgian rider Eric Leman, who was born in Ledegem on this day in 1946. During the late 1960s and first half of the 1970s he became one of the world's top Classics riders with victories at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (1968), the Dwars door Vlaanderen (1969) and the Ronde van Vlaanderen, for which he shares the record of three wins (1970, 1972 and 1973). Leman was also an effective rider in stage races, winning a total of five stages at the Tour de France, ten at Paris-Nice and one at the Vuelta a Espana.

Jaan Kirsipuu, born in Tartu on this day in 1969, was Estonian time trial champion seven times and road race champion three times. He also won four stages of the Tour de France between 1999 (when he led the race for six days) and 2004 and one at the Vuelta a Espana in 1998. With 130 professional victories he is regarded in Estonia as the nation's finest ever cyclist; elsewhere he is primarily known for abandoning the Tour a record twelve times.

Many cyclists are superstitious but Nico Mattan, born in Belgium on this day in 1971, took it further than most: in addition to a dislike of the number 13 that borders on being an actual phobia (if assigned it - or even a number such as 49, in which the two digits can be added to make 13 - as a race number he would try to convince organisers to assign him a different number, and if unsuccessful would wear it upside-down), he believes that 17 is lucky and would request it - or numbers such as 89 - when possible. Mattan's greatest victory was the 2005 Gent-Wevelgem, one of the prestigious Flanders Classics races, but it was a controversial win as many believed he'd drafted behind a team car in order to slingshot past leader Juan-Antonio Flecha.

Edgar Laurence Gray - born on this day in 1906 and known as Dunc - won a bronze medal for the 1000m time trial at the 1928 Olympics. This was the first Olympic medal ever won by an Australian cyclist.

Other cyclists born on this day: Alfred Achermann (Switzerland, 1959); Li Yan (China, 1978); Arles Castro (Colombia, 1979); Karl Barton (Great Britain, 1937); Wiktor Hoechsmann (Poland, 1894, died 1977); Kazuaki Sasaki (Japan, 1967); Vyacheslav German (Belarus, 1972); Monty Southall (Great Britain, 1907, died 1993); Vatche Zadourian (Lebanon, 1974); Syd Cozens (Great Britain, 1908, died 1985); Hans Lienhart (Austria, 1960); Rafael Narváez (Colombia, 1950); Jacinta Coleman (New Zealand, 1974).

Daily Cycling Facts 14.07.2014

Octave Lapize in 1910

The Tour de France ended on this day in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966 - the four earliest end dates in the history of the race. 1963 and 1964 were won by Jacques Anquetil and 1966 by Lucien Aimar, which caused much rejoicing in France as today is also Bastille Day.

Octave Lapize - winner of the 1910 Tour de France and the man who famously screamed "Vous êtes des assassins! Oui, des assassins!" at route officials when he reached the summit of Tourmalet when it was climbed for the first time in the race that year - died on this day in 1917, aged 29. Like so many (their names still known if they won a Tour and long-forgotten if they didn't) his cycling career came to an end in the First World War: his fighter plane was shot down over Flirey in Meurthe-et-Moselle, a village that was completely destroyed during the conflict, and he died in hospital shortly afterwards.

Sheldon Brown
Sheldon Brown, born in Boston, Massachusetts on this day in 1944, was parts manager at the Harris Cyclery bike shop in his home state. Whilst there, his superb memory and eye for detail allowed him to build up a vast  knowledge of bike components which he would use to create an encyclopedic website for his employer. The website grew until it included technical information, workshop advice and tips on modification for (probably) almost every bike and bike component ever manufactured, while Brown himself became a world-recognised expert on the subject and wrote several books. His writing on hub gears, especially Sturmey-Archer models, is considered authoritative.

Sheldon Brown

In the final years of his life, Brown suffered serious nerve deterioration as a result of his illness, going back some time before MS was diagnosed and gradually destroying his balance so that he could no longer ride a conventional bike. He continued cycling on a recumbent tricycle until, eventually, he lost the use of his lower limbs.

Brown, who died of a heart attack on the 4th of February in 2008, was universally liked by all who met him, cyclists and the general public, his cheery personality proving infectious. As he neared the end of his life, he wrote:

"Multiple Sclerosis is a nasty, rare, incurable disease, but there are lots of nasty rare incurable diseases out there. As nasty, rare, incurable diseases go, it's one of the better ones. If you must acquire a nasty, rare, incurable disease, MS is one of the best things going!... I think of it as not so much a "tragedy" as a Really Major Inconvenience... Another great thing about MS is that it's guilt free and blame free! Since nobody knows what causes it, nobody thinks it's because you didn't eat your vegtables, or had sex with the wrong person, or took inappropriate drugs, or lived in a place you shouldn't have, or didn't go to the gym as often as you should have!"

Odile Defraye (Odiel Defraeye)

Odile Defraye

Born in Rumbeke, Belgium on this day in 1888, Odile Defraye was invited at the last moment to join the French bike manufacturer Alcyon's team for the 1912 Tour de France - the team, previously made up entirely of French riders, was initially reluctant to take him on. However, the company's Belgian representative, in charge of sales in the lucrative Belgian market, applied pressure and Defraye was taken on; his job being to help 1911 winner Gustave Garrigou take another victory.

Despite immediately proving to be the stronger rider, Defraye performed his task faithfully and, when Garrigou punctured on nails spread across the road by spectators, the Belgian was the only rider to stop and wait, then try to help him back to the peloton. Garrigou then showed an admirable lack of selfishness: realising that the Belgian had a better chance of catching them without him, he told him to go on alone. Defraye won the stage; while Garrigou did manage to catch up and took second place, the team managers decided that Defraye should become team leader (Garrigou, again proving himself to be free of prima donna tendencies, accepted this). That put him in a very good position indeed - he had the strong Alcyon team riding for him and, since he was the first Belgian with a good chance of winning, all the other Belgian riders too.

Defraye with spare tyres around
his shoulders

A series of punctures and knee problems later in the race nearly put him out of contention and Octave Lapize (who would die on Defraye's birthday five years later, see above) came very close to taking over the lead, but Defraye recovered and launched an attack on the Col de Portet d'Aspet that left Lapize far behind - he abandoned that day, complaining that he couldn't win due to the Belgians all riding for Defraye. Marcel Godivier and Charles Crupelandt, the remaining members of his La Française team, left in solidarity with him the following day.

Once Lapize had gone, Eugène Christophe became Defraye's greatest rival. Christophe was a superbly talented climber but, like most climbers, couldn't sprint; his preferred technique was to mount enormously long solo breaks on the mountain stages (this would have been even more successful when the Tour returned to the accumulated time format the following year, rather than deciding the winner by points, had Christophe not have experienced perhaps the most infuriating and long-running period of bad luck in Tour history) - including, this year, one of 315km, which remains the longest solo break in the history of the race. However, with no mountain stages left and a whole army of helpers willing to chase down an attack, his opportunities had all be used up. Had the race have been decided according to accumulated time, Christophe would in fact have been in the lead; this remained the case until the final time when he eventually gave up, accepted he was beaten and allowed Defraye to become the first ever Belgian winner of the Tour without further challenge.


Mauro Simonetti, who was born in Livorno on this day in 1948, won a bronze medal in the team road race at the 1968 Olympics and Stage 6b at the 1971 Tour de France.

Paul Choque, born in Viroflay on this day in 1910, won a silver medal for the Team Pursuit at the 1932 Olympics. He later twice became French Cyclo Cross Champion (1933 and 1938), won the Critérium International twice (1933 and 1936) and won two stages (16 and 18b) at the 1937 Tour de France, when he was also seventh overall.

On this day in 2012, at the Tour de France, Frank Schleck provided a sample to doping control that tested positive for Xipamide, a diuretic also known as Aquaphor or Aquaphoril. The drug is a diuretic, working by reducing the kidneys' ability to absorb water and thus diluting the urine; this has no performance-enhancing effect but can be used to mask the presence of other substances. As it is not on the UCI's list of banned drugs the rider would not face a suspension, nevertheless his beleaguered RadioShack-Nissan team (caught up in a legal case surrounding retired seven-time Tou winner Lance Armstrong and team manager Johan Bruyneel) withdrew him from the race.

Other cyclists born on this day: Iryna Yanovych (USSR, 1976); Joby Ingram-Dodd (Great Britain, 1980); Gunnar Göransson (Sweden, 1933); Teddy Billington (USA, 1882, died 1966); Mannie Heymans (Namibia, 1971); Tadesse Mekonnen (Ethiopia, 1958); Hipólito Pozo (Ecuador, 1941); Dirk Jan van Hameren (Netherlands, 1965); Jazy Garcia (Guam, 1967); Mark Kingsland (Australia, 1970); Ion Ioniţă (Romania, 1928); Stefan Brykt (Sweden, 1964); Fritz Joost (Switzerland, 1954).

Daily Cycling Facts 13.07.2014

The Tour de France started on this date in 1908 and 1950 - the latest Tours in history. 1908 was an especially interesting Tour...

Tour de France 1908

Le Grand Depart, 1908

14 stages, 4,488km.
Using an almost identical route to 1907, the 1908 edition had one notable difference to previous years: all cyclists were in the same classification and they all rode identical yellow frames issued to them by the race, though they were still permitted to choose some components for themselves - one popular option was clincher tyres which, while not as efficient as tubular tyres, made repairing punctures considerably easier; since riders were required to carry out all maintenance and repairs themselves this was an important consideration. 36 riders were using them, the majority of which were made by Wolber (who also co-sponsored the Peugeot team) - those riders became eligible for the secondary and unofficial "Prix Wolber pneus démontables" classification, which offered a prize of 3,500 francs to the first rider over the finish line on a bike fitted with them and brought a huge amount of public and media attention for both the product and the manufacturer. Organisers also promised that steps had been taken to prevent bad behaviour and sabotage by  spectators, who in the past had done everything from spread nails over the road to forming mobs and physically beating the riders; this year, the riders were reassured, there was a 90% chance that what was termed "the Apaches" would be apprehended by the police and go to prison.

Marie Marvingt

114 cyclists started the race from 162 who had applied for admittance; 48 being either unable to start or having their applications turned down - among those in the latter group was Marie Marvingt, whose application was declined because she was a woman. Born in 1875 and a qualified surgical nurse, Marvingt had been encouraged to take part in a wide selection of sports by her father and became an enormously successful athlete, winning competitions in equestrian sports, field athletics, tennis, soccer, golf, shooting, water polo, swimming, martial arts, boxing, skiing, bobsleigh, luge, ski jumping, skating, shooting, fencing and mountaineering. Cycling was one of the few sports in which she didn't win any competitions, but she was an avid long distance rider and had ridden from Nancy to Napoli to witness a volcanic eruption. Knowing that only rules prevented her from completing the Tour, she followed the peloton and rode the entire route - sadly, the time she took to do it doesn't seem to have been recorded and so we'll never know how she might have fared against the men. We do know, however, that only 36 riders finished the race, so she can be considered to have beaten 78 of them (for more on Marvingt and her remarkable life, click here).

No cyclist had ever won two Tours (with the exception of Maurice Garin, whose second victory was disqualified due to cheating), but Lucien Petit-Breton believed that he could and he planned to do so; being the first man to centre his entire season on this one race alone (that he would so is indication that, five years after it began, the Tour was already the most important bike race in the world). Using other events solely to train and caring little where he placed in them, he artfully ensured that he reached a peak of physical fitness for the Tour - something that had never before been done and which would not be used again until Miguel Indurain's five wins between 1991 and 1995 and Lance Armstrong's seven wins between 1999 and 2005. What's more, Petit-Breton (whose real surname was Mazan; he had become known as Lucien Breton at the start of his career when he lived in Argentina and began to use it so that his father - who wanted him to get a "proper" job - wouldn't recognise his name in the race results published in newspapers, the Petit being added because there was another rider named Lucien Breton) had the very strong Peugeot team backing him up and, crucially since riders had to carry out their own repairs, he was a skilled mechanic.

Passerieu and fans at the Tour, 1908

The enormously powerful Georges Passerieu won Stage 1 from Paris to Roubaix on the same cobbled roads since made famous by L'Enfer du Nord (in those days, the cobbles were not considered remarkable - that was just how many roads were), beating second-place Petit-Breton by exactly five minutes. Since numerous documents recording the details and history of the early Tours were lost in the Second World War, it's not possible to know for certain if, when Petit-Breton won and Passerieu was second on Stage 2, they were given joint leadership as both had three points or if Passerieu remained leader due to having equaled Petit-Breton's winning time; support for each answer is split reasonably evenly between the various sources. During the stage several riders punctured on nails - Desgrange could make all the promises he liked, but it was never going to be possible to keep tight control on what the public got up to in a race such as the Tour.

Stage 2 ended and Stage 3 began in Metz, which as part of the Lorraine region was then under German control. Desgrange, like many Frenchmen, saw the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine as an insult to his country it seems strange that he would steer his race through the region; however, one of the reasons he organised the race in the first place was to show off the strength and athleticism of France's young men, he probably welcomed it as an opportunity to demonstrate to Germany that should they ever get ideas about expanding their territory further onto French soil they'd be met by formidable resistance. He was probably pleased, therefore, that Stage 3 was started by none other than the Count von Zeppelin: while no longer a General in the German army (he'd been forced to retire after his command came under heavy criticism in 1890), he retained great power and influence. During the stage Jean Novo, riding for the Labor team, crashed and had to retire. The team's owner then sent a telegram to the manager ordering him to withdraw the team on account of its "mediocre results." Labor is notable in that the riders wore bright yellow jerseys, which stood out in the peloton and made them easy to recognise - this may very well have been where Desgrange got the idea for the maillot jaune which he would later reserve for the leader of the race (we know for certain that the race leader wore a yellow jersey in 1919, but late in his life Philippe Thys said that he'd been given one when he led in 1913 - nobody can prove that he was, but nobody can prove he wasn't either). With Labor gone and Alcyon unable to achieve the performances they would in the coming years, Peugeot dominated the race from that point onwards; beginning with François Faber's Stage 3 victory (while Faber considered himself to be French, he a Luxembourgian passport and was the first Luxembourgian - and only the second foreigner - to win a Tour stage). Petit-Breton finished with him and thus remained in the lead with five points.

Faber, who later died in No Man's Land when
he tried to rescue an injured comrade

Faber also won Stage 4 after the peloton battled through a blizzard, but as he was 49th on Stage 2 he was out of contention for an overall victory. Petit-Breton came third but remained in the lead with eight points - overall second place Gustave Garrigou had an 18 point disadvantage by this time, so already it seemed that Petit-Breton's decision to concentrate solely on the Tour was paying off. Passerieu won again on Stage 5, beating Faber by 19' after riding solo over the Col de Porte; Petit-Breton was third and now had an advantage of 21 points over new second place Luigi Ganna. Stage 6 climbed Bayard and the infamously steep Rampe de Laffrey; André Pottier - younger brother of 1906 winner René - was first to the top of both, but he was caught and passed on the descent by Jean-Baptiste Dortinacq. Petit-Breton was third again, increasing his advantage to 31 points, then he won Stage 7 and his lead grew to 33. Faber then won Stage 8 and jumped to third overall; although he was fifth behind Petit-Breton on Stage 9, he moved into second place overall with a one point advantage over Garrigou. Nevertheless, he was 39 points behind Petit-Breton who, unless he abandoned or received a penalty, now looked certain to win.

Stage 10 went to Georges Paulmier - Petit-Breton was tenth, by far his worst performance in the race as he finished top four on every other stage. His lead was too great to be threatened, falling to 32, but Faber was only one point ahead of Passerieu and would need to work hard to remain in contention for second place. Petit-Breton won Stage 11, adding two points to his advantage; Faber and Passerieu both had 63 points after the stage but Faber remained officially in second place (which suggests that Passerieu was probably declared sole leader following Stage 2), then secured his position in Stage 12 by opening a gap of five points. It took Passerieu 16h23' to win Stage 13, the longest in the race at 415km; Faber was second and Petit-Breton third, the three of them finishing together - the last rider to complete the stage, Louis di Maria, needed an extra 23h07' to arrive at the finish line.

Lucien Petit-Breton

Petit-Breton started Stage 14 with an advantage of 31 points over Faber and 35 over Passerieu. He had, therefore, no need whatsoever to win that last stage - but he did, consigning Faber once more to second place. Henri Cornet was fifth over the line, much to the delight of the crowd who adored him for his youth and sense of humour - when the race was over organisers announced that there would be a one-lap race of the 666m Pard des Princes velodrome, though the result would not be counted towards the Tour, and Cornet won.

Faber may have been second, but he was declared winner of the Prix Wolber. When the 3,500 francs were added to the prize money he earned for second place in the General Classification, he ended up making more money from the race than Petit-Breton did; however, Petit-Breton later wrote a book, Comment je cours sur route (How I Race on the Road), which is half-memoir and half the earliest example of a cycling training manual.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1  Lucien Petit-Breton (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 36
2  François Faber (LUX) Peugeot–Wolber 68
3  Georges Passerieu (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 75
4  Gustave Garrigou (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 91
5  Luigi Ganna (ITA) Alcyon–Dunlop 120
6  Georges Paulmier (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 125
7  Georges Fleury (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 134
8  Henri Cornet (FRA) Peugeot–Wolber 142
9  Marcel Godivier (FRA) Alcyon–Dunlop 153
10  Giovanni Rossignoli (ITA) Bianchi 160
(Note: with Peugeot's domination of the race so complete, the identical bikes experiment - which had previously applied only to the second-class riders rather than to the entire field - was considered unsuccessful and dropped. However, in 1909 bikes still had to be fitted with a stamped lead seal by organisers to make sure riders didn't illegally change bikes during the race.)


Tour de France 1950
22 stages, 4,775km.
Aware that some riders broke the rules by receiving a helpful push from team staff as they collected  fresh bidons, organisers announced that course officials would be keeping a close eye on things and that there would be harsher penalties for any rider spotted breaking rules in this way. There had also been concerns that the bonification system gave climbers an unfair advantage over other riders, thus this was overhauled: being the first to a summit now earned a bonus of 40" rather than a minute and no new mountains were added to the parcours. Prizes increased - a stage winner would now receive 50,000 francs, an increase of 20,000f when compared to 1949, and the overall General Classification winner would receive 100,000. Since stages were now on average much shorter than they had been in the early days of the Tour, cut-off times were reduced dramatically and, for the first time, French TV broadcast live coverage of every stage. In addition to the national and French regional teams, the plan to include an international team gradually developed into one for a North African team consisting of riders from French-controlled Algeria and Morocco.

Gino Bartali

Fausto Coppi had broken his pelvis in a crash at the Giro d'Italia, leaving no clear favourite. Many people believed Gino Bartali stood a good chance although he was a month away from his 36th birthday, others looked to Raphaël Géminiani; while those who considered Louison Bobet to be a "cry baby" (a reputation with which he had been stuck ever since he abandoned the 1947 after finding the Alpine stages too difficult) there were also those who shared manager Maurice Archambaud's opinion that the rider had enormous potential (as would be proved a few years later when he became the first man to win three consecutive Tours), and they believed that he might now have matured sufficiently to win. Finally there was Ferdinand Kübler; a fiery, impetuous and apparently half-crazed Swiss rider with more than enough talent to win a Tour but an equal amount of impulsiveness, which had led him to throw away more than one race in the past with an ill-judged attack or merely on a whim.

Orson Welles was given the honour of starting the first stage, which was won by the Luxembourgian rider Jean Goldschmidt. He then retained the maillot jaune through Stage 2 before Bernard Gauthier finished sixth in a seven-strong break on Stage 3, ending up with 5" overall advantage. Gauthier wasn't considered able to keep it but then did, finishing in sixth place again on Stage 4 to increase it to 2' which remained intact despite his 21st place on Stage 5. Meanwhile, Kübler had finished top ten on the first two stages and ended Stage 5 4'30" down in 9th overall, but he knew he was going to do well in the Stage 6 individual time trial. In fact, he did very well and beat Fiorenzo Magni by 17" and all his rivals by at least 2'55", jumping to third overall with a disadvantage of only 49" - which would have been even greater had be not have decided to stop and change his jersey on the parcours, picking up a 25" penalty for doing so (some sources say that this is incorrect and he was penalised 15" and fined 1,000 francs for wearing a silk jersey rather than a regulation woolen one; while there are obvious advantages to a silk rather than woolen jersey in a time trial, the harshness of time and financial penalty seem so wildly at odds with one another that the first version appears more plausible). Gauthier got away in a successful break again the next day (when Kübler was fined, 100 francs for turning up late at the start line; later in the race he was fined again for getting a push from fans): while he was 11th over the line, the break had been made up of riders far down in the General Classification and he finished with the yellow jersey and an overall advantage of 9'20". Although there was still two weeks of racing to go, a good all-rounder might have been able to defend a lead such a that all the way to the end if he had luck on his side, but Gauthier was not a climber. The favourites didn't even bother trying to take back time over the next few stages, allowing him to keep the jersey and his advantage. Then the race arrived at the Pyrenees and he came 53rd behind Bartali; just like that his huge lead turned into a 9'49" disadvantage and he dropped to 12th overall - he would never wear the maillot jaune again.

Jean Robic

Stages 11 saw one of the great mysterious events in Tour history: Bartali, known as The Pious One on account of his deeply-held Catholic beliefs, escaped with little Jean Robic, who looked like an imp in a painting by Bosch and had the sort of personality that must have tested even Bartali's saintliness, and together they cruised away up the slopes of the Aubisque before being caught by a group of eight including Kléber Piot, who led over Galibier and the Aspin (Piot was primarily a cyclo cross rider and very little is known about him, his performance that day indicates that he had the makings of a superb grimpeur). Huge crowds had gathered to watch the riders tackle the mountains and, as tends to be the way, were not being especially mindful of keeping out of the way: Bartali could not avoid a collision with Robic after a photographer stepped into the road, causing the Frenchman to crash hard. Precisely what happened next remains a mystery: Bartali said that the French spectators accused him of deliberately causing the crash in an attempt to dispose of a rival and that they began punching and kicking him as tried to set off, then one man came at him with a knife; Louison Bobet, who was nearby at the time, said that the spectators were trying to give him a push to get him back on the way and the man with the knife had simply not set it down when he rushed over to help, prior to which he'd been slicing a sausage while having a picnic. Bartali may well have been stunned and confused following the crash and Bobet was an intelligent man who would later win the Tour with his brain as much as his legs, and for that reason many people choose to believe the Frenchman's story. However,it would have been hard for Bobet to see what was going on in a crowd, and why would he have noticed the man slicing a sausage? Also, in recent years it's become known that Bartali both smuggled forged documents around Fascist Italy between groups seeking to help Jewish people escape the country and personally transported numerous Jewish refugees to safety in Switzerland using a specially-designed trailer towed behind his bike. Had he have been discovered, the result would have been summary execution or transportation to a concentration camp - his bravery in therefore in no doubt, for he had faced dangers far greater than a man with a picnic knife and had kept his head. It should also be remembered that like Kübler he'd been fined several times during the race so far, so he might just have been in a bad mood and wanted to make a fuss.

We will never know the truth but, whatever really happened Bartali was sufficiently shaken to announce that he wouldn't be continuing with the race and, as team leader, the majority of the Italians said that they would go with him. Some wanted to stay and help Magni defend the 2'31" advantage with which he finished the stage, but Magni - who, despite holding political beliefs so right-wing he was despised by most other riders, respected the elder statesman of Italian cycling - revealed he was going too, thus becoming the fourth man in history to abandon the Tour while wearing the yellow jersey. Race organisers tried to encourage them to continue by offering them plain grey jerseys so that they'd be less recognisable, but it was to no avail and both the Italian A and B teams abandoned.

Kübler now became overall leader with a 3'20" advantage over Bobet, but he refused to wear the maillot jaune in Stage 12 to acknowledge the fact that it was his by default. The stage was won by a Belgian, Maurice Blomme, and it would be the only Tour stage win of his career. Getting there took so much out of him that he mistook a shadow on the road for the finish line and got off his bike; fortunately a race official was on hand to get him back on his bike and explain he had a few more metres still to go.

Abdel-Kaader Zaaf asleep under the tree

As if to achieve balance with the drama of Stage 11, Stage 13 brought one of the Tour's most amusing events. It was one of those horrendously hot days that sometimes happen around Perpignan and north of the Pyrenees when temperatures rise to more than 40C, the breeze stops blowing off the Mediterranean and the mountains prevent the stale air circulating. The European  riders were unwilling - or unable - to exert themselves and the peloton settled into a slow rhythm, aiming to complete the stage with as little effort as possible. However, Abdel-Kaader Zaaf and Marcel Molinès of the North Africa team were accustomed to the heat of Algeria and found the conditions far less hard-going, so they broke away from the pack early on in the race. Continuing on their way at a high pace, the pair built a lead which reached as much as 20 minutes - sufficient to make Zaaf officially the race leader for a short while. However, by the time they neared the end of the 217km stage, even they were beginning to feel the effects of the weather and stopped to accept drinks offered to them by spectators. Unfortunately for Zaaf, the drink he took was a bottle of wine and, as a Muslim, he'd never consumed alcohol before (Molinès either took a bottle of water or was more used to wine), so it rather went to his head. Before long, he was feeling somewhat the worse for wear and realising he was wobbling dangerously all over the road decided that perhaps he'd better stop for a while in the shade under a tree and see if he started feeling any better (Molines continued and won the stage). Some time later - nobody knows how much later - a group of spectators found him and woke him up. He grabbed his bike, leapt aboard and set off. Unfortunately, in his eagerness to make up for lost time, and possibly still being a little drunk, he failed to realise that he was going back the way he and Molinès had come . When organisers caught up with him, unaware that his confusion was down to alcohol, they assumed his brain had been scrambled by the heat and had him taken to hospital. The next day, he escaped and hurried to the start line where he begged to be allowed to retake the section of the previous stage that he'd missed and continue the race, but being Tour de France officials and every bit as much sticklers for rules as the modern counterparts, the judges wouldn't allow it and upheld his disqualification. (For more information on Zaaf and the good fortune that came his way, click here.)

The weather remained the same for the next few days and nobody could really be bothered to start working on Kübler's 1'06" advantage, considering it small enough to easily be dealt with later in the race. During Stage 15, the peloton as one came to the decision that it was much too hot for cycling, so they stopped, got off and went for a cooling swim in the Mediterranean. Director Jacques Goddet was furious and ordered them to get on with the race immediately or be disqualified - unfortunately for him, reporters found the incident hilarious and he was unfavourably portrayed in the newspapers the next day; he got his revenge by fining all the riders. Stage 16 brought more drama: Kübler won with the Belgian Stan Ockers and Bobet taking second and third right behind him, but the judges declared Bobet to be second - even the French fans were outraged, insisting he was third, and the Belgian team threatened to leave the race if things were not put right. The judges ignored the threat and refused to change the result, and the Belgians eventually backed down and continued.

By the end of Stage 18, during which Bobet tried to win back time on the Izoard, the mountain where he would win the Tour in the future, Kübler's lead had increased to 2'56" and he added another 30" the next day when he finished second, 34" behind Geminiani. It was now beginning to look very much as though he might win, especially with the Stage 20 mountain time trial still to go. He more than lived up to expectations that day, beating Ockers by 5'34" and Bobet by 8'45"; his overall lead going into the final two plain stages was 9'30" on the Belgian and 22'19" on the Frenchman. It wasn't really worth their while trying to claw it back from that point onwards, and so 9'30" was the winning margin for the first Swiss rider to win the Tour de France.

There were many, of course, who said that had Coppi been there or had the Italian teams have stayed in the race, Kübler would not have won. Coppi may indeed have won if he wasn't at home with a broken pelvis; but he was and that's how cycling works, so that point is irrelevant. Bartali, as already described, was past his best and coming to the end of his career - he had been one of the greatest Tour riders ever seen and was still capable of beating far younger men in the mountains, but in this edition the time trials counted for a great deal and he wasn't as fast as he once was. Magni, meanwhile, was a superb rider in the flat time trials, as can be seen by his second place finish in Stage 6 when he was only 17" behind Kübler; but he wasn't much of a climber. However, Kübler could climb and time trial, so it seems that his insistence that he'd have won regardless is probably correct.

On the 24th of July, Kübler will celebrate his 96th birthday. He is the oldest living Tour de France winner, and the longest-lived Tour de France winner of all time.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1  Ferdi Kübler (SUI)  Switzerland 145h 36' 56"
2  Stan Ockers (BEL) Belgium +9' 30"
3  Louison Bobet (FRA) France +22' 19"
4  Raphaël Géminiani (FRA) France +31' 14"
5  Jean Kirchen (LUX) Luxembourg +34' 21"
6  Kléber Piot (FRA) Ile de France–North East +41' 35"
7  Pierre Cogan (FRA) Center–South West +52' 22"
8  Raymond Impanis (BEL) Belgium +53' 34"
9  Georges Meunier (FRA) Center–South West +54' 29"
10  Jean Goldschmit (LUX) Luxembourg +55' 21"

The Death of Tom Simpson

Tom Simpson
30.11.1937 - 13.07.67

It was on this day in 1967 that Tom Simpson - considered at that time and for some years afterwards to have been Britain's best ever hope for a Tour de France overall General Classification winner and still one of only two male British World Champions - died on Mont Ventoux during Stage 13 of the Tour. Tom's death, caused by sheer exhaustion, alcohol, amphetamines and the uniquely challenging conditions found on the mountain has become one of professional cycling's greatest and most-told stories, while the memorial at the spot where he died is a place of pilgrimage for cyclists from around the world.

Simpson did not die in vain: his death was the wake-up call that alerted the world to the prevalence and dangers of doping and forced organisers to begin to consider ways to control it.


La Flèche Wallonne was not held in the wake of the 1940 Nazi invasion and occupation of Belgium, and so the edition held on this day in 1941 - the fifth - was the first time the race had taken place for two years. Running for 205km from Mons to Rocourt, it was notably shorter than in previous years and was won by Sylvain Grysolle, one of the first Classics specialists who after the War would go on to win the Ronde van Vlaanderen and the Omloop Het Volk. Grysolle died on the 19th of January, 1985.

Sylvain Grysolle - image creator unknown, believed public domain. If you own the rights, please contact us to discuss terms/removal.

Cyclists born on this day: Tara Whitten (Canada, 1980); Jack Bobridge (Australia, 1989); Dimitri de Fauw (Belgium, 1981, died 2009); Mirco Lorenzetto (Italy, 1981); Richard Groenendaal (Netherlands, 1971); Des Fretwell (Great Britain, 1955); Pascal Hervé (France, 1964); Benno Wiss (Switzerland, 1962); Michael Schiffner (East Germany, 1949); Vinko Polončič (Yugoslavia, 1957); Walter Tardáguila (Uruguay, 1943); Thomas Hochstrasser (Switzerland, 1976).