Daily Cycling Facts 17.08.2014

Filippo Simeoni

Filippo Simeoni

Born in Desio on this day in 1971, Filippo Simeoni was taken on as a trainee by Carrera Jeans-Tassoni in 1994 and showed sufficient promise to receive a professional contract the following year, then spent all but twp of the next fourteen series riding for a sucession of Italian teams (in 2005, he raced for Swiss-based Naturino-Sapore di Mare, the team relocated to Italy in 2006; in 2008 for Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce who, for that one year, were based in Ireland before they too relocated to Italy). During that time, he became known as a super-domestique, a rider who could chase down attacks and still deliver his team leader to the best spot to win a race, but also one who could take a few victories of his own when given opportunity to do so. His best results were his two stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana; one in 2001 and one in 2003, and he also became Italian Road Race Champion in 2008, the year before he retired.

Simeoni's palmares, if we are truthful, is not especially impressive - despite a long career, he achieved just eight victories as a professional and his best Grand Tour result was 55th overall at the 1998 Tour de France. However, he was a character and is fondly remembered for his occasionally rebellious nature: when he won his first Vuelta stage, he stopped shortly before the finish line and walked across holding his bike above his head. Many interpreted this as an ungracious act designed to show rivals that he could still win even if he walked, others said that he was trying to show that the bicycle, rather than the rider, is the most important part of a race. Simeoni himself said that he had intended it to be a tribute to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, which had taken place sixteen days earlier. Nevertheless, the UCI fined him.

Later, he became involved in a long-running battle with Lance Armstrong. Simeoni was caught out by a doping control in 2001 and received a relatively short ban after wisely deciding that the best way forward was to co-operate with the investigation and make a full confession; and with cycling finally waking up in the wake of the Festina Affair to how serious a problem doping had become and following a number of deaths attributed to EPO, Simeoni's testimony would rock cycling - especially when he stated that he had been prescribed EPO and growth hormones by the highly-respected sports doctor Michele Ferrari in 1996 and 1997. Dr. Ferrari's highest-profile client was Armstrong, who publicly called Simeoni a liar in an article published by Le Monde in 2003. Armstrong had become a little too used to those he saw as his enemies backing down the moment he called them out by that time, but Simeoni was made of sterner stuff - he launched a defamation suit, seeking to sue for €100,000 and stating that any money awarded to him would be donated to charitable causes (the case would later be dropped, however). During Stage 18 at the Tour the following year, Simeoni bridged to a six-strong breakaway group. Though neither he nor any other member of the group posed any threat to Armstrong's lead, the American went after him, which in turn forced US Postal's rivals T-Mobile to respond and destroyed any chance the riders in the break had of winning the stage. They begged Armstrong to return to the peloton and let them have their opportunity to shine, an opportunity offered to the best of the non-GC contenders in any Tour, but he would not. Eventually, Simeoni buckled under the pressure and dropped back to the main group where he was met with a barrage of abuse from several riders who had allied themselves with Armstrong, among them Danielle Nardello, Filippo Pozzato and Andrea Peron.

Traditionally, riders do not compete with one another until the sprinters try to be first to the finish line during the final stage of the Tour; instead, they pose for the press and the leader basks in his hard-earned glory. Simeoni's rebelliousness once again came to the fore, because he wanted to show that he was not cowed by Armstrong's bullying tactics, and he attacked the leader time and time again. Each time, US Postal chased him down and brought him back; and each time Simeoni was subjected to more abuse and, shamefully, a barrage of spit from several riders. It was not one of professional cycling's finest moments.

In time, it would become apparent that Armstrong had made a serious mistake - Simeoni was still a prosecution witness in an investigation into Dr. Ferrari at the time of the 2004 Tour, and lawyers involved with the case felt that Armstrong's actions constituted witness intimidation. He was questioned over the incidents early the next year, but no further action was taken; then in December he was indicted and ordered to face charges of defamation dating from the 2003 Le Monde article. That case was also dropped, in April 2006. Armstrong escaped prosecution but, it seemed to many fans and other riders, by the narrowest of margins, and the Cult of Lance began to crumble. Finally, years later, Armstrong was found out: Simeoni's palmares might not be particularly impressive, but his two Vuelta a Espana stages wins and the 2008 National Road Race Championship shine out; Armstrong, meanwhile, was stripped of all results gained since August 1999 and, without them, his palmares is little more extraordinary than Simeoni's.

Thomas Gascoyne

Thomas Gascoyne

Thomas Jepson Gascoyne - various known as Thomas Jeb Gascoyne, Thomas Jefferson Gascoyne or Thomas Mills - was born in Whittington, Derbyshire on this day in 1876 and became a cyclist in 1893. Three years later he made an attempt on the World 25-mile record, the first time he had ever attempted to beat a record greater than 10 miles, and did it in 57'18.4" - 1'43.2" faster than the previous holder's 59'01.6". According to contemporary reports, he was paced by a three-man tandem but overtook it because the combined effort of the riders was too slow for him.

Gascoyne would go on to set numerous other records, including the two miles on a tandem and the flying quarter mile. This led to widespread fame, and when he went to the USA in 1901 his arrival was reported by the New York Times, which seems to have been the first time he was called Thomas Jefferson Gascoyne. The newspaper stated that he had never been beaten in a pursuit race, and on the 20th of July he beat the famous "Major" Marshall Taylor twice in Boston. The following day, having first won a half-mile handicap, he took part in a pursuit without taking a rest break in between and was beaten for the first time.

For reasons unknown, Gascoyne chose to walk away from professional cycling a short while after his return to Europe and emigrated to Australia with a friend (also a cyclist) named Brown. Rather than continue making a living from their sport, they found badly-paid manual jobs and kept them for several years before entering amateur races under false names; Gascoyne became Thomas Mills and Brown became Atkinson. Neither man was race fit; however, Gascoyne's natural talent was sufficient that before too long rumours began to circulate and both men were forced to reveal their true identities - fortunately, the Australian public did not consider their actions dishonest, probably because they'd worked hard for little pay before returning to racing, and Gascoyne in particular became something of a hero.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Gascoyne enlisted in the Australian army and was posted to the trenches of West Flanders. He died there during the Battle of Passchendaele at Ypres on the 4th of October 1917, when he was 41. His body was not recovered and presumably lies where it fell, his memory is preserved at the Memin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres.


Phillip Lavery

Born in Dublin on this day in 1990, Phillip Lavery scored good results ever since he came second in the National Junior Road Race Championship in 2007. 2012, which he spent with the Node4-Giordana team, was the best of his career to date with victories at the GP Stephen Roche, the Shay Elliot Memorial, the Under-23 Nationals and a bronze at the Nationals in the Elite class, and he began 2013 as a guest rider with Team H&R Block from Canada.

From the 1st of August, having impressed with a stage win at the Tour de France Comté Cycliste, the silver medal in the Road Race at the Irish National Championships and a victory a La Chapelle-lès-Luxeuil, he moved to Pro Continental squad Cofidis with a trial contract. Cofidis believed it would be given a Pro licence for 2014, but did not receive one.

Unable to secure a place with a Pro team due to the large number of top-class riders then looking for contracts in the wake of the collapse of several teams, Lavery became disillusioned and decided that he - like the vast majority of cyclists that ever dare to dream of it - was not destined to make it as a professional. He sold his bikes and got a job, turning to running to maintain his fitness. Salvation came from an unexpected source - Azerbaijan, where David McQuaid, himself an Irishman, managed the Synergy Baku team that, in addition to several local riders, boasted a number of Australians and Irishmen Connor McConvey and Matt Brammeier on its roster. The team had started the year with no spare places, but one of the Australians, Will Walker, had been forced into early retirement due to a heart condition; McQuaid heard about Lavery and got in contact, offering him a place with the team.


Álvaro Pino, born in Ponteareas, Spain on this day in 1956, is a rider who is chiefly famous for his success in the Vuelta a Espana - he was 22nd in 1981, tenth in 1982, fourth in 1983, eighth in 1985 and 1988 and fifth in 1989. His best result - and the race for which he is best remembered - was the 1986 Vuelta, which he won against the favourites Laurent Fignon of France, Sean Kelly of Ireland and Robert Millar of Scotland.

Magali le Floc'h, born in France on this day in 1975, won some 28 races during her long career from 1994 to 2008. She was National Road Race Champion in 2002 and 2005 and won the Coupe de France in 2001, 2005 and 2008.


Massimo Strazzer, born in Italy in this day in 1969, managed numerous podium stage finishes at the Giro d'Italia and, in 2001, won the Points competition.

Other cyclists born on this day: Sin Dae-Cheol (South Korea, 1959); Rinus Paul (Netherlands, 1941); Roland Zöffel (Switzerland, 1938); Julio Rubiano (Colombia, 1953); Algis Oleknavicius (West Germany, 1947); Les Ingman (Great Britain, 1927, died 1990); Jean Bourlès (France, 1930); Bojan Ropret (Yugoslavia, 1952); George Cameron (USA, 1881, died 1968); Carl Naibo (France, 1982); Kenneth Røpke (Denmark, 1965); Michael Hepburn (Australia, 1991).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.07.2014

The Tour de France began on this day in 1910, 1934, 1953, 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2010.

1910
15 stages, 4,737km.
Having consisted of 14 stages since 1907, in 1910 the Tour grew to 15. For the first time, the race visited the Pyrenees which in those days seemed far more remote and wild than today, their high passes haunted by bandits and bears rather than holiday-makers on their way to Spain; hence race directeur Henri Desgrange's initial reluctance to send the race up there - he was concerned that the riders would be robbed, or eaten.

Some of the staff at L'Auto, meanwhile, were keen to include the high mountains and pointed at the popularity of the stages in the lower mountains that had been included in the Tour since 1905. Desgrange was a man who didn't like to admit it when he was wrong but he couldn't deny that those stages had indeed drawn huge numbers of spectators and, more importantly, boosted sales of the newspaper, so eventually he gave them permission to investigate the possibility of including the Pyrenees. Nobody at the paper had ever actually been there, so Adolphe Steinès - who had plotted out the route of every Tour since the first in 1903 - was given the task of traveling south to find out if it was even feasible that a bicycle could be ridden up there.

Steinès arrived on the 27th of January and checked into an inn. When he explained to the innkeeper that he'd be going up the mountains he was told that the high cols were virtually impassable in high summer, never mind January, and warned not to attempt it. Nevertheless, he hired a car and set out. Somewhere near the summit, the snow became so deep that the car could go no further, so Steinès tried to walk the rest of the way. Soon he became lost. Then he fell into a ravine, and would almost certainly have frozen to death had the innkeeper not alerted a search party that finally located him at 3am.

The next day, Steinès sent a telegram to Desgrange, choosing to be rather economical with the truth because he knew that a stage in the mountains would prove to be such a spectacle: "Have crossed the Tourmalet on foot STOP Road passable to vehicles STOP No snow STOP" By 1910, the Tour's reputation had spread and 136 riders signed up to take part. When newspapers announced that the Pyrenees were to be included - which was "dangerous" and "bizarre," they said, echoing the language still used by the more conservative press whenever anyone tries anything new to this day - 26 of them asked to be removed from the list. Those riders that were brave enough to start the race were still worried, however, and so Desgrange made arrangements to rescue any who found themselves unable to continue. Thus the Tour gained its voiture ballai, the broom wagon, for the first time - 37 years before the birth (and, incredibly, 71 years before the last one rolled off the production line) of the Citroen H van, which most people stiff think of when they hear the term broom wagon. Desgrange famously once said that the ideal Tour would be one in which only one rider finished, but even he apparently felt the Pyrenees were inhumane, so he made a rule that riders who ended up in the broom wagon during the mountain stages would be permitted to start again on the next stage.

There were two other big changes for 1910. First of all, riders were grouped into teams - previously, while riders might have shared sponsors, they were expected to ride as individuals without providing or receiving any form of assistance from other riders (the three teams that took part, Alcyon, Legnano and Le Globe, accounted for thirty riders between them; the rest were all competing individually). Secondly, some of them were taking advantage of a major technical innovation - their bikes had gears.

Charles Crupelandt, who became a hero in the First World War and was later treated appallingly by rival riders before dying in terrible poverty, won the first stage; then François Faber, who also became a hero in the War, won Stage 2. Émile Georget took Stage 3, then Faber, the Tour's first sprint specialist, won the fourth. Octave Lapize was the victor Stage 5, followed by Julien Maitron on Stage 6 - the only Tour stage he ever won.

1934

Fédérico Ezquerra in the mountains, 1934

23 stages (one split), 4,363km.
Organisers made a few rule changes. The first was an alteration to bonus times, with the winner of each stage now receiving a minute-and-a-half rather than two minutes; secondly, while there had been team time trials in earlier Tours, an individual time trial was included for the first time (Stage 21b). This came about due to the popularity of the ITT-based Grand Prix des Nations, first run in 1932 without much interest and then far more successfully a year later by L'Auto's rival newspaper Paris-Soir (the GP des Nations was itself a response to L'Auto's decision to start Tour stages later in the day, thus preventing Paris-Soir - which was published each evening, rather than in the morning as L'Auto was - from being able to be the first newspaper with each day's Tour results. This had negatively impacted L'Auto's sales and, now that the Tour was no longer open to sponsored trade teams, L'Auto was ultimately responsible for paying all the national teams' food and accommodation costs and thus needed every penny it could make). The addition was not universally favoured by the riders: some said it would encourage riders to forget about team work in other stages. Climbers were especially dismissive - René Vietto claimed that it was dull and that a race should be a test of a rider's intelligence as well as horsepower. The Tour only paid for food and lodgings for the national team riders; there were also twenty riders who paid their own way (some were rich enough to live in considerable luxury, sometimes far better than the team members; others were happy to sleep anywhere they could and eat whatever they found) - these riders had previously been known as touriste-routiers, for the first time in 1934 they became known as independents.

It was during this edition that Vietto rather undeservedly became a popular hero. His team leader, Antonin Magne, had dominated the race from the first stage, wearing the yellow jersey ever since (and would keep it throughout the race). Then disaster struck on the way to the spa town of Aix-les-Thermes during Stage 15 when he rode into a pothole and splintered his wooden front wheel rim. So that he could continue, he took Vietto's wheel, leaving him at the roadside. He discovered a short way further along the road that his frame was damaged too, so he waited for the next rider from his team - Georges Speicher - and took his bike. Thus began one of the most interesting legends in the long history of the Tour.

Vietto, "all alone"

In another version - which is somewhat more accurate - Magne could not make Vietto's wheel fit into his forks and waited for Speicher before taking his wheel instead. Speicher also couldn't use Vietto's wheel. Vietto, meanwhile, was still waiting for a team car to give him another a wheel and had become so upset that his chances of winning the stage - though the time he lost, eight minutes and tiny when compared to the winning margins of the day, would probably have had little if any effect on his overall Tour result (some say that we should also take into account that he was a 20-year-old domestique riding his first Tour, but the fact that he won four stages and came 5th overall that year suggests that he was a stronger rider than most debutantes) - that he'd started crying. A photographer found him at the side of the road and took the picture, which was published the following day accompanied by a story sometimes attributed to future race director Jacques Goddet and earned the rider the adoration of the French public (and, since his new celebrity would allow him to charge high fees to appear at future races, set him up for life). Henri Desgrange, for all his usual enthusiasm for anything that might increase his race's mythos, was said to have been furious at the fabrication and swore he would reveal the truth - but the public, fortunately, seem to have realised that truth should not stand in the way of a good story.

The following day, Magne once again had trouble and broke his back wheel on the fast descent of the Portet d'Aspet. Vietto, trying to make up time, was out in front and didn't see it happen so had carried on. At the bottom of the mountain, an official beckoned him over and relayed the news, informing him that his leader was stuck without support. So Vietto turned around and rode back up to find him, and handed over his bike. Italian Guiseppe Martano, Magne's most dangerous rival, would break his own bike in Stage 17, leaving the Frenchman to finish the Tour without challenge.

Antonin Magne in the lead

Feeling sorry for him? Let's delve a little deeper. The famous photograph shows poor Vietto all alone in the world as he waits for a new wheel, but in fact the photographer had realised that he would have a sensational image once he'd cropped out the apparently quite sizable crowd of people who had gathered around the stricken rider and were taking care of him (it remains, however, one of the sport's most iconic images, commonly used to illustrate the glorious pain and hardship of the Tour). Secondly, while Magne was grateful for his team mate's actions, Vietto was far from magnanimous - he verbally attacked his leader and told him he was a bad rider when he tried to thank him. Magne continued to express thanks for the rest of his life, even though he wasn't permitted to ride the victory lap to which he was rightfully entitiled and angry crowds waved banners declaring Vietto to be the "moral winner." Vietto became increasingly bitter as he refused to let go of the incident and ended up becoming a distinctly unpleasant bully: Tour legend has it - without proof, since none of the people involved are still alive - that when he lost a toe to an infection, he demanded that his domestique Apo Lazaridès chopped off one of his own toes too. "But why? I don't need to," the Greek rider protested. "Because I say so," Vietto replied. Lazaridès, whilst perhaps not the most intelligent rider in cycling history, was not lacking in bravery - he had risked death at the hands of the Nazis when he used his bike to transport supplies through the mountains to the Resistance during the Occupation of France, and so the toe came off. He walked with a limp until the 30th of October 1988, the day he died. The legend says that Magne's toe is kept in a jar filled with formaldehyde (or absinthe, in some versions) in a bar in Marseilles - but nobody seems to know which bar.

Magne won the individual time trial, though he might not have done had Giuseppe Martano's frame not snapped, and secured his General Classification lead. It was his second win (the first was in 1931) and the fifth consecutive victory for France.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Antonin Magne (FRA) France 147h 13' 58"
2 Giuseppe Martano (ITA) Italy +27' 31"
3 Roger Lapébie (FRA) France +52' 15"
4 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL) Individual +57' 40"
5 René Vietto (FRA) France +59' 02"
6 Ambrogio Morelli (ITA) Individual +1h 12' 02"
7 Ludwig Geyer (GER) Germany +1h 12' 51"
8 Sylvère Maes (BEL) Individual +1h 20' 56"
9 Mariano Cañardo (ESP) Switzerland/Spain +1h 29' 02"
10 Vicente Trueba (ESP) Switzerland/Spain +1h 40' 39"


1953
22 stages, 4,479km.
To mark the half-century since the first Tour, two new competitions were introduced - the first was the Super-Combativity award, given to rider judged to have ridden most aggressively or courageously throughout the race (the daily Combativity award was first given the year before). The second was the Points competition, based upon the points system used to decide the overall winner between 1905 and 1912 before return to the accumulated time format and designed to keep the sprinters interested throughout the race. The jersey given to the rider with the most points (between 1905 and 1912, the winner of a sprint was given zero points, second place one point and so on - so the idea then was to amass as few points rather than as many as possible) was green because it was sponsored by a manufacturer of green lawnmowers.

Hugo Koblet

1952 winner Fausto Coppi did not take part, officially due to an injury - many wondered if in actual fact he wanted to save himself for the World Championships (which he would win for the only time that year), others thought he just didn't want to be on the same time as his old rival Gino Bartali. Whatever the reason, Louison Bobet and 1951 winner Hugo Koblet became favourites in his absence. Bobet was a controversial choice among the French as team leader - the Italians and Swiss had won the last five editions and the race's home nation was becoming desperate for victory; Bobet was still haunted by a widespread belief that he was weak and a cry-baby, allegations that stemmed from his early career and ones that were made by, among others, his own team mate Raphaël Géminiani (Géminiani's comment was probably motivated by personal dislike as much as anything else; other riders - with some justification - found Bobet pompous and snobbish). However, despite many occasions when the rider left him exasperated, team manager Marcel Bidot had always seen potential in Bobet: Bidot had left him out of the selection for 1952 and spent much of the year working on building up his confidence; the lack of which, he believed, was the only thing holding him back.

It worked. In 1953, Bobet won Stage 18, one of the most remarkable stages of post-war Tour history and a classic, text book example of team tactics. His team mate Adolphe Deledda, who was out in front riding with a breakaway group, received the message that Bobet had dropped Jesus Lorono on the way down from the Col de Vars and was on his way. So, he left the group and took his time while Bobet caught up, then helped him all the way to the Col d'Izoard. The landscape of Izoard is frequently compared to that of the Moon (and is in fact far more like the lunar surface than Ventoux - which is much, much stranger) and in those days the road was no better: merely a rough track made of loose stones picking its way between the boulders. Yet Bobet, having had chance to replenish his energy supplies while Deledda nursed him there, attacked it "as if he had wings," according to race historian Bill McGann. At the top, waiting to see the race go by, was Coppi; at his side was the Woman in White, his mistress Giulia Locatelli. Bobet may have been a bit full of himself, but he knew greatness when he saw it and thanked the Italian for coming as he sailed past.

Louison Bobet

When he reached Briançon, he had a five minute advantage - enough to retain the yellow jersey for the rest of the race. A perfect individual time trial in Stage 20 won him the race with an advantage of 14 minutes. When he crossed the finish line he was greeted by Maurice Garin who, after spending many years in obscurity following the mysterious events of 1904 and the ban he received as a result, had been tracked down and invited along with a selection of other previous winners to celebrate the Tour's first fifty years.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louison Bobet (FRA) France 129h 23' 25"
2 Jean Malléjac (FRA) West France +14' 18"
3 Giancarlo Astrua (ITA) Italy +15' 02"
4 Alex Close (BEL) Belgium +17' 35"
5 Wout Wagtmans (NED) Netherlands +18' 05"
6 Fritz Schär (SUI) Switzerland +18' 44"
7 Antonin Rolland (FRA) France +23' 03"
8 Nello Lauredi (FRA) France +26' 03"
9 Raphaël Géminiani (FRA) France +27' 18"
10 François Mahé (FRA) West France +28' 26"

1993

Miguel Indurain, 1993

20 stages + prologue, 3,714.3km.
1993 was a three-way battle: Chiappucci v. Indurain; Cipollini v. Indurain; Rominger v. Indurain -  Claudio Chiappucci was best able to rival the two-time winner all-round, Mario Cipollini was the fastest sprinter in the world and Toni Rominger had plans to take him on in the mountains. Indurain won the prologue, sat back for the next eight stages (the final one of which was won by a young American rider, on his first Tour, named Lance Armstrong) and then showed them exactly what they were up against by winning the Stage 9 individual time trial by 2'11" and taking 5'18" from Chiappucci - only Alex Zülle had been thought to have any chance of getting near him in the time trial, but his hopes ended the day before when a spectator accidentally dropped a carrier bag right in his path: after it caught up in his spokes, he was left bruised and bleeding. Chiappucci had hoped to do well in the Alps, but Rominger far outclassed him and won both stages - Indurain beat him by 8'49" on the first, then by 13" on the next; the Italian's General Classification hopes ended there. Rominger knew he was unlikely to win but hoped to take back some time in the Stage 19 time trial - he won the stage, but a puncture stopped him from winning as well as he'd have liked and Indurain won overall by 4'59".

The Tour offers a great many impressive sights, but nothing quite like the one that appeared in 1993: a large, bearded German man dressed as the Devil - it was Didi Senft's first Tour.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Miguel Indurain (ESP) Banesto 95h 57' 09"
2 Toni Rominger (SUI) Clas-Cajastur +4' 59"
3 Zenon Jaskula (POL) GB-MG +5' 48"
4 Alvaro Mejia (COL) Motorola +7' 29"
5 Bjarne Riis (DEN) Ariostea +16' 26"
6 Claudio Chiappucci (ITA) Carrera +17' 18"
7 Johan Bruyneel (BEL) ONCE +18' 04"
8 Andrew Hampsten (USA) Motorola +20' 14"
9 Pedro Delgado (ESP) Banesto +23' 57"
10 Vladimir Poulnikov (RUS) Carrera +25' 29"


1999

Passage du Gois

20 stages + prologue, 3,690.8km.
Several riders were not permitted to take part after the scandals of 1998, including Laurent Roux, Richard Virenque, Philippe Gaumont, the entire TVM team and ONCE-Deutsche Bank manager Manolo Saiz who, the year before, had withdrawn his team from the race before informing the press that he had "stuffed a finger up the Tour's arse" (he was thrown of the 2003 Vuelta when he insulted a television cameraman - his foul language making it onto the live broadcast - too). However, Virenque appealed to the UCI, citing his right to make a living under the International Code of Human Rights; Saiz was also allowed back in.

All eyes were on Lance Armstrong as the race set off - after several years rising up through the ranks, the American rider had gradually revealed himself to be a rider the likes of which had not been seen since Indurain (and no matter what one thinks of Armstrong, nor how his current problems pan out, he was a remarkable rider). Stage 2 featured the Passage du Gois, a tidal causeway that, being underwater twice a day, is covered in algae and proved extremely slippery - a large crash caused a six-minute split in the peloton and ended the chances of more than a few riders. Riders were angry, asking why the organisers had included the Passage if - as they claimed whenever the subject of doping came up - riders' health and well-being was their primary concern; nevertheless, it was used again in 2011.

Lance Armstrong

It was a good year for the Americans, being the first of Armstrong's seven consecutive victories, and for the Italians as Cipollini won four stages in a row to beat Bartalo's previous record of three, set in 1948; they also celebrated Giuseppe Guerini's Stage 10 victory on the Alpe d'Huez, which had been all the more remarkable since he collided with a spectator trying to take a photograph in the way up. It was not a good year for the French, however: they had not had a General Classification winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985, this year they didn't even win a stage. Perhaps that's why Le Monde was so quick to publish news that a sample provided by Armstrong after Stage 1 had tested positive for corticosteroid, albeit at a level too low for action to be taken. The US Postal team was able to provide a medical certificate proving that the rider had prescribed a UCI-approved saddle sore cream containing the drug (which has no performance-enhancing properties of its own, but has been used to mask the presence of other steroids that have), but the incident would be brought up many times in the future.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 91h 32' 16"
2 Alex Zülle (SUI) Banesto +7' 37"
3 Fernando Escartín (ESP) Kelme +10' 26"
4 Laurent Dufaux (SUI) Saeco +14' 43"
5 Ángel Casero (ESP) Vitalicio Seguros +15' 11"
6 Abraham Olano (ESP) ONCE +16' 47"
7 Daniele Nardello (ITA) Mapei +17' 02"
8 Richard Virenque (FRA) Polti +17' 28"
9 Wladimir Belli (ITA) Festina +17' 37"
10 Andrea Peron (ITA) ONCE +23' 10"


2004
20 stages + prologue, 3,391.1km.
The 2004 edition was originally to be competed by 22 teams, but after Jesús Manzano alerted the world to the systematic doping in the team (which had sacked him the previous September as a result of a depression he suffered after collapsing with near-fatal dehydration 2.5km from the finish line of Stage 7 at the 2003 Tour, an incident he blamed on an injection of 50ml of an unidentified substance administered by the team's doctor that morning), Kelme's invitation was revoked. This was the biggest race of Lance Armstrong's career - he had already equaled the five-win record shared by Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain, could he now beat them all with a sixth? Many thought he could not, and as the race drew near he didn't appear to have the form he'd once had. Jan Ullrich was not convinced: "Believe me, he's a lot better than he's letting on. That's Lance's style, to try and fool his rivals," he warned.

Right from the prologue, it looked like Ullrich was right. Fabian Cancellara set a blistering pace on the 6.1km parcours to win, but Armstrong was only 2" slower - of those riders most likely to present him with a challenge for the overall victory Ullrich was closest, but he was a whole 15" slower. Slowly but surely, Armstrong's rivals were picked off either as a result of his efforts or by circumstance: Iban Mayo, who had given him hell in the mountains in 2003, was too light to control his bike over the notorious pavé of Belgium and Northern France; Tyler Hamilton crashed hard on the cobbles too, later on in the race he would abandon after receiving news that his beloved dog Tugboat (who had been frequently seen waiting at the finish line, had been adored by fans as much as any rider and on more than one occasion had been interviewed by reporters) had died. However, it was on the Alpe d'Huez (where spectators spat on him as he went by and the road was covered in abusive slogans, not one of cycling's finest moments) when he recorded a time only once second slower than Marco Pantani's 1997 record of 37'35" (which, fifteen years later at the time of writing, still stands) that he secured victory - he finished the day with a 3'48" advantage. He was favourite for the last mountain stage the following day too, by winning that and the Stage 19 time trial he extended his overall lead to 6'19".

Voeckler in yellow, 2011

The real star of the race was Thomas Voeckler - racing his very first Tour, he took the maillot jaune in Stage 5. That was enough of a surprise as it was; the cycling world was therefore amazed when he kept it until Stage 15 and he earned an entire army of doting fans around the world as a result. Meanwhile, Robbie McEwen lost some - when René Haselbacher lay bleeding in the road with broken ribs, a smashed nose and internal organ damage following a Stage 6 crash, McEwen directed a vicious verbal attack his way and refused to retract his words even when told that the crash was caused by a snapped handlebar rather than by any mistake on the injured rider's behalf.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 83h 36' 02"
2 Andreas Klöden (GER) T-Mobile +6' 19"
3 Ivan Basso (ITA) Team CSC +6' 40"
4 Jan Ullrich (GER) T-Mobile +8' 50"
5 José Azevedo (POR) US Postal Service +14' 30"
6 Francisco Mancebo (ESP) Illes Balears-Banesto-Santander +18' 01"
7 Georg Totschnig (AUT) Gerolsteiner +18' 27"
8 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC +19' 51"
9 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank +20' 12"
10 Óscar Pereiro (ESP) Phonak +22' 54"

Fabian Cancellara

2010
20 stages + prologue, 3,642km.
As happens every few years, the Tour paid a visit to the treacherous cobbled roads of Belgium and Northern France to pay homage to the Flemish Classics and the hardest race of them all, Paris-Roubaix. Lance Armstrong returned from retirement and was immediately haled as favourite by people who didn't know any better and failed to realise that at the age of almost 40 he didn't stand much of chance against younger men such Andy Schleck in the mountains, Mark Cavendish in the sprints, Fabian Cancellara in the time trials (Cancellara beat him in the prologue in 2004 by 2", this time he beat him by 22" in the prologue and then annihilated him to the tune of 7'05" in the Stage 19 individual time trial) and - most crucially of all - Alberto Contador, even though some sections of the US media rather ill-advisedly claimed that the race would be an epic battle between the Spaniard and the Texan.

In fact, it was to be an epic battle between the Spaniard and a Luxembourger, Andy Schleck. The son of retired Tour rider Johny Schleck and brother of Frank (who was forced to abandon the 2010 race after breaking his collarbone in Stage 3), Schleck had been discovered by Cyrille Guimard - an ex-rider who became one of the most successful managers cycling has ever seen: his proteges have won numerous prestigious races including seventeen Grand Tours, among them Laurent Fignon, of whom he said Andy reminded him, adding that Andy was one of the greatest natural talents he had ever seen. He was, therefore, predicted to do well - but, when he took the maillot jaune in Stage 9 and then hung on to it, it started to look as though he might win despite Contador's efforts to take over.

Andy Schleck

The pivotal point of the race was Stage 15. As the race climbed the last mountain of the day on the way to Bagnères-de-Luchon, Schleck dropped his chain. Contador chose that moment to attack, assisted by Denis Menchov, Samuel Sanchez and a number of other climbers looking to improve their times; by the time Schleck set off again he was alone with nobody able to help him make up the gap. Contador took the maillot jaune at the finish line, along with a 39" advantage - the exact same time by which he would win overall five stages later. It remains one of the most controversial incidents in recent Tour history, attacked and defended by equal numbers: Sean Kelly was disgusted with what he saw as a total lack of sportsmanship and Gerard Vroomen said that while Contador had gained a great chance to win, he'd lost his chance to win greatly; meanwhile, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain saw nothing wrong in what he'd done. Contador said that he hadn't realised Schleck was in trouble and apologised (but even those who want to believe him, this writer included, have difficulty accepting his claims: the video of the incident makes it look very unlikely that he didn't know). Schleck says that he accepts the explanation and the apology; they remain friends.

However, following a complicated and long-running case, two years later Contador was found guilty of doping after a sample he provided during a rest day between Stages 16 and 17 (a rest day) was found to contain trace amounts of a banned bronchodilator known as Clenbuterol. While the Court for Arbitration in Sport favoured his explanation that the drug had got into his body without his intention, it decided that the process by which it got there was most likely to have been a contaminated food supplement rather than - as he had argued - via contaminated meat (it's used, rarely and illegally in the EU, as a growth enhancer in cattle). As a result, the court handed him a back-dated two-year ban and stripped him of all results gained during that period, including the 2010 Tour. Schleck was thus declared winner by default, and while he was initially reluctant to accept the yellow jersey he was forced to do so by sponsors and the threat of a UCI fine.

Top Ten Final General Classification

Disq. Alberto Contador (ESP) Astana 91h 58' 48"
1 Andy Schleck (LUX) Team Saxo Bank 91h 59' 27"
2 Denis Menchov (RUS) Rabobank +1' 22"
3 Samuel Sánchez (ESP) Euskaltel +3' 40"
4 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (BEL) Omega Pharma – Lotto +6' 54"
5 Robert Gesink (NED) Rabobank +9' 31"
6 Ryder Hesjedal (CAN) Garmin +10' 15"
7 Joaquim Rodríguez (ESP) Katusha +11' 37"
8 Roman Kreuziger (CZE) Liquigas +11' 54"
9 Chris Horner (USA) Team Radioshack +12' 02"
10 Luis Leon Sánchez (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne +14' 21"


Cyclists born on this day: Nicolas Roche (Born in France, Irish nationality, 1984); Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg, 1978); Sergey Firsanov (USSR, 1982); Sarah Phillips (Great Britain, 1967); Federico Della Ferrera (Italy, 1887, died 1965); Robert Power (Ireland, 1971); Lothar Claesges (Germany, 1942); Mario Zanin (Italy, 1940); Hugo Machado (Uruguay, 1923); Vasyl Yakovlev (USSR, 1972); András Takács (Hungary, 1945); Wilson Meneses (Colombia, 1981); Serhiy Honchar (USSR, 1970); Willy Vanden Berghen (Belgium, 1939); David Plaza (Spain, 1970); Fred Rodriguez (USA, 1973); Mykhailo Khalilov (USSR, 1975); Kristian Frisch (Denmark, 1891, died 1954); August Schaffer (Austria, 1905).

Daily Cycling Facts 17.08.2013

Filippo Simeoni

Filippo Simeoni

Born in Desio on this day in 1971, Filippo Simeoni was taken on as a trainee by Carrera Jeans-Tassoni in 1994 and showed sufficient promise to receive a professional contract the following year, then spent all but twp of the next fourteen series riding for a sucession of Italian teams (in 2005, he raced for Swiss-based Naturino-Sapore di Mare, the team relocated to Italy in 2006; in 2008 for Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce who, for that one year, were based in Ireland before they too relocated to Italy). During that time, he became known as a super-domestique, a rider who could chase down attacks and still deliver his team leader to the best spot to win a race, but also one who could take a few victories of his own when given opportunity to do so. His best results were his two stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana; one in 2001 and one in 2003, and he also became Italian Road Race Champion in 2008, the year before he retired.

Simeoni's palmares, if we are truthful, is not especially impressive - despite a long career, he achieved just eight victories as a professional and his best Grand Tour result was 55th overall at the 1998 Tour de France. However, he was a character and is fondly remembered for his occasionally rebellious nature: when he won his first Vuelta stage, he stopped shortly before the finish line and walked across holding his bike above his head. Many interpreted this as an ungracious act designed to show rivals that he could still win even if he walked, others said that he was trying to show that the bicycle, rather than the rider, is the most important part of a race. Simeoni himself said that he had intended it to be a tribute to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, which had taken place sixteen days earlier. Nevertheless, the UCI fined him.

Later, he became involved in a long-running battle with Lance Armstrong. Simeoni was caught out by a doping control in 2001 and received a relatively short ban after wisely deciding that the best way forward was to co-operate with the investigation and make a full confession; and with cycling finally waking up to how serious a problem doping had become in the wake of the Festina Affair and a number of deaths attributed to EPO, Simeoni's testimony would rock cycling - especially when he stated that he had been prescribed EPO and growth hormones by the highly-respected sports doctor Michele Ferrari in 1996 and 1997. Dr. Ferrari's highest-profile client was Armstrong, who publicly called Simeoni a liar in an article published by Le Monde in 2003. Armstrong had become a little too used to those he saw as his enemies backing down the moment he called them out by that time, but Simeoni was made of sterner stuff - he launched a defamation suit, seeking to sue for €100,000 and stating that any money awarded to him would be donated to charitable causes (the case would later be dropped, however). During Stage 18 at the Tour the following year, Simeoni bridged to a six-strong breakaway group. Though neither he nor any other member of the group posed any threat to Armstrong's lead, the American went after him, which in turn forced US Postal's rivals T-Mobile to respond and destroyed any chance the riders in the break had of winning the stage. They begged Armstrong to return to the peloton and let them have their opportunity to shine, an opportunity offered to the best of the non-GC contenders in any Tour, but he would not. Eventually, Simeoni buckled under the pressure and dropped back to the main group where he was met with a barrage of abuse from several riders who had allied themselves with Armstrong, among them Danielle Nardello, Filippo Pozzato and Andrea Peron.

Traditionally, riders do not compete with one another until the sprinters try to be first to the finish line during the final stage of the Tour; instead, they pose for the press and the leader basks in his hard-earned glory. Simeoni's rebelliousness once again came to the fore, because he wanted to show that he was not cowed by Armstrong's bullying tactics, and he attacked the leader time and time again. Each time, US Postal chased him down and brought him back; and each time Simeoni was subjected to more abuse and, shamefully, a barrage of spit from several riders. It was not one of professional cycling's finest moments.

In time, it would become apparent that Armstrong had made a serious mistake - Simeoni was still a prosecution witness in an investigation into Dr. Ferrari at the time of the 2004 Tour, and lawyers involved with the case felt that Armstrong's actions constituted witness intimidation. He was questioned over the incidents early the next year, but no further action was taken; then in December he was indicted and ordered to face charges of defamation dating from the 2003 Le Monde article. That case was also dropped, in April 2006. Armstrong escaped prosecution but, it seemed to many fans and other riders, by the narrowest of margins, and the Cult of Lance began to crumble. Finally, years later, Armstrong was found out: Simeoni's palmares might not be particularly impressive, but his two Vuelta a Espana stages wins and the 2008 National Road Race Championship shine out; Armstrong, meanwhile, was stripped of all results gained since August 1999 and, without them, his palmares is little more extraordinary than Simeoni's.

Thomas Gascoyne

Thomas Gascoyne

Thomas Jepson Gascoyne - various known as Thomas Jeb Gascoyne, Thomas Jefferson Gascoyne or Thomas Mills - was born in Whittington, Derbyshire on this day in 1876 and became a cyclist in 1893. Three years later he made an attempt on the World 25-mile record, the first time he had ever attempted to beat a record greater than 10 miles, and did it in 57'18.4" - 1'43.2" faster than the previous holder's 59'01.6". According to contemporary reports, he was paced by a three-man tandem but overtook it because the combined effort of the riders was too slow for him.

Gascoyne would go on to set numerous other records, including the two miles on a tandem and the flying quarter mile. This led to widespread fame, and when he went to the USA in 1901 his arrival was reported by the New York Times, which seems to have been the first time he was called Thomas Jefferson Gascoyne. The newspaper stated that he had never been beaten in a pursuit race, and on the 20th of July he beat the famous "Major" Marshall Taylor twice in Boston. The following day, having first won a half-mile handicap, he took part in a pursuit without taking a rest break in between and was beaten for the first time.

For reasons unknown, Gascoyne chose to walk away from professional cycling a short while after his return to Europe and emigrated to Australia with a friend (also a cyclist) named Brown. Rather than continue making a living from their sport, they found badly-paid manual jobs and kept them for several years before entering amateur races under false names; Gascoyne became Thomas Mills and Brown became Atkinson. Neither man was race fit; however, Gascoyne's natural talent was sufficient that before too long rumours began to circulate and both men were forced to reveal their true identities - fortunately, the Australian public did not consider their actions dishonest, probably because they'd worked hard for little pay before returning to racing, and Gascoyne in particular became something of a hero.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Gascoyne enlisted in the Australian army and was posted to the trenches of West Flanders. He died there during the Battle of Passchendaele at Ypres on the 4th of October 1917, when he was 41. His body was not recovered and presumably lies where it fell, his memory is preserved at the Memin Gate Memorial to the Missing in Ypres.


Álvaro Pino, born in Ponteareas, Spain on this day in 1956, is a rider who is chiefly famous for his success in the Vuelta a Espana - he was 22nd in 1981, tenth in 1982, fourth in 1983, eighth in 1985 and 1988 and fifth in 1989. His best result - and the race for which he is best remembered - was the 1986 Vuelta, which he won against the favourites Laurent Fignon of France, Sean Kelly of Ireland and Robert Millar of Scotland.

Magali le Floc'h, born in France on this day in 1975, won some 28 races during her long career from 1994 to 2008. She was National Road Race Champion in 2002 and 2005 and won the Coupe de France in 2001, 2005 and 2008.

Phillip Lavery, who was born in Dublin on this day in 1990, has been gaining good results ever since he came second in the National Junior Road Race Championship in 2007. 2012, which he has spent with the Node4-Giordana team, has been the best of his career to date with victories at the GP Stephen Roche, the Shay Elliot Memorial, the Under-23 Nationals and a bronze at the Nationals in the Elite class.

Massimo Strazzer, born in Italy in this day in 1969, managed numerous podium stage finishes at the Giro d'Italia and, in 2001, won the Points competition.

Other cyclists born on this day: Sin Dae-Cheol (South Korea, 1959); Rinus Paul (Netherlands, 1941); Roland Zöffel (Switzerland, 1938); Julio Rubiano (Colombia, 1953); Algis Oleknavicius (West Germany, 1947); Les Ingman (Great Britain, 1927, died 1990); Jean Bourlès (France, 1930); Bojan Ropret (Yugoslavia, 1952); George Cameron (USA, 1881, died 1968); Carl Naibo (France, 1982); Kenneth Røpke (Denmark, 1965); Michael Hepburn (Australia, 1991).

Daily Cycling Facts 03.07.2013

The Tour de France began on this day in 1910, 1934, 1953, 1993, 1999, 2004 and 2010.

1910
15 stages, 4,737km.
Having consisted of 14 stages since 1907, in 1910 the Tour grew to 15. For the first time, the race visited the Pyrenees which in those days seemed far more remote and wild than today, their high passes haunted by bandits and bears rather than holiday-makers on their way to Spain; hence race directeur Henri Desgrange's initial reluctance to send the race up there - he was concerned that the riders would be robbed, or eaten.

Some of the staff at L'Auto, meanwhile, were keen to include the high mountains and pointed at the popularity of the stages in the lower mountains that had been included in the Tour since 1905. Desgrange was a man who didn't like to admit it when he was wrong but he couldn't deny that those stages had indeed drawn huge numbers of spectators and, more importantly, boosted sales of the newspaper, so eventually he gave them permission to investigate the possibility of including the Pyrenees. Nobody at the paper had ever actually been there, so Adolphe Steinès - who had plotted out the route of every Tour since the first in 1903 - was given the task of traveling south to find out if it was even feasible that a bicycle could be ridden up there.

Steinès arrived on the 27th of January and checked into an inn. When he explained to the innkeeper that he'd be going up the mountains he was told that the high cols were virtually impassable in high summer, never mind January, and warned not to attempt it. Nevertheless, he hired a car and set out. Somewhere near the summit, the snow became so deep that the car could go no further, so Steinès tried to walk the rest of the way. Soon he became lost. Then he fell into a ravine, and would almost certainly have frozen to death had the innkeeper not alerted a search party that finally located him at 3am.

The next day, Steinès sent a telegram to Desgrange, choosing to be rather economical with the truth because he knew that a stage in the mountains would prove to be such a spectacle: "Have crossed the Tourmalet on foot STOP Road passable to vehicles STOP No snow STOP" By 1910, the Tour's reputation had spread and 136 riders signed up to take part. When newspapers announced that the Pyrenees were to be included - which was "dangerous" and "bizarre," they said, echoing the language still used by the more conservative press whenever anyone tries anything new to this day - 26 of them asked to be removed from the list. Those riders that were brave enough to start the race were still worried, however, and so Desgrange made arrangements to rescue any who found themselves unable to continue. Thus the Tour gained its voiture ballai, the broom wagon, for the first time - 37 years before the birth (and, incredibly, 71 years before the last one rolled off the production line) of the Citroen H van, which most people stiff think of when they hear the term broom wagon. Desgrange famously once said that the ideal Tour would be one in which only one rider finished, but even he apparently felt the Pyrenees were inhumane, so he made a rule that riders who ended up in the broom wagon during the mountain stages would be permitted to start again on the next stage.

There were two other big changes for 1910. First of all, riders were grouped into teams - previously, while riders might have shared sponsors, they were expected to ride as individuals without providing or receiving any form of assistance from other riders (the three teams that took part, Alcyon, Legnano and Le Globe, accounted for thirty riders between them; the rest were all competing individually). Secondly, some of them were taking advantage of a major technical innovation - their bikes had gears.

Charles Crupelandt, who became a hero in the First World War and was later treated appallingly by rival riders before dying in terrible poverty, won the first stage; then François Faber, who also became a hero in the War, won Stage 2. Émile Georget took Stage 3, then Faber, the Tour's first sprint specialist, won the fourth. Octave Lapize was the victor Stage 5, followed by Julien Maitron on Stage 6 - the only Tour stage he ever won.

1934

Fédérico Ezquerra in the mountains, 1934

23 stages (one split), 4,363km.
Organisers made a few rule changes. The first was an alteration to bonus times, with the winner of each stage now receiving a minute-and-a-half rather than two minutes; secondly, while there had been team time trials in earlier Tours, an individual time trial was included for the first time (Stage 21b). This came about due to the popularity of the ITT-based Grand Prix des Nations, first run in 1932 without much interest and then far more successfully a year later by L'Auto's rival newspaper Paris-Soir (the GP des Nations was itself a response to L'Auto's decision to start Tour stages later in the day, thus preventing Paris-Soir - which was published each evening, rather than in the morning as L'Auto was - from being able to be the first newspaper with each day's Tour results. This had negatively impacted L'Auto's sales and, now that the Tour was no longer open to sponsored trade teams, L'Auto was ultimately responsible for paying all the national teams' food and accommodation costs and thus needed every penny it could make). The addition was not universally favoured by the riders: some said it would encourage riders to forget about team work in other stages. Climbers were especially dismissive - René Vietto claimed that it was dull and that a race should be a test of a rider's intelligence as well as horsepower. The Tour only paid for food and lodgings for the national team riders; there were also twenty riders who paid their own way (some were rich enough to live in considerable luxury, sometimes far better than the team members; others were happy to sleep anywhere they could and eat whatever they found) - these riders had previously been known as touriste-routiers, for the first time in 1934 they became known as independents.

It was during this edition that Vietto rather undeservedly became a popular hero. His team leader, Antonin Magne, had dominated the race from the first stage, wearing the yellow jersey ever since (and would keep it throughout the race). Then disaster struck on the way to the spa town of Aix-les-Thermes during Stage 15 when he rode into a pothole and splintered his wooden front wheel rim. So that he could continue, he took Vietto's wheel, leaving him at the roadside. He discovered a short way further along the road that his frame was damaged too, so he waited for the next rider from his team - Georges Speicher - and took his bike. Thus began one of the most interesting legends in the long history of the Tour.

Vietto, "all alone"

In another version - which is somewhat more accurate - Magne could not make Vietto's wheel fit into his forks and waited for Speicher before taking his wheel instead. Speicher also couldn't use Vietto's wheel. Vietto, meanwhile, was still waiting for a team car to give him another a wheel and had become so upset that his chances of winning the stage - though the time he lost, eight minutes and tiny when compared to the winning margins of the day, would probably have had little if any effect on his overall Tour result (some say that we should also take into account that he was a 20-year-old domestique riding his first Tour, but the fact that he won four stages and came 5th overall that year suggests that he was a stronger rider than most debutantes) - that he'd started crying. A photographer found him at the side of the road and took the picture, which was published the following day accompanied by a story sometimes attributed to future race director Jacques Goddet and earned the rider the adoration of the French public (and, since his new celebrity would allow him to charge high fees to appear at future races, set him up for life). Henri Desgrange, for all his usual enthusiasm for anything that might increase his race's mythos, was said to have been furious at the fabrication and swore he would reveal the truth - but the public, fortunately, seem to have realised that truth should not stand in the way of a good story.

The following day, Magne once again had trouble and broke his back wheel on the fast descent of the Portet d'Aspet. Vietto, trying to make up time, was out in front and didn't see it happen so had carried on. At the bottom of the mountain, an official beckoned him over and relayed the news, informing him that his leader was stuck without support. So Vietto turned around and rode back up to find him, and handed over his bike. Italian Guiseppe Martano, Magne's most dangerous rival, would break his own bike in Stage 17, leaving the Frenchman to finish the Tour without challenge.

Antonin Magne in the lead

Feeling sorry for him? Let's delve a little deeper. The famous photograph shows poor Vietto all alone in the world as he waits for a new wheel, but in fact the photographer had realised that he would have a sensational image once he'd cropped out the apparently quite sizable crowd of people who had gathered around the stricken rider and were taking care of him (it remains, however, one of the sport's most iconic images, commonly used to illustrate the glorious pain and hardship of the Tour). Secondly, while Magne was grateful for his team mate's actions, Vietto was far from magnanimous - he verbally attacked his leader and told him he was a bad rider when he tried to thank him. Magne continued to express thanks for the rest of his life, even though he wasn't permitted to ride the victory lap to which he was rightfully entitiled and angry crowds waved banners declaring Vietto to be the "moral winner." Vietto became increasingly bitter as he refused to let go of the incident and ended up becoming a distinctly unpleasant bully: Tour legend has it - without proof, since none of the people involved are still alive - that when he lost a toe to an infection, he demanded that his domestique Apo Lazaridès chopped off one of his own toes too. "But why? I don't need to," the Greek rider protested. "Because I say so," Vietto replied. Lazaridès, whilst perhaps not the most intelligent rider in cycling history, was not lacking in bravery - he had risked death at the hands of the Nazis when he used his bike to transport supplies through the mountains to the Resistance during the Occupation of France, and so the toe came off. He walked with a limp until the 30th of October 1988, the day he died. The legend says that Magne's toe is kept in a jar filled with formaldehyde (or absinthe, in some versions) in a bar in Marseilles - but nobody seems to know which bar.

Magne won the individual time trial, though he might not have done had Giuseppe Martano's frame not snapped, and secured his General Classification lead. It was his second win (the first was in 1931) and the fifth consecutive victory for France.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Antonin Magne (FRA) France 147h 13' 58"
2 Giuseppe Martano (ITA) Italy +27' 31"
3 Roger Lapébie (FRA) France +52' 15"
4 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL) Individual +57' 40"
5 René Vietto (FRA) France +59' 02"
6 Ambrogio Morelli (ITA) Individual +1h 12' 02"
7 Ludwig Geyer (GER) Germany +1h 12' 51"
8 Sylvère Maes (BEL) Individual +1h 20' 56"
9 Mariano Cañardo (ESP) Switzerland/Spain +1h 29' 02"
10 Vicente Trueba (ESP) Switzerland/Spain +1h 40' 39"


1953
22 stages, 4,479km.
To mark the half-century since the first Tour, two new competitions were introduced - the first was the Super-Combativity award, given to rider judged to have ridden most aggressively or courageously throughout the race (the daily Combativity award was first given the year before). The second was the Points competition, based upon the points system used to decide the overall winner between 1905 and 1912 before return to the accumulated time format and designed to keep the sprinters interested throughout the race. The jersey given to the rider with the most points (between 1905 and 1912, the winner of a sprint was given zero points, second place one point and so on - so the idea then was to amass as few points rather than as many as possible) was green because it was sponsored by a manufacturer of green lawnmowers.

Hugo Koblet

1952 winner Fausto Coppi did not take part, officially due to an injury - many wondered if in actual fact he wanted to save himself for the World Championships (which he would win for the only time that year), others thought he just didn't want to be on the same time as his old rival Gino Bartali. Whatever the reason, Louison Bobet and 1951 winner Hugo Koblet became favourites in his absence. Bobet was a controversial choice among the French as team leader - the Italians and Swiss had won the last five editions and the race's home nation was becoming desperate for victory; Bobet was still haunted by a widespread belief that he was weak and a cry-baby, allegations that stemmed from his early career and ones that were made by, among others, his own team mate Raphaël Géminiani (Géminiani's comment was probably motivated by personal dislike as much as anything else; other riders - with some justification - found Bobet pompous and snobbish). However, despite many occasions when the rider left him exasperated, team manager Marcel Bidot had always seen potential in Bobet: Bidot had left him out of the selection for 1952 and spent much of the year working on building up his confidence; the lack of which, he believed, was the only thing holding him back.

It worked. In 1953, Bobet won Stage 18, one of the most remarkable stages of post-war Tour history and a classic, text book example of team tactics. His team mate Adolphe Deledda, who was out in front riding with a breakaway group, received the message that Bobet had dropped Jesus Lorono on the way down from the Col de Vars and was on his way. So, he left the group and took his time while Bobet caught up, then helped him all the way to the Col d'Izoard. The landscape of Izoard is frequently compared to that of the Moon (and is in fact far more like the lunar surface than Ventoux - which is much, much stranger) and in those days the road was no better: merely a rough track made of loose stones picking its way between the boulders. Yet Bobet, having had chance to replenish his energy supplies while Deledda nursed him there, attacked it "as if he had wings," according to race historian Bill McGann. At the top, waiting to see the race go by, was Coppi; at his side was the Woman in White, his mistress Giulia Locatelli. Bobet may have been a bit full of himself, but he knew greatness when he saw it and thanked the Italian for coming as he sailed past.

Louison Bobet

When he reached Briançon, he had a five minute advantage - enough to retain the yellow jersey for the rest of the race. A perfect individual time trial in Stage 20 won him the race with an advantage of 14 minutes. When he crossed the finish line he was greeted by Maurice Garin who, after spending many years in obscurity following the mysterious events of 1904 and the ban he received as a result, had been tracked down and invited along with a selection of other previous winners to celebrate the Tour's first fifty years.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louison Bobet (FRA) France 129h 23' 25"
2 Jean Malléjac (FRA) West France +14' 18"
3 Giancarlo Astrua (ITA) Italy +15' 02"
4 Alex Close (BEL) Belgium +17' 35"
5 Wout Wagtmans (NED) Netherlands +18' 05"
6 Fritz Schär (SUI) Switzerland +18' 44"
7 Antonin Rolland (FRA) France +23' 03"
8 Nello Lauredi (FRA) France +26' 03"
9 Raphaël Géminiani (FRA) France +27' 18"
10 François Mahé (FRA) West France +28' 26"

1993

Miguel Indurain, 1993

20 stages + prologue, 3,714.3km.
1993 was a three-way battle: Chiappucci v. Indurain; Cipollini v. Indurain; Rominger v. Indurain -  Claudio Chiappucci was best able to rival the two-time winner all-round, Mario Cipollini was the fastest sprinter in the world and Toni Rominger had plans to take him on in the mountains. Indurain won the prologue, sat back for the next eight stages (the final one of which was won by a young American rider, on his first Tour, named Lance Armstrong) and then showed them exactly what they were up against by winning the Stage 9 individual time trial by 2'11" and taking 5'18" from Chiappucci - only Alex Zülle had been thought to have any chance of getting near him in the time trial, but his hopes ended the day before when a spectator accidentally dropped a carrier bag right in his path: after it caught up in his spokes, he was left bruised and bleeding. Chiappucci had hoped to do well in the Alps, but Rominger far outclassed him and won both stages - Indurain beat him by 8'49" on the first, then by 13" on the next; the Italian's General Classification hopes ended there. Rominger knew he was unlikely to win but hoped to take back some time in the Stage 19 time trial - he won the stage, but a puncture stopped him from winning as well as he'd have liked and Indurain won overall by 4'59".

The Tour offers a great many impressive sights, but nothing quite like the one that appeared in 1993: a large, bearded German man dressed as the Devil - it was Didi Senft's first Tour.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Miguel Indurain (ESP) Banesto 95h 57' 09"
2 Toni Rominger (SUI) Clas-Cajastur +4' 59"
3 Zenon Jaskula (POL) GB-MG +5' 48"
4 Alvaro Mejia (COL) Motorola +7' 29"
5 Bjarne Riis (DEN) Ariostea +16' 26"
6 Claudio Chiappucci (ITA) Carrera +17' 18"
7 Johan Bruyneel (BEL) ONCE +18' 04"
8 Andrew Hampsten (USA) Motorola +20' 14"
9 Pedro Delgado (ESP) Banesto +23' 57"
10 Vladimir Poulnikov (RUS) Carrera +25' 29"


1999

Passage du Gois

20 stages + prologue, 3,690.8km.
Several riders were not permitted to take part after the scandals of 1998, including Laurent Roux, Richard Virenque, Philippe Gaumont, the entire TVM team and ONCE-Deutsche Bank manager Manolo Saiz who, the year before, had withdrawn his team from the race before informing the press that he had "stuffed a finger up the Tour's arse" (he was thrown of the 2003 Vuelta when he insulted a television cameraman - his foul language making it onto the live broadcast - too). However, Virenque appealed to the UCI, citing his right to make a living under the International Code of Human Rights; Saiz was also allowed back in.

All eyes were on Lance Armstrong as the race set off - after several years rising up through the ranks, the American rider had gradually revealed himself to be a rider the likes of which had not been seen since Indurain (and no matter what one thinks of Armstrong, nor how his current problems pan out, he was a remarkable rider). Stage 2 featured the Passage du Gois, a tidal causeway that, being underwater twice a day, is covered in algae and proved extremely slippery - a large crash caused a six-minute split in the peloton and ended the chances of more than a few riders. Riders were angry, asking why the organisers had included the Passage if - as they claimed whenever the subject of doping came up - riders' health and well-being was their primary concern; nevertheless, it was used again in 2011.

Lance Armstrong

It was a good year for the Americans, being the first of Armstrong's seven consecutive victories, and for the Italians as Cipollini won four stages in a row to beat Bartalo's previous record of three, set in 1948; they also celebrated Giuseppe Guerini's Stage 10 victory on the Alpe d'Huez, which had been all the more remarkable since he collided with a spectator trying to take a photograph in the way up. It was not a good year for the French, however: they had not had a General Classification winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985, this year they didn't even win a stage. Perhaps that's why Le Monde was so quick to publish news that a sample provided by Armstrong after Stage 1 had tested positive for corticosteroid, albeit at a level too low for action to be taken. The US Postal team was able to provide a medical certificate proving that the rider had prescribed a UCI-approved saddle sore cream containing the drug (which has no performance-enhancing properties of its own, but has been used to mask the presence of other steroids that have), but the incident would be brought up many times in the future.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 91h 32' 16"
2 Alex Zülle (SUI) Banesto +7' 37"
3 Fernando Escartín (ESP) Kelme +10' 26"
4 Laurent Dufaux (SUI) Saeco +14' 43"
5 Ángel Casero (ESP) Vitalicio Seguros +15' 11"
6 Abraham Olano (ESP) ONCE +16' 47"
7 Daniele Nardello (ITA) Mapei +17' 02"
8 Richard Virenque (FRA) Polti +17' 28"
9 Wladimir Belli (ITA) Festina +17' 37"
10 Andrea Peron (ITA) ONCE +23' 10"


2004
20 stages + prologue, 3,391.1km.
The 2004 edition was originally to be competed by 22 teams, but after Jesús Manzano alerted the world to the systematic doping in the team (which had sacked him the previous September as a result of a depression he suffered after collapsing with near-fatal dehydration 2.5km from the finish line of Stage 7 at the 2003 Tour, an incident he blamed on an injection of 50ml of an unidentified substance administered by the team's doctor that morning), Kelme's invitation was revoked. This was the biggest race of Lance Armstrong's career - he had already equaled the five-win record shared by Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain, could he now beat them all with a sixth? Many thought he could not, and as the race drew near he didn't appear to have the form he'd once had. Jan Ullrich was not convinced: "Believe me, he's a lot better than he's letting on. That's Lance's style, to try and fool his rivals," he warned.

Right from the prologue, it looked like Ullrich was right. Fabian Cancellara set a blistering pace on the 6.1km parcours to win, but Armstrong was only 2" slower - of those riders most likely to present him with a challenge for the overall victory Ullrich was closest, but he was a whole 15" slower. Slowly but surely, Armstrong's rivals were picked off either as a result of his efforts or by circumstance: Iban Mayo, who had given him hell in the mountains in 2003, was too light to control his bike over the notorious pavé of Belgium and Northern France; Tyler Hamilton crashed hard on the cobbles too, later on in the race he would abandon after receiving news that his beloved dog Tugboat (who had been frequently seen waiting at the finish line, had been adored by fans as much as any rider and on more than one occasion had been interviewed by reporters) had died. However, it was on the Alpe d'Huez (where spectators spat on him as he went by and the road was covered in abusive slogans, not one of cycling's finest moments) when he recorded a time only once second slower than Marco Pantani's 1997 record of 37'35" (which, fifteen years later at the time of writing, still stands) that he secured victory - he finished the day with a 3'48" advantage. He was favourite for the last mountain stage the following day too, by winning that and the Stage 19 time trial he extended his overall lead to 6'19".

Voeckler in yellow, 2011

The real star of the race was Thomas Voeckler - racing his very first Tour, he took the maillot jaune in Stage 5. That was enough of a surprise as it was; the cycling world was therefore amazed when he kept it until Stage 15 and he earned an entire army of doting fans around the world as a result. Meanwhile, Robbie McEwen lost some - when René Haselbacher lay bleeding in the road with broken ribs, a smashed nose and internal organ damage following a Stage 6 crash, McEwen directed a vicious verbal attack his way and refused to retract his words even when told that the crash was caused by a snapped handlebar rather than by any mistake on the injured rider's behalf.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 83h 36' 02"
2 Andreas Klöden (GER) T-Mobile +6' 19"
3 Ivan Basso (ITA) Team CSC +6' 40"
4 Jan Ullrich (GER) T-Mobile +8' 50"
5 José Azevedo (POR) US Postal Service +14' 30"
6 Francisco Mancebo (ESP) Illes Balears-Banesto-Santander +18' 01"
7 Georg Totschnig (AUT) Gerolsteiner +18' 27"
8 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC +19' 51"
9 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank +20' 12"
10 Óscar Pereiro (ESP) Phonak +22' 54"

Fabian Cancellara

2010
20 stages + prologue, 3,642km.
As happens every few years, the Tour paid a visit to the treacherous cobbled roads of Belgium and Northern France to pay homage to the Flemish Classics and the hardest race of them all, Paris-Roubaix. Lance Armstrong returned from retirement and was immediately haled as favourite by people who didn't know any better and failed to realise that at the age of almost 40 he didn't stand much of chance against younger men such Andy Schleck in the mountains, Mark Cavendish in the sprints, Fabian Cancellara in the time trials (Cancellara beat him in the prologue in 2004 by 2", this time he beat him by 22" in the prologue and then annihilated him to the tune of 7'05" in the Stage 19 individual time trial) and - most crucially of all - Alberto Contador, even though some sections of the US media rather ill-advisedly claimed that the race would be an epic battle between the Spaniard and the Texan.

In fact, it was to be an epic battle between the Spaniard and a Luxembourger, Andy Schleck. The son of retired Tour rider Johny Schleck and brother of Frank (who was forced to abandon the 2010 race after breaking his collarbone in Stage 3), Schleck had been discovered by Cyrille Guimard - an ex-rider who became one of the most successful managers cycling has ever seen: his proteges have won numerous prestigious races including seventeen Grand Tours, among them Laurent Fignon, of whom he said Andy reminded him, adding that Andy was one of the greatest natural talents he had ever seen. He was, therefore, predicted to do well - but, when he took the maillot jaune in Stage 9 and then hung on to it, it started to look as though he might win despite Contador's efforts to take over.

Andy Schleck

The pivotal point of the race was Stage 15. As the race climbed the last mountain of the day on the way to Bagnères-de-Luchon, Schleck dropped his chain. Contador chose that moment to attack, assisted by Denis Menchov, Samuel Sanchez and a number of other climbers looking to improve their times; by the time Schleck set off again he was alone with nobody able to help him make up the gap. Contador took the maillot jaune at the finish line, along with a 39" advantage - the exact same time by which he would win overall five stages later. It remains one of the most controversial incidents in recent Tour history, attacked and defended by equal numbers: Sean Kelly was disgusted with what he saw as a total lack of sportsmanship and Gerard Vroomen said that while Contador had gained a great chance to win, he'd lost his chance to win greatly; meanwhile, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain saw nothing wrong in what he'd done. Contador said that he hadn't realised Schleck was in trouble and apologised (but even those who want to believe him, this writer included, have difficulty accepting his claims: the video of the incident makes it look very unlikely that he didn't know). Schleck says that he accepts the explanation and the apology; they remain friends.

However, following a complicated and long-running case, two years later Contador was found guilty of doping after a sample he provided during a rest day between Stages 16 and 17 (a rest day) was found to contain trace amounts of a banned bronchodilator known as Clenbuterol. While the Court for Arbitration in Sport favoured his explanation that the drug had got into his body without his intention, it decided that the process by which it got there was most likely to have been a contaminated food supplement rather than - as he had argued - via contaminated meat (it's used, rarely and illegally in the EU, as a growth enhancer in cattle). As a result, the court handed him a back-dated two-year ban and stripped him of all results gained during that period, including the 2010 Tour. Schleck was thus declared winner by default, and while he was initially reluctant to accept the yellow jersey he was forced to do so by sponsors and the threat of a UCI fine.

Top Ten Final General Classification

Disq. Alberto Contador (ESP) Astana 91h 58' 48"
1 Andy Schleck (LUX) Team Saxo Bank 91h 59' 27"
2 Denis Menchov (RUS) Rabobank +1' 22"
3 Samuel Sánchez (ESP) Euskaltel +3' 40"
4 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (BEL) Omega Pharma – Lotto +6' 54"
5 Robert Gesink (NED) Rabobank +9' 31"
6 Ryder Hesjedal (CAN) Garmin +10' 15"
7 Joaquim Rodríguez (ESP) Katusha +11' 37"
8 Roman Kreuziger (CZE) Liquigas +11' 54"
9 Chris Horner (USA) Team Radioshack +12' 02"
10 Luis Leon Sánchez (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne +14' 21"


Cyclists born on this day: Nicolas Roche (Born in France, Irish nationality, 1984); Kim Kirchen (Luxembourg, 1978); Sergey Firsanov (USSR, 1982); Sarah Phillips (Great Britain, 1967); Federico Della Ferrera (Italy, 1887, died 1965); Robert Power (Ireland, 1971); Lothar Claesges (Germany, 1942); Mario Zanin (Italy, 1940); Hugo Machado (Uruguay, 1923); Vasyl Yakovlev (USSR, 1972); András Takács (Hungary, 1945); Wilson Meneses (Colombia, 1981); Serhiy Honchar (USSR, 1970); Willy Vanden Berghen (Belgium, 1939); David Plaza (Spain, 1970); Fred Rodriguez (USA, 1973); Mykhailo Khalilov (USSR, 1975); Kristian Frisch (Denmark, 1891, died 1954); August Schaffer (Austria, 1905).