The 28th of April marks the earliest start date in the history of the
Giro d'Italia, which began on this day in
1939. For once that year, the great Gino Bartali met his match in the shape of Giovanni Valetti, the winner for a second consecutive year. Bartali was the better man in the mountains, taking away the lead Valetti had built up in the early stages of the race, but was outclassed on subsequent flat stages and, despite attacking hard in the final stage, finished with an overall time 2'59" down on his rival.
The
Vuelta a Espana began on this day in
1966, when the 18 stages (four split) covered a total of 2,949.5km. The race suffered from a lack of top international names that year and only 90 riders - of whom 40 were Spanish - started; a mere 55 finished. While this was not good for the Vuelta, it was an opportunity for the less-well-known riders including winner Francisco Gabica; whose palmares, with the exception of this one race, really are not those of a Grand Tour contender.
Today is also the anniversary of the 31st edition of
La Flèche Wallonne, which took place on this day in
1967. It was raced on a 223km route between Liège and Marcinelle for a second consecutive year and the winner was a relatively unknown Belgian rider named Eddy Merckx, who was precisely one day away from completing his second year as a professional cyclist. He would go on to win two more editions, adding them to his eventual total of 525 victories. The race has not been held this late ever since.
Lucien Aimar
1966 Tour de France winner Lucien Aimar was born in Hyères, France, on this day in 1941. His first major success was second place in the 1964 Tour de l'Avenir - which he would have won, hacing finished 42" behind Italian rider Felice Gimondi following an incident involving the Belgian rider Jos Spruyt that earned him a one minute penalty earlier in the race.
He turned professional with Ford-Gitane on 1965, and immediately made a sufficient impression on manager Raphael Géminiani and team leader Jacques Anquetil to be selected for the Tour that same season - an incredible achievement for any rider in his first professional year, through he abandoned on the Col de l'Aubisque during Stage 9. His success just one year later was, therefore, somewhat unexpected; but he wouldn't have managed it without the help of Anquetil who at that time was at the height of his war with Raymond Poulidor, a rivalry that split France into two equal and opposing sides. Realising that his fifth victory in 1964 was to be his last, he assisted Aimar instead to ensure Poulidor could not win and then retired. However, Aimar was not handed the victory on a plate and worked hard, pushing a high 55x13 gear ratio that was thought abnormal by most riders of the day.
Aimar has been called on of the forgettable Tour winners, but his career was not without controversy: just months before his Tour success he'd won second place at the Flèche Wallonne, then been stripped of his title after failing an anti-doping test (1966, incidentally, was the year the Tour was disrupted during Stage 9 when riders got off their bikes and pushed in protest at rumoured drugs tests. It was also, of course, the year before Tom Simpson died) and was then given his result back again due to a technicality arising from the arcane and messy anti-doping rules of the time. In 1967, he refused to wear the French National jersey during the Tour after being declared rightful winner of it when Désiré Letort was disqualified after he too failed a drugs test - for each day Amar refused, he was fined the equivalent of £50, but he stuck to his guns and insisted that Letort had beaten him fair and square (whether than is indication that he saw nothing wrong with doping, that he was also doping in the National Championships or both is anyone's guess). He retired in 1973, claiming that organiser Félix Lévitan had cooked up a nefarious scheme with the German rider Rudi Altig to ensure he would never win another Tour, then refused to have absolutely anything to do with the race for a quarter of a century.
In retirement, he became director of the Tour Méditerranéen and a very good example of what happens if a retired professional cyclist continues to eat like an active professional cyclist.
Bradley Wiggins
Born in Ghent, Belgium on this day in 1980, Bradley Wiggins is the son of Australian professional cyclist Gary Wiggins and his English ex-wife Linda - when the couple split, mother and son moved to London where Bradley grew up. He had no contact with his father, but encouraged by his mother he began to compete at the famous Herne Hill Velodrome when he was twelve years old.
After switching to road cycling, he showed early potential as a time trial rider and roleur which earned him a contract with the Linda McCartney team shortly before it folded in 2001. He then moved on to FDJ, staying with them for two years before he was offered a place with Crédit Agricole for 2004, the year in which he became the first British athlete in any sport to win three medals in a single edition of the Olympic Games for forty years. He rode his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia, in 2005 and the Tour de France a year later; not making much of an impact in either race but proving he could survive the harsh rigours of major stage races.
Then, in 2007, he won the prologue at the Critérium du Dauphiné and was fourth in the prologue at the Tour - held that year in London. At this point, the world began to pay attention - Britain had produced another rider who just might have the potential to finish what Tom Simpson had started four decades earlier. Two years later, now 6kg lighter and at the age when cyclists are at their strongest, he rode the Giro and the Tour again; taking second place in Stages 1 and 21 in Italy then third in Stage 1, second in Stage 4 and top ten in four other stages at the Tour - enough to propel him into fourth place in the overall General Classification, becoming the joint most successful British Tour de France rider in history (he shared it with the legendary Scotsman Robert Millar who had finished fourth 23 years earlier).
Having already signed a contract with Garmin-Cervelo for 2010, Wiggins announced late in 2009 that he would in fact be going to the new British outfit Team Sky for the next four years and began the new season with them as team leader. British fans wondered if, at long last, the year would bring them their first winner; but it was not to be - the new hero suffered badly on the cobbles in the first stages that had been designed to pay homage to cycling's toughest one-day race Paris-Roubaix. He learned fast and made up time in Stage 3, but was ultimately and entirely out-classed by Andy Schleck who would be declared race winner after Alberto Contador was banned for two years and stripped of the victory in 2012 after a long and - in the opinions of many -
highly questionable doping investigation.
In 2011, he concentrated on the Tour after deciding not to compete in the Giro, taking part in smaller events to gain fitness. When July arrived, he appeared on the start line looking like an entirely different rider: his body apparently carried not a single gram of fat, looking as though it consisted entirely of bone, sinew and hard muscle. If he was ever going to win a Tour, fans reasoned, he'd never been in better shape for it that he was now. Unfortunately, it was once again not to be - Stage 7 brought a huge pile-up in which numerous riders crashed. It was immediately obvious from the way that Wiggins clutched his shoulder as he lay in agony on the road that he would not be continuing, as was confirmed when doctors discovered he'd broken his collarbone.
Wiggins started 2011 with excellent form, but there were mutterings as the Tour began that he might have been just a little too lean for his body to tolerate the stresses of a Grand Tour - but when he made his first appearances of 2012 it was instantly apparent that he had attained perfection, the sort of form that a small number of cyclists reach for one season in their careers and most will never find. What's more, the Fates had conspired to take two powerful rivals out of the equation: Schleck, once an apparent dead cert for a win, seemed to have lost his edge after troubled times that had also left his new RadioShack team showing cracks and unable to support him, and Contador, widely recognised as the finest stage racer in the world, would not be racing until later in the season due to the doping investigation mentioned above. In March, Wiggins took second place in the opening time trial at Paris-Nice and then took the lead in the General Classification after finishing with the lead group in Stage 2, keeping the lead all the way through the race until a Stage 8 victory made him the first Briton to win the race since Simpson in 1967 (the same year that he died). In April, he won the Tour de Romandie too, the first British rider to have won in the race's 65-year history, leading the General Classification throughout the race with the exception of the Prologue and Stage 4 (when it passed for one day to Luis Leon Sanchez). Wiggins had become the third British winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2011 (the first was Brian Robinson in 1961, the second Robert Millar in 1990) and had done so in splendid style, taking the lead in Stage 3 and keeping it to the end, but the 2012 edition was something else entirely - rather than merely win the race, the faultlessly orchestrated Team Sky controlled it from beginning to end with Wiggins taking the lead in Stage 1 and fending off all attempts to wrest it away.
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| Stage 19, Tour de France 2012 |
The stage was almost set. Wiggins had the form and the team to back him up, Schleck didn't, Contador was otherwise engaged; which left one serious hurdle in the shape of 2011 winner Cadel Evans - with the Tour's parcours being unusually reliant on time trials that year, the race looked to be a match between the two men. Fabian Cancellara won the Prologue and spent the first six stages in yellow, then in Stage 6 the race saw its first mountain, La Planche des Belles Filles. Sky's Chris Froome won the stage while Evans was second and Wiggins third, sharing the same time +2" slower than Froome; Wiggins' overall time was sufficient for him to take the maillot jaune with Evans 10" behind. Evans is known to be a good time trial rider, therefore many people believed that he could take the lead or at least reduce his deficit in Stage 9, a 41.5km individual race against the clock but, in the event, it would be disastrous for the Australian: Wiggins won with a time 35" quicker than second place Froome, 57" quicker than the legendary Cancellara and 1'43" quicker than sixth place Evans, earning a 1'53" overall advantage. He increased this to 2'05" in Stage 11, then 3'21" in Stage 19 - and the following day, the 22nd of July 109 years after the Tour was first raced and three-quarters of a century after Charles Holland and Bill Burl had been the first Britons to take part, the dream finally came true: Bradley Wiggins became the first male British rider to win the Tour de France*. That remarkable form lasted beyond the Tour and he won the Individual Time Trial at the Olympics, thus becoming the only cyclist to have won his sport's greatest prize and Olympic gold in a single season.
*British women had won the Tour de France Féminin three times - Nicole Cooke in 2006 and 2007 and Emma Pooley in 2009, the last time the race took place.
Pino Cerami was born in Sicily on this day in 1922 but took Belgian citizenship in 1956. In 1960, he won Paris-Roubaix and La Flèche Wallonne. Three years later, he won Stage 9 at the Tour de France - as he was 41 at the time, he is the oldest Tour stage winner ever
Steven Wong, born in Belgium on this day in 1988, is a professional BMX rider with the Hong Kong team who also rides in road races with China's Champion Racing System team. He was offered a place with the national BMX team in Belgium, where his father owns a restaurant, but decided to represent Hong Kong instead.
José Adrián Bonilla, born in Costa Rica on this day in 1978, became involved in the Operación Puerto scandal of 2006 when a bag of blood labelled "Bonilla Alfredo," found in the laboratory of the notorious Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, was shown to be his. However, as the judge presiding over the case declined to share evidence with either the UCI or the World Anti-Doping Agency, he escaped athletic sanction.
Other cyclists born on this day: Walter Richli (Switzerland, 1913, died 1944); Mikhail Kolyushev (USSR, 1943); Olga Slyusareva (USSR, 1969); Carlo Rancati (Italy, 1940); Czeslaw Lukaszewicz (Canada, 1964); Rubén Pegorín (Argentina, 1965); Óscar Aquino (Guatemala, 1966); August Prosenik (Yugoslavia, 1916, died 1975); Hege Stendahl (Norway, 1967); Donald Ferguson (USA, 1931); Bernard Kręczyński (Poland, 1953); Arthur Mannsbarth (Austria, 1930).
