Daily Cycling Facts 12.07.2014

Dave Bruylandts, born in Lier, Belgium on this day in 1976, turned professional with Palmans-Ideal in 1999 and remained with them for a year and five months. He then went to Farm Frites and stayed with them for two years before swapping to Marlux-Wincor-Nixdorf, the team he was riding for in 2004 when he tested positive for EPO and was given an 18-month ban. When he returned he rode for Unibet for six months, but the team let him go during a period when it had problems getting invited to races due to laws banning teams sponsored by betting companies. He moved then to Klaipeda-Splendid and retired in 2008. He is married to Femke Melis, who was herself a professional cyclist for a short while.

Rudolf Lewis

Rudolf Ludewyk Lewis, born in Pretoria, South Africa on this day in 1887, won a gold medal in the Individual Time Trial at the 1912 Olympics. A year later, he came second at the Rund um Köln.


Other cyclists born on this day: Glen Thomson (New Zealand, 1973); Peter Mitchell (Great Britain, 1990); Ralph Mecredy (Great Britain, 1888, died 1968); Dominique Damiani (France, 1953); Alla Yakovleva (USSR, 1963); Muhammad Naqi Mallick (India, later Pakistan, 1928); Zbyněk Fiala (Czechoslovakia, 1964); Norm Alvis (USA, 1963); Clyde Wilson (Bermuda, 1959); Fiona Ramage (New Zealand, 1978); David Muntaner (Spain, 1983); Plamen Timchev (Bulgaria, 1951); Rafael Montero (Chile, 1913); Michael Horgan (Ireland, 1934); Edy Baumann (Switzerland, 1914, died 1993); Diederik Foubert (Belgium, 1961).

Daily Cycling Facts 11.07.2014

Tour de France 1998
21 stages + prologue, 3,877.1km.

For the first time, the Tour visited Ireland - the prologue was in Dublin, Stage 1 started and ended in Dublin and Stage 2 ran from Enniscorthy to Cork; then the teams sailed to Roscoff in Brittany for the start of the rest of the race. The number of teams was reduced from 22 to 21 in order to also reduce the number of riders, this having been declared the reason for a large number of crashes in 1997.

British rider Chris Boardman, a time trial specialist, won the prologue and started the race in the maillot jaune for the third time in his career. Erik Zabel took it in Stage 2, then lost it to Bo Hamburger the next day; next it went to the Australian Stuart O'Grady who kept it for three stages until 1997 winner Jan Ullrich got it in Stage 7. Ullrich handed it over to Laurent Desbians the following day but won in back in Stage 9 and, a few days later, looked very much as though he was going to keep it.

Then the race reached the Alps and Marco Pantani blew it apart. 48km from the end of Stage 15, he attacked so hard on Galibier that Ullrich was left reeling, completely and utterly unable to respond to the Italian's power. Pantani even stopped on the way to put on a rain jacket, but still took 8'57" from the man who was no longer his rival and finished the stage as overall leader with an advantage of 3'53" over new second place Bobby Julich (and 5'56" on Ullrich). The following day, Ullrich had to win simply to remain in contention and he did a very impressive job of doing so, leading the peloton over the stage's fifth and final climb; but Pantani stayed with him, and the gap between them remained the same. The German made up time with more superb performances, including his excellent ride in the Stage 20 time trial when he took back 2'35"; but what Pantani had done on Galibier was insurmountable and he won by 3'21" overall.

Pantani was one of the finest grimpeurs in cycling history; had it not have been for the problems he would later face, leading to his tragic death on Valentine's Day in 2004, he might even have topped the achievements of Federico Bahamontes and Charly Gaul. It is, therefore, a great shame that his only Tour victory was overshadowed by the scandals that hit the 1998 race. The first the world knew about a massive investigation into doping was when the Festina team's Belgian soigneur Willy Voet was stopped at the French border in a car packed with enough drugs to open a small but well-stocked pharmacy (he tells his story in his book, Breaking the Chain; a must-read despite suffering a little from Voet being a soigneur rather than a writer). Next came police raids on the teams' hotels, with another huge stash of doping products being seized from the TVM team, then a riders' protest in Stage 17 and the nullification of the stage. It didn't end there and, before long, what became known as the Festina Affair mushroomed into the biggest and most damaging scandal to have ever hit cycling and its effects are still being felt to this day.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Marco Pantani (ITA) Mercatone Uno 92h 49' 46"
2 Jan Ullrich (GER) Telekom +3' 21"
3 Bobby Julich (USA) Cofidis +4' 08"
4 Christophe Rinero (FRA) Cofidis +9' 16"
5 Michael Boogerd (NED) Rabobank +11' 26"
6 Jean-Cyril Robin (FRA) US Postal Service +14' 57"
7 Roland Meier (SUI) Cofidis +15' 13"
8 Daniele Nardello (ITA) Mapei +16' 07"
9 Giuseppe Di Grande (ITA) Mapei +17' 35"
10 Axel Merckx (BEL) Polti +17' 39"


Gérard Saint, born on this day in 1935, was a French cyclist who won the overall Combativity award and came ninth in the General Classification at the 1959 Tour de France. e became known as a good all-rounder, despite being unusually large at 1.91m tall for a rider who did as well in the mountains as he did, and was popular among fans because he worked as an unskilled farm labourer before becoming a professional cyclist. He died on the 16th of March 1960 after crashing his Citroen ID into a tree. A stadium in Argentan, the town of his birth, is named in his honour.

Ingrid Haringa, born in Velsen, Netherlands on this day in 1964, began her athletic career as a speed skater. She made her debut in international track cycling at the World Championships of 1991, where she won the Sprint and the Points race; then successfully defended the Points title for the subsequent three years.

Other cyclists born on this day: Davide Malacarne (France, 1987); Artem Ovechkin (USSR, 1986); Jacques Michaud (France, 1951); Gérard Saint (France, 1935); Adolf Heeb (Liechtenstein, 1940); Miloslav Kejval (Czechoslovakia, 1973); Julio Sobrera (Uruguay, 1927); Ingrid Haringa (Netherlands, 1964); Edgardo Pagarigan (Philippines, 1958); Roland Lacombe (France, 1938, died 2011); Cossi Houegban (Benin, 1964); Johan Kankkonen (Finland, 1886, died 1955); Franz Lemnitz (Germany, 1890, died 1942); Ion Cosma (Romania, 1937).

Daily Cycling Facts 10.07.2014

Tour de France 1939

Tour de France 1939

18 stages (Stages 2,  6, 8, 12, 17 and 18 split into parts A and B, Stages 10 and 16 split into parts A, B and C), 4,224km.

There were three big differences in 1939 compared to earlier races - one with the race, one with the parcours and one with the riders themselves. The difference in the race was that a mountain time trial had been added for the first time: in Stage 16, riders faced a very tough 64km route between Bonneval and Bourg-Saint-Maurice high in the Rhône-Alpes. The parcours differed because for many years it had closely followed the borders - now, with Europe on the brink of war and worrying news from Germany, the race turned north-west at Annecy and headed through France via Dôle, Dijon and Troyes to Paris, remaining well away from the German frontier. Finally, the riders had at long last realised that Henri Pélissier had been right 20 years earlier - it made sense for an athlete to follow a controlled diet designed to enhance their performance. As a result, they began to take vitamin supplements.

"I'm so glad that now that summer is approaching we have an event that makes us forget the dark political events that are taking place. The Tour de France is something of an armistice of the heart." - Henri Troyat

Neither Germany nor Italy sent teams, nor did Spain as it was torn apart by civil war. This posed a problem for organisers, so for the first time four French regional teams were selected. The Belgians were also permitted to send an A and B team. The main French team wasn't considered the best to ever contested the Tour - André Leducq had retired a year earlier; his most obvious replacements were Georges Speicher, Antonin Magne and Roger Lapébie, but none of them were taking part. Therefore, the Belgians were favourite.

Amédée Fournier won the first Tour stage of his career in Stage 1 after crossing the line first among a group of nine (he won the last of his career in Stage 5 too), but with Romain Maes finishing in second place and recording the same time nobody expected the maillot jaune to stay put for long. In fact, it changed hands the very next day during the Stage 2a individual time trial, when Maes won by 1'24" - and as he was a previous Tour winner, fans assumed he'd hang onto it for a few stages. He did not: that same afternoon he finished Stage 2b 9'36" and in 37th place behind an escape group led by Eloi Tassin (who would become the first post-war French road race champion). Jean Fontenay became overall leader, and with René Vietto 2'10" behind him it was only because of the plain parcours that he kept it for two days.

Vietto became leader after escaping with a group of eight during Stage 4; seemingly an unusual move for a climber as he'd have a hard job defending it on the plain stages to come - his overall advantage remained 6" all the way to the Stage 8b time trial. In that stage he beat the majority of his rivals, increasing his advantage to 58". However, the next day Edward Vissers attacked and got away from the peloton. A chase group - including Vietto - went after him, but he crossed the line 4'04" ahead of them; meanwhile Sylvère Maes (who wasn't related to Romain and presumably had no interest in catching Vissers, who was a member of the Belgian B team he captained) had tagged along with the chase group as a good way of getting himself to the finish faster than the majority of the pack. As the line approached he sprinted past and took second place, thus jumping into second place overall with a 2'57" disadvantage to Vietto. This situation remained the same after Stage 10a, but the gap then increased to 3'19" after the Stage 10b individual time trial; this time it remained the same until Stage 12b when Maes came second, recording an equal time to stage winner Maurice Archambaud, while Vietto was sixth and 1'30" down - Maes' disadvantage was slashed to 1'49". Once again, nothing changed for a couple of stages.

Maes on Izoard, 1939

This led to an interesting situation. Vietto was purely a clumber, Maes was thought to be better on the flat - and there were three mountain stages, three plain stages, one mountain time trial and one plain time trial left. In general, it's easier for a climber to win time in the mountains than it is for a rider who prefers flat terrain in the plain stages, however, and so it was widely believed that Vietto would win the Tour on the Alps. Things did not go according to plan: Vissers led over the Allos and Vars, then - as has happened so many times in Tour history - Izoard changed everything. Maes attacked and easily outclassed Vietto, who found himself completely unable to respond and, by the end of the stage, in second place overall with with 1'49" advantage transformed into a 17'12" disadvantage. Then, in the Stage 16b mountain time trial on Iseran, Maes beat him by 9'48" to increase his lead to 27' - and the only way Vietto could have won after that would be if Maes abandoned. He did not, and even added more time over the remainder of the race; at the end of the final stage the Belgian's advantage was 30'38", the largest winning margin for ten years.

The race ended on the 30th of July. 33 days later, on the 1st of September, Nazi Germany invaded Poland; two days after that France and Britain declared war on Germany. There wouldn't be another Tour for eight years.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Sylvère Maes (BEL) Belgium 132h 03' 17"
2 René Vietto (FRA) South-East +30' 38"
3 Lucien Vlaemynck (BEL) Belgium B +32' 08"
4 Mathias Clemens (LUX) Luxembourg +36' 09"
5 Edward Vissers (BEL) Belgium +38' 05"
6 Sylvain Marcaillou (FRA) France +45' 16"
7 Albertin Disseaux (BEL) Belgium B +46' 54"
8 Jan Lambrichs (NED) Netherlands +48' 01"
9 Albert Ritserveldt (BEL) Belgium B +48' 27"
10 Cyriel Vanoverberghe (BEL) Belgium B +49' 44"


Hélène Dutrieu

Hélène Dutrieu

Born in Tournai, Belgium on this day in 1877, Hélène Dutrieu became arguably the world's first female cycling superstar. Her father, an officer in the Belgian Army, seems to have been of the unusually enlightened opinion that girls and young women should be permitted to have ambitions other than marriage and children; having been raised in such a healthy and nurturing environment she decided after leaving school at the age of 14 to make her way in the world of work. We don't know when she began riding a bike, but there's a good chance that like many of the male cyclists who turned professional in those days she used a bike to get to work and discovered she was good at riding it - and at the age of sixteen she turned professional with the Simpson Lever team.

In 1895, Dutrieu set a women's hour record and she won the World Speed Track Championships in Ostend in both 1897 and 1898, becoming a household name and earning the nickname La Flèche Humaine. In August 1898 she also won the Grand Prix d'Europe, then a few months later the Course de 12 Jours in London - for which she was awarded the Cross of St André by the king of Belgium. In those days, it was impossible for even a woman as talented as Dutrieu to make a living from racing (even now, more than a century later, the vast majority of "professional" female cyclists are forced to find work between races); so she began appearing at variety shows and public events as a stunt rider, one of her most famous stunts being to ride a vertical loop. She also performed stunts on a motorbike and in cars, later becoming a racing driver.

In 1910, Dutrieu became the first woman to pilot a plane with a passenger; later that year she became the fourth woman in the world (and the first from Belgium) to earn a full pilot's licence, after which she became a stunt aviator with a new nickname - The Girl Hawk - and won numerous competitions and set new records (and caused a minor scandal when she revealed that she didn't wear a corset when flying). In the First World War she drove an ambulance between the trenches and was later installed as director of a military hospital, then after the conflict ended she became a journalist. When she married in 1922 she took French nationality, later becoming vice-president of the women's Aero Club of France and established the Coupe Hélène Dutrieu-Mortier, an award of 200,000 francs for the female Belgian or French pilot to have completed the longest flight in any one year. She died on the 26th of June 1961, aged 83. (For a similar character, see Marie Marvingt - the woman who applied to ride the Tour.)


Víctor Hugo Peña, born in Bogota on this day in 1974, was recruited to the US Postal team in 2001 as a domestique serving Lance Armstrong. He rode the Tour in that capacity that year, again in 2002 and then again in 2003 - when, following the team's successful time trial in Stage 4, he became the first Colombian to have ever worn the maillot jaune. He kept it for three stages, then Richard Virenque took it for a single stage in the Alps before it went to Armstrong for the rest of the race.

Davis Phinney, born in Boulder, Colorado on this day in 1959, became the second American rider in the history of the Tour de France to win a stage in 1986. A devastatingly fast sprinter when at his best, he claims (with some justification) to have won more races than any other American cyclist. In 1999, aged 40, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease; together with wife Connie Carpenter-Phinney (also a professional cyclist and three-time National Road Race Champion) he created the Davis Phinney Foundation, a charitable organisation that seeks to improve the lives of others with the disease. Their son, Taylor, is also a famous professional cyclist.

Wilfried Cretskens, born in Herk-de-Stad, Belgium on this day in 1976, won the Juniors Ronde van Vlaanderen in 1993 and 2007 Tour of Qatar. He has ridden in three Grand Tours (the Vuelta a Espana in 2001, the Tour de France in 2005 and 2006) but failed to finish.

Other cyclists born on this day: Wilfried Peeters (Belgium, 1964); Sarah Walker (New Zealand, 1988); Tsutomu Okabori (Japan, 1957); Roberto Amadio (Italy, 1963); Oliver Martin (USA, 1946); Rıfat Çalışkan (Turkey, 1940); Aubrey Bryce (Guyana, 1949); Oliver McQuaid (Ireland, 1954); Héctor Páez (Colombia, 1982); Eom Yeong-Seop (South Korea, 1964); Dante Benvenuti (Argentina, 1925, died 2002); Sonny Cullen (Ireland, 1934, died 1999); Tilahun Alemayehu (Ethiopia, 1962); Jens Glücklich (West Germany, 1966).

Daily Cycling Facts 09.07.2014

Tour de France 1905
11 stages, 2,994km.

In 1905, the Tour had seen so much cheating that several riders were banned for life and director Henri Desgrange swore that the race would never be held again. However, by now the race had grown to be far bigger than anyone could have hoped - and was bringing in a lot of money too, so it didn't take too much persuasion to convince him that it should go ahead again in 1905. There would be big changes: the overall winner would now be decided on points rather than according to accumulated time, with the winner of each stage receiving one point, second place two points and third three points and so on plus an extra point for every five minutes between them and the next rider up to a maximum of elevem (the idea was, obviously, to end with as few points as possible, rather like observed trials mountain biking); the intention being that the finishing order became more important rather than winning in as short a finishing time counted, so that riders wouldn't be tempted to cheat by completing parts of a stage by car or train. Another change was that the stages were much shorter (the shortest in 1905 was more than 200km shorter than the shortest in 1904) and would start in the morning rather than the afternoon to ensure they finished during daylight, when officials could better keep an eye on what riders were up to - one method of cheating apparently used widely in 1904 (though with little evidence, it seems) had riders gripping a cork attached by wire to a team car, things such as this could now be far more easily noticed. It worked: none of the top ten in the General Classification nor any stage winner had to be disqualified (that may have been very different had doping controls existed - in those days before reliable tests, riders swallowed, sniffed and injected all sorts of things). Another change permitted riders to be paced by another cyclist, a tandem or a motor vehicle - this had not previously been allowed in the Tour, which was one of the first major cycle races to prevent riders from making use of pacing.

Ballon d'Alsace - the Tour's first mountain (well, sort of...)

In both of the previous editions, the race had been over the Col de la République; Desgrange had preferred to keep this quiet because he felt it would discourage riders from entering. A few route organisers had suggested adding more mountains, perhaps with points for the riders who got to the top fastest, but Desgrange was reluctant. Before the 1905 route was chosen, a L'Auto staff member named Alphonse Steinès took him for a car trip over the Col Bayard and Ballon d'Alsace and, showing him how spectacular a mountain stage could be, finally convinced him - though he made Steinès agree that, should the mountains prove too hard and ruin the race (or, as he had worried before, the riders were robbed by bandits or eaten by bears), the blame would be entirely his and not Desgrange's. Thus, Ballon d'Alsace was included in Stage 2 and the Rampe de Laffrey and Bayard in Stage 4; the first official climbs in the Tour de France.

Aucouturier

Maurice Garin had initially won in 1904 but then been banned for two years; several other top riders were banned for varying periods of time. There was, therefore, no obvious favourite - Henri Cornet was eventually declared winner the previous year, but since he'd originally been fifth and more than three hours slower that Garin he wasn't considered a contender; Louis Trousselier, Hippolyte Aucouturier, Antony Wattelier and René Pottier looked likely to do well, but really nobody knew.

The organisers thought they'd found a way to rein in badly-behaving riders, but the French public were another matter entirely and in the very first stage all the riders (except, rather suspiciously, Jean-Baptiste Dortinacq) had to stop and repair punctures after persons unknown spread 125kg of tacks across the road. However, Trousselier was able to catch Dortinacq up and win the stage - he had to: he was in the Army at the time and had requested permission to enter the race but was only allowed 24 hours leave. He believed, correctly, that if he won the stage his commanding officer would extend his leave - but it was a huge risk to take because he could very easily have ended up facing a court martial (which have since been abolished in France); and he was so determined to escape that prospect that he set a pace so high only fifteen riders finished within the time limit. Fifteen others finished after the limit and the remainder eventually showed up on a train. Desgrange was understandably furious and announced that the race was being abandoned immediately, but the riders managed to talk him round after accepting a 75 point penalty.

Pottier

Aucouturier, Trousselier, Cornet and Pottier got away on the Ballon d'Alsace on Stage 2 after avoiding more nails spread over the road; the heavily-built Aucouturier and Trousselier rapidly finding that they were at a disadvantage when the terrain headed upward. Cornet, still only 20 years old (his 1904 victory makes him the youngest Tour winner ever), found that he wasn't able to keep up with Pottier and was the next to be dropped, thus Pottier became the first man up the first mountain in the Tour de France. On the way down, he discovered the flip-side to the lighter-man-has-the-advantage-when-climbing rule - a heavier rider usually has the advantage when descending because his weight prevents the bike skipping around: Aucouturier caught Pottier and won the stage. Unfortunately, Pottier wouldn't be able to get his revenge when the race reached Bayard, because in Stage 3 he developed tendinitis and abandoned (some sources say he hurt his ankle when he collided with a spectator). Trousselier won again; not far behind him in second place was Lucien Petit-Breton, who would become the first man to win the Tour twice a few years later.

Stage 4, with the Rampe de Laffrey, was where Desgrange must have been convinced once and for all that the riders could cope with the mountains - as one of France's steepest roads (in places, it reaches a gradient of 18%; this has also made it one of the country's most dangerous roads - four accidents to have taken place there are considered the worst motoring accidents in French history  and there used to be a warning sign depicting a skull with flashing lights for eyes until someone decided it was in bad taste), if the riders got up it they could cope with anything else. Julien Maitron, who would win Stage 6 in 1910, was first to the top of both climbs but once again Aucouturier was fastest on the way down; Trousselier was second.

Louis Trousselier

Trousselier won Stage 5 and second on Stage 6, by which time it was impossible for the majority of riders to catch up in the General Classification and most of those that - through a miracle - could had given up and were competing for second. On Stage 7 he had a puncture shortly after the start line, at which point the entire peloton seized its chance and attacked - when, after 200km of chasing, he caught them and then won the stage, they all gave up.

Pottier, despite abandoning, was declared the Tour's very first meilleur grimpeur ("best climber"). Many years later, the meilleur grimpeur would evolve into the King of the Mountains classification. Trousselier earned 6,950 francs for winning the General Classification. The night after doing so he gambled it all away.

Meanwhile, Desgrange's gamble paid dividends - rather than the disaster he'd feared, the riders had got up all the mountains and the spectators had been more impressed than ever, even though quite a few of them probably would have quite liked to have seen a rider being eaten by a bear. Therefore, he was able to report to L'Auto's owners that his race had increased the paper's daily circulation to 100,000 copies. The next year, the Massif Central was added and, a few years later, the Pyrenees and then the Alps.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louis Trousselier (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 35
2 Hippolyte Aucouturier (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 61
3 Jean-Baptiste Dortignacq (FRA) Saving 64
4 Emile Georget (FRA) JC Cycles 123
5 Lucien Petit-Breton (FRA) JC Cycles 155
6 Augustin Ringeval (FRA) JC Cycles 202
7 Paul Chauvet (FRA) Griffon 231
8 Philippe Pautrat (FRA) JC Cycles 248
9 Julien Maitron (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber/Griffon 255
10 Julien Gabory (FRA) JC Cycles 304


Federico Bahamontes

Bahamontes, The Eagle of Toledo

When he was 13, Federico Bahamontes and his father Julián became refugees of the Spanish Civil War and went to Madrid in search of food and shelter. Julián found work breaking rocks and earned enough money to start a fresh produce market stall; Federico, like so many boys that became great cyclists, helped support the family by delivering groceries on a heavy utility bike. In 1942 he saw Julián Berrendero win the Vuelta a Espana and became smitten with cycling, which later persuaded him to start racing - and on the 18th of July in 1947, he won the first event he'd ever entered.

Born in Santo-Domingo-Caudilla on this day in 1928, Bahamontes was still an amateur when he won a stage and the King of the Mountains in the 1954 Vuelta a Asturias. That race that brought him to the attention of the Spanish Federation, which wasted no time in recruiting him for the national team that would compete in the 1954 Tour de France - the team coach recognised that there was little he could do to improve on the raw natural talent Bahamontes displayed and sent him off with only one instruction: "Try to win it." He didn't, but he did lead the King of the Mountains from the first stage it was awarded (Stage 11) all the way through to the end of the race. He won the Mountains classification at the Giro d'Italia the next year too, then at the Vuelta a Espana the year after that.

Enough climbing talent to make a thousand mortal grimpeurs:
Gaul and Bahamontes

In 1958, he went back to the Tour and was widely considered a favourite. He won the King of the Mountains, but this year he faced one obstacle even he couldn't defeat - Charly Gaul. Bahamontes was arguably a better climber than Gaul on account of his consistency and ability to perform well in all condition but for three weeks that year Gaul found the form of his life and, when the weather at the Tour was as cold and as miserable as he liked it to be, he could climb like no rider seen before nor since, taking the General Classification after making no less a mountain than Ventoux look easy; Bahamontes settled for King of the Mountains again. However, Gaul could only perform well in the sort of weather that had his rivals wishing they'd taken jobs in heated offices; while he could still beat Bahamontes when they escaped together during Stage 17 a year later, the weather was warmer throughout the race and he was simply unable to achieve the consistency he'd have needed to beat the Spaniard and finished out of the top ten overall. Bahamontes took the General Classification and the King of the Mountains that year, twelve years to the day since he won his first race. Some say that he did so only because the rider's agent Daniel Dousset ordered his riders on the French team to let Bahamontes win because he knew that was the only way Henri Anglade, who was handled by rival agent Roger Piel and would be a far greater threat to Dousset's rider Jacques Anquetil in the lucrative post-Tour "round the houses" races than pure climber Bahamontes, could be prevented from winning. Most people who were there to see Bahamontes ride say he would have won anyway.

All in all, Bahamontes won a total of nine King of the Mountains (one at the Giro, two at the Vuelta, six at the Tour - when Lucien van Impe looked like winning his seventh in 1975, he decided to hold back and let the competition go to another rider rather than beat the record set by the man he considered the master). Like Gaul, he had the looks of a grimpeur but didn't ride like one: he was stiff on the bike and rode sitting upright; unlike Gaul, who looked as though he'd been born with the bike attacked to his body, he never seemed quite comfortable and would change his hand positions on the handlebars almost constantly.

In common with most climbers (but not Gaul, who feared nothing but himself) Bahamontes had a great dislike of descending because he was too light to be able to prevent the bike skipping around at high speed. During his amateur career Bahamontes once came off the road and fell into a cactus, and he never liked to take risks after that, often unclipping himself from the toe-straps so he could dab a foot on the ground. According to legend, he was so afraid to descend the Galibier alone having ridden up it solo in the Tour that he stopped, sat down on a wall and had an ice-cream while waiting for the rest of the riders to catch up. Rather than risk disqualification or a fine, the Spanish managers ordered the team mechanic to pretend he was fixing a fault with the bike; but the rider has suggested that this wasn't the case and he was simply afraid to descend alone.

 Bahamontes with Gaul (left) 

At the time of writing, Bahamontes is 85 years old and still very much with us. Mentally, he appears to be still as sharp as he was when he won his Tour; but long gone is the impulsive, sometimes rather infuriating rider who threw his bike over a cliff at the 1956 Tour so that his team mates wouldn't be able to change his mind about abandoning, replaced by a likable, charming and exquisitely mannered gentleman. During the last two decades of Gaul's life, when he had been found living alone in a forest hut with little memory of who had once been and was then returned to the world by the woman who would become his wife, Bahamontes befriended him; he also became a close friend of his childhood hero Berrendero.


Other riders born on this day: Stephen Gallagher (Northern Ireland, 1980); Richard England (Australia, 1981); Dale Stetina (USA, 1956); Eric Thompson (Great Britain, 1927); Armen Arslanian (Lebanon, 1960); Saber Mohamed Hasan (Bahrain, 1967); Jens Juul Eriksen (Denmark, 1926); Obed Ngaite (Central African Republic, 1967).

Daily Cycling Facts 08.07.2014

The Tour de France has started on the date twice, in 1907 and 1954.

1907

Stage 3, 1907

14 stages, 4,488km.
In any Tour, the winner of the last edition is usually considered the favourite; in 1907 René Pottier could not be due to tragic circumstances - some time around Christmas and the New Year, he'd discovered that while he was away winning the 1906 Tour his wife had been having an affair and, on the 25th of January, he hanged himself. Louis Trousselier, Emile Georget and François Faber were considered most likely to replace him and, for the first time, favourites achieved something like modern celebrity status with newspapers and magazines publishing biographies, back stories and gossip. For the second time, the race ventured outside France - in 1906 it had gone into German-controlled Alsace-Lorraine, it did so again when it visited Metz but under notably different conditions: with relations between Europe's great powers deteriorating fast, the French flag was strictly banned once the race passed the border and the official cars were not permitted to go with the riders. Curiously, one of the biggest problems was caused on the way back into France - French customs held the riders up for so long that the race had to be halted and restarted once they'd finished. During Stage 4 from Belfort to Lyon, the race passed through Romandy - the first time it had ever been to Switzerland. It was also the first time that the Alps were specifically included for the challenge they presented, rather than simply because they happened to be between stage towns, Henri Desgrange having been persuaded by the popularity of the Vosges and Massif Central stages in the previous two years that his fears the riders would be attacked by bandits or eaten by bears was worth the risk. Because of this added hardship, the coureurs de vitesse (riders sponsored by trade teams, but expected to ride for themselves alone) were permitted to receive help from mechanics following the race in cars and could even continue on a replacement bike if their machine was declared beyond repair by a course official. Coureurs sur machines poinçonnées (later known as touriste-routiers and then independents before being barred from entry) received either limited sponsorship, perhaps being supplied with a bike, or none at all and were expected to carry out all repairs themselves and to complete the race with only one bike.

Georget's crash, 1907

Trousselier won the first stage by 3'30; Georget beat him by a tiny margin and moved into third overall on Stage 2 in Metz but judges decided for unclear reasons that they should be awarded joint first place. Trousselier nevertheless remained in first place overall with a four point advantage (Cadolle, in second place, was three points down). When Georget won Stage 3 he moved into first, leading Trousselier by a point. Cadolle was now third with a three point disadvantage and thus remained in second place after Stage 4, despite beating Georget by a second. On Stage 5 Georget and Faber led the race together over the 500m Les Eschelles, but when they arrived at 1,326, Col du Porte Faber, who was much bigger and heavier, found himself outclassed; Georget left him behind and won the stage by 7', increasing his lead to seven points. He then came second behind Georges Passerieu on Stage 6, but Passerieu was too far down in the General Classification for a stage victory to make any meaningful difference - Cadolle was fifth, crossing the line 27' later and Georget's advantage rose to ten points. On the next stage, Cadolle crashed and fell onto his bike, ending up with a piece of flesh ripped from his knee by the handlebars. With his biggest rival gone, Georget won that stage and the next - by the end of Stage 8, his advantage was 16 points.

During Stage 9, Georget arrived at a checkpoint where riders had to stop and sign their names to prove they'd followed the route and not taken shortcuts (or, as was quite common in the early Tours, a train), and just as he arrived his frame snapped. What happened next is slightly mysterious: despite the race officials around the checkpoint meaning that any sort of rule-breaking would be spotted and punished, he decided that rather than losing time by waiting while his damaged bike was declared irreparable he'd just take one from his Peugeot-Wolver team mate Pierre Gonzague-Privat, who was so far behind overall that waiting for a decision and a replacement made little difference - was he completely ignorant of the rule, did he think that it would be overlooked (and anyone who knew anything about Tour officials and their legendary officiousness would surely be well aware that it would most definitely not) or was he told by an unknown person, perhaps an official bribed by another rider or team manager, that he could take his team mate's bike? More than a century later, we will probably never know. He was fined 500 francs, but ended with a 19.5 point advantage over Lucien Petit-Breton who moved into second place by winning the stage.

At Ville d'Avray, 1907

After Stage 9, Trousselier declared his belief that Georget's punishment was too light and left the race in protest, taking the entire Alcyon team with him. Organisers apparently felt the same because they then decided to relegate him from first place to last for that stage which, once his points for coming third on Stage 10 had been taken in account, gave him a 25.5 point overall disadvantage to new leader Petit-Breton who led stage winner and new General Classification second place Gustave Garrigou by 15 points. With four stages left, Georget's chances of winning were completely lost, and when Petit-Breton won Stage 11 and increased his lead to 17 points it began to look very much as though he was the most likely winner - he could only lose now if he abandoned.

Lucien Petit-Breton

Garrigou won Stage 12 but Petit-Breton was second, so his lead only dropped to 16 points. Georget had given up hope of overall victory but still crossed the finish line first in Stage 13, Petit-Breton was second again and so his advantage rose once more to 17 points; then he was third on the final stage and finished the race 19 points ahead. He was the first coureur sur machines poinçonnée to win a Tour, and the next year he became the first man to win a second Tour.

The majority of coureurs sur machines poinçonnée were poor and would sleep anywhere they could during the race, often spending the night in a barn or, sometimes, in a hedge; they would also eat whatever they could find along the way - in those days, when many of them would have been used to living as peasants, they'd have been adept at catching rabbits and birds and foraging for edible plants but they also sometimes lived on what the sponsored riders discarded (as happened in 1914, when a hungry poinçonnée eagerly pounced upon and devoured a half-eaten sandwich thrown away by a sponsored rider - who was promptly penalised by officials for providing assistance to a rider that wasn't part of his own team). Some, meanwhile, were wealthy men who entered the Tour for the adventure - and the most famous of them all was Henri Pépin. Pépin had no intention of winning the Tour and treated it all as a jolly jaunt around the countryside, taking with him a pair of men named Henri Gauban and Jean Dargassies (actually Dargaties, but Tour organisers misheard him and it stuck) whom he had hired to support him and act as manservants (and who, as a result, are the first riders to have ridden a Tour purely to support another rider rather than to attempt a win for themselves - the first domestiques, no less). Each night, at his expense, they slept in the finest hotel the stage town had to offer and every day they would select a restaurant along the route and dine in style. They were, therefore, far from the first riders over the line every day; in fact, they finished Stage 2 twelve hours and twenty minutes after winner Emile Georget, the more serious riders having set off at 5.30am while Pépin was engaged in what journalist Pierre Chany delicately termed "conversation with a lady" - they were not, however, last; four men finished after them. By all accounts, Desgrange was not impressed, but as the race was decided on points rather than times (hence no time limits) there was nothing he could do.

Henri  Pépin

The crowd didn't declare Pépin nothing but a useless, spoiled playboy as he was already well known to them and had proved himself an able cyclist many years earlier - he had been featured on the cover of Le Cycle magazine, when he was a member of Veloce Club de Marmande, and in 1897 he was vice-consul of the French cycling federation. Their good nature towards him, however, was deserved, even though he seems to have been rather keen to pass himself off as an aristocrat when he was not one: one day, he and his two comrades came across a rider named Jean-Marie Teychenne who had hit la fringale, then fallen into a ditch and was too hungry to pull himself out and continue. The man explained that he was finished and could be left until the broom wagon came for him.

"Nonsense!" Pépin told him, instructing Gauban and Dargassies to pull the man out of the ditch. "We are but three but we live well and we shall finish this race. We may not win, but we shall see France!" The three were now four, with Pépin happily paying for Teychenne to get a taste of the  highlife with them.

In Stage 5, Pépin decided he'd had enough of the game and paid his assistants a sum equal to the prize awarded to the race winner, then caught a train home. Dargassies - who, it appears, knew Pépin from the 1905 Tour which they had both ridden - went with him while Gauban elected to continue and did rather well for a while, narrowing the enormous gap between himself and the race leader to just 36 minutes, but was then beset by misfortune and abandoned during Stage 11. He had entered every Tour since it began, but this was his last. Dargassies also never entered again, but Pépin returned at the age of 49 and raced again in 1914, the year that he died of what was then termed "athleticism" - probably a coronary caused by an undetected heart defect.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lucien Petit-Breton (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 47 Poinçonnées
2 Gustave Garrigou (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 66 Vitesse
3 Emile Georget (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 74 Vitesse
4 Georges Passerieu (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 85 Vitesse
5 François Beaugendre (FRA) Peugeot-Wolber 123 Poinçonnées
6 Eberardo Pavesi (ITA) Otav 150 Poinçonnées
7 François Faber (LUX) Labor-Dunlop 156 Poinçonnées
8 Augustin Ringeval (FRA) Labor-Dunlop 184 Vitesse
9 Aloïs Catteau (BEL) – 196 Poinçonnées
10 Ferdinand Payan (FRA) – 227 Poinçonnées


1954
23 stages (Stages 4 and 21 split into parts A and B), 4,656km.

Wagtmans, 1954

Two new features made their first appearance this year: split stages and team time trials - a few stages in the past had started with teams being sent off separately, but this was the first time that the time they recorded counted towards the General Classification. It was also the first time that the Tour started outside France, the Grand Départ being hosted by Amsterdam and the Stage 1 finish line by Brasschaat, also in the Netherlands - the Dutch national team were therefore determined to do well, and got their wish when Wout Wagtmans won on the first day and then remained in the yellow jersey until Stage 4a, the team time trial - which Switzerland won but saw the French team take back enough time to get Louison Bobet into the overall lead.

Bobet had won Stage 2, but the Swiss riders Ferdy Kübler and Hugo Koblet were right behind him: Koblet, who had won in 1951, was only a minute down in the General Classification at the end of the stage and Gilbert Bauvin just 30". However, it was early days yet and Bobet was a wise rider; he had, therefore, no intention of taking the lead just yet as defending it would require energy best saved for later on - and was probably quite surprised that the maillot jaune remained his when he finished outside the top ten for Stages 4b (during which the strange little climber Jean Robic collided with a photographer and abandoned the race) and 5, then ninth on Stages 6 and 7. In fact, it took until Stage 8 before Wagtmans managed to get into a breakaway and made up enough time to win it back.

Bahamontes on Tourmalet, 1954

Bauvin won Stage 10, the last plain parcours before the Pyrenees, and jumped from ninth to second overall. The next day, Wagtmans crashed - he finished the stage, but had noticeably lost all enthusiasm from that point and it was only by luck that he retained a 9" lead by the end. It didn't last long the next day, because Bauvin, Jean Malléjac and Federico Bahamontes were on him like a pride of lions with a wounded zebra, breaking away and heading off up the infamous Tourmalet/Aspin/Peyresourde Circle of Death like rocketships: by the end of Stage 12 Wagtmans  was 19'20" behind new leader Bauvin. That stage didn't go well for Koblet, either - he'd been a phenomenally talented rider at his best, but he was destined to be one of those riders that gets only a year or two at the top: he crashed, lost 27' and abandoned the following day. Ten years later, when he was 39, he was killed in a car crash that may have been suicide.

Ferdinand Kübler

Despite the loss of their leader, the Swiss team remained highly competitive and set a high pace in Stage 13 with the fiery Kübler driving the peloton at breakneck speed. Bauvin soon discovered that he'd used up far too much energy keeping up with Bahamontes (one of the greatest climbers of all time) the day before and found himself unable to keep up, losing significant time. Bobet could, and when the stage came to an end he'd moved back into first place overall with a 4'33" advantage. Over the coming days it became apparent that Kübler, who had won in 1950, meant to do so again and Bobet faced frequent, savage attacks when the Swiss team went to work on him, not even bothering to chase down the breakaway of also-rans that won the stage. With the average speed pushed high for the second consecutive day, Bauvin lost another 20' and was no longer a contender; meanwhile, Bobet responded to each and every attack - his advantage over Fritz Schär, who had been third after stage 15, remained 10'18" after Stage 16. Kübler and Schär both won back time during Stage 17, but then Bobet repeated his stunning 1953 ride over Izoard, dropping the entire peloton and upping his overall advantage to 12'49" - enough to have won the Tour, especially now that the Swiss were tiring after all that Kübler had asked of them (Kübler was a wonderfully impulsive rider who would throw everything away on a whim; riders like him have long since vanished). He didn't need to win the Stage 21b individual time trial, but when he did he beat Kübler by 2'30"; when the race came to an end two stages later his overall lead was 15'49".

Bobet on Izoard

Bahamontes won the King of the Mountains, the first of six (and he won overall in 1959 too); Kübler won the Points competition. Bobet was the fifth rider to have won two consecutive Tours and, later in the year, became the second man to have won both a Tour and the World Championships in a single season (the first was Georges Speicher in 1933). In a year's time, he would be the first to win three Tours consecutively.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louison Bobet (FRA) France 140h 06' 05"
2 Ferdi Kübler (SUI) Switzerland +15' 49"
3 Fritz Schär (SUI) Switzerland +21' 46"
4 Jean Dotto (FRA) South East +28' 21"
5 Jean Malléjac (FRA) West +31' 38"
6 Stan Ockers (BEL) Belgium +36' 02"
7 Louis Bergaud (FRA) South West +37' 55"
8 Vincent Vitetta (FRA) South East +41' 14"
9 Jean Brankart (BEL) Belgium +42' 08"
10 Gilbert Bauvin (FRA) Center-North East +42' 21"


Cyclists born on this day: Jesse Sergent (New Zealand, 1988); Smaisuk Krisansuwan (Thailand, 1943); Christel Ferrier Bruneau (France, 1979); Mark Bristow (Great Britain, 1962); Jenny McCauley (Ireland, 1974); Otto Luedeke (USA, 1916, died 2005); James Jackson (Canada, 1908); Roberto Pagnin (Italy, 1962); Werner Karlsson (Sweden, 1887, died 1946); Paolo Tiralongo (Italy, 1977); Ivonne Kraft (West Germany, 1970); Bärbel Jungmeier (Austria, 1975); Bernard van de Kerckhove (Belgium, 1941); Stefano Colage (Italy, 1962); Jean-René Bernaudeau (France, 1956); Sven Johansson (Sweden, 1914, died 1982); Bill Messer (Great Britain, 1915); Serge Proulx (Canada, 1953).

Daily Cycling Facts 07.07.2014

The Tour de France started on this day four times - 1936, 1955, 2001 and 2007.

1936
21 stages (Stages 13, 14, 18 and 20 split into parts A and B, Stage 19 split into parts A, B and C), 4,418km.

Desgrange didn't invent the Tour, but he made it what it is.
1936 was his final year as director.

For the very first time, teams from the Netherlands, Romania and Yugoslavia took part - there had also been a team made up of Italians resident in France but, very shortly before the race was due to begin, it was decided that they would not be permitted to take part. It was very noticeable that many more spectators turned out than in previous years, largely due to fine weather and the introduction of a summer public holiday.

Now aged 71, Tour director Henri Desgrange underwent surgery on his prostate a few weeks before the Tour and was due to have another one afterwards, but convinced his reluctant surgeon to agree to him attending in a car padded out with cushions and with a doctor in attendance. At that time, many roads outside of the centre of Paris were primitive, at best cobbled and at worst, unsurfaced tracks full of potholes and gulleys (in rural areas, they would remain as such until the Tour became televised, at which point local mayors began to find the money to modernise them so that the world wouldn't think their communities backward) and even in the first stage it became apparent that he wouldn't be able to continue. He attempted to continue through Stage 2, with a fever and in great pain, but was forced to give up. He retired that day, handing over L'Auto's editorship and the role of Tour director to Jacques Goddet, then traveled to his chateau. He died four years later at his villa on the Mediterranean.

Theo Middelkamp, 1936

Paul Egli won Stage 1 in torrential rain and thus became the first Swiss rider to have ever led the Tour; after that the first week was uneventful until Stage 7 when Theo Middelkamp became the first ever Dutch rider to win a stage - prior to this Tour, he had never left the Netherlands and Ballon d'Alsace in Stage 4 was the first mountain he'd ever seen. During Stage 7, 1935 winner Romain Maes abandoned with bronchitis; 1930 winner Georges Speicher also left a short while later. Maurice Archambaud took the maillot jaune in Stage 4 but, with the race still at an early point, could not defend it for long and it passed to Sylvère Maes (who wasn't related to Romain) in Stage 8. French team leader Antonin Magne expected Maes to beat him in the Stage 13b and 14b individual time trials but he lost a lot more time that he'd hoped - after 13a he was 3'49" behind overall, after 14b the gap had risen to 8'90". Then he tried to attack in the mountains, but Maes was better than expected there as well: Magne moved into second place overall from third in Stage 16 but by the end of Stage 17 he was 26'13" behind. Belgium would also win the two remaining team time trials so, by the end of the race, Maes' lead was 26'55".

Sylvere Mais

The Dutch team finished the race with three riders, the minimum number that permitted them to remain in the teams competition. The Swiss ended up with one remaining rider, Leo Amberg in eighth place; the entire Austrian, Yugoslavian, German and Romanian teams abandoned.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Sylvère Maes (BEL) Belgium 142h 47' 32"
2 Antonin Magne (FRA) France +26' 55"
3 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL) Belgium +27' 53"
4 Pierre Clemens (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +42' 42"
5 Arsène Mersch (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +52' 52"
6 Mariano Cañardo (ESP) Spain/Luxembourg +1h 03' 04"
7 Mathias Clemens (LUX) Spain/Luxembourg +1h 10' 44"
8 Leo Amberg (SUI) Switzerland +1h 19' 13"
9 Marcel Kint (BEL) Belgium +1h 22' 25"
10 Léon Level (FRA) Touriste-routier +1h 27' 57"


1955

Miguel Poblet

22 stages (Stage 1 split into parts A and B), 4,495km.
Unusually, the prologue was replaced with a two-parter first stage featuring a 102km mass start road race and a 12.5km team time trial. For the first time, photo finish technology was used, finally replacing the mirador tower from which judges watched the riders crossing the finish line, the opportunity for human error - and good old-fashioned corruption - having caused many an argument in the past. It was also the first time since the Second World War that German riders took part, not so much due to any hatred the organisers felt for German riders after the war but because riders and organisers alike knew that their safety could not be guaranteed should any members of the public wish to attack them. Now that it had been a decade since the war, the majority realised that any German rider would have been either a child or of very junior rank in the military and, thankfully, no such attack took place. They rode as part of a mixed team that was also home to riders from Australia, Austria and Luxembourg. In addition to them and the French national team there were five French regional teams and one team each from Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and - for the first time in Tour history - Great Britain (the 1937 team made up of Britons Charles Holland and Bill Burl, along with Canadian Pierre Gachon, represented the British Empire rather than just Great Britain).

Miguel Poblet won Stage 1a and became the first Spaniard to have ever worn the maillot jaune, which is quite remarkable considering Spain had sent a team as long ago as 1930 and the enormous popularity of the sport over the Pyrenees, but then he lost it that very afternoon when the Netherlands won the Stage 1b team time trial and the leader's jersey passed to Wout Wagtmans. He kept it after Stage 3, which French team leader and popular favourite for overall victory Louison Bobet won, but lost it the next day to France's Antonin Rolland who got away with a group that finished five minutes ahead of the first favourites (and nine-and-a-half minutes ahead of Bobet) and earned an overall advantage of 9'21". He lost it the next day when Wim van Est joined a break that managed to finish 17'33" ahead of the bunch, but with only 25" to make up he had little difficulty winning it back on Stage 8 - not least of all because van Est was hopelessly outclassed in the mountains which made their first appearance that day.


The mountains were what Charly Gaul had been waiting for - because when the weather was cold enough for him, nobody in the world could climb like he did. He attacked early and was the first man over Les Aravis and the Cols du Telegraphe and Galibier, finishing the stage with 13'47" over second place Ferdinand Kübler; though he was now third overall he'd started the stage 25' behind Rolland and so remained 10'17" down in the General Classification. If he'd been able to do the same on Stage 9 he might well have won the Tour: he came close, attacking early again and being the first over Vars, Cayolle and Vasson but, because of a crash, he lost time and dropped to fourth overall with a disadvantage of 11'53". Meanwhile, Bobet moved into third, 11'33" behind Rolland.

Bobet was favourite - he'd won in 1953 and 1954, was World Champion and had trained aggressively, using the Classics as preparation; his campaign unexpectedly began on Stage 11 when the race climbed Mont Ventoux for the second time in its history. Three years later, when Gaul came to the Tour with the best form he would ever realise, he was so good that Ventoux seemed to welome his presence and he won the Tour; this time it did not and he came 13th, dropping to fifth overall. The old volcano wasn't in the mood to go easy on anyone that day - as Jean Malléjac and  Kübler discovered: Malléjac hadn't even realised he'd collapsed when the doctors got to him, lying flat on the stony ground with one leg still trying to turn the pedals; and he didn't regain consciousness for a quarter of an hour (he was one of six men to collapse that day). Kübler had believed himself able to tame the mountain. Raphaël Géminiani tried to warn him: "Watch out, Ferdy - the Ventoux is not like any other col." Kübler, with his curious habit of referring to himself in the third person, replied: "Ferdy is not like any other rider." Then he tried to sprint to the summit, and hadn't got very far before he was reduced to begging for a push from spectators to get over. On the way down, ashen-faced and in a cold sweat, he found a bar and started drinking heavily. "Ferdy has killed himelf on the Ventoux," he told a press conference that night, then abandoned and never returned to the Tour. Bobet, though, was able to deal with the heat, and he was cleverer than Malléjac and  Kübler - when he saw that Gaul was suffering he realised that an unmissable opportunity had come his way and that if he rode calmly and carefully he could win the stage. He finished in second place overall, now 4'53" behind Rolland, and then waited as his batteries recharged.

Louison Bobet

As a result, Bobet was the only man able to stay anywhere near Gaul when he attacked hard on Aspin and Peyresourde in Stage 17, finishing 1'24" after him while the rest came in with +3'18" or more and becoming race leader with an advantage of 3'08" on Rolland. Gaul attacked again the next day, but this time Bobet recruited a small chase group rather than trying to work alone and after following him over the Aubisque was able to catch and then pass him; his lead now grew to 6'04" - and with only four stages to go, the Tour was his even when he lost time in the time trial.

Bobet thus became the second man to have won three Tours (the first had been Philippe Thys, in 1913, 1914 and 1920) and the first to have won three consecutively, but he suffered for it: a saddle sore that had plagued him throughout the race led to necrosis, and after the race a large quantity of rotting flesh had to be cut away from his groin, in some cases stopping just short of "important organs." He knew that he had destroyed his chances of winning again and while he entered again in 1958 he was visibly unwell throughout the race, yet drove himself on and somehow finished in 7th place overall. He never finished another Tour after that.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Louison Bobet (FRA) France 130h 29' 26"
2 Jean Brankart (BEL) Belgium +4' 53"
3 Charly Gaul (LUX) Luxembourg/Mixed +11' 30"
4 Pasquale Fornara (ITA) Italy +12' 44"
5 Antonin Rolland (FRA) France +13' 18"
6 Raphaël Géminiani (FRA) France +15' 01"
7 Giancarlo Astrua (ITA) Italy +18' 13"
8 Stan Ockers (BEL) Belgium +27' 13"
9 Alex Close (BEL) Belgium +31' 10"
10 François Mahé (FRA) France +36' 27


2001

Jan Ullrich

20 stages + prologue, 3,455.2km.
French fans had complained that there were too few French teams in the 2000 Tour, so the selection procedure was altered slightly so as to admit more whilst also continuing to admit teams that had earned their places. It was one of the hardest Tours for some time - though it had only one Alpine stage, this was followed by an individual mountain time trial, then a rest day transfer straight to the Pyrenees; this meant that were five consecutive summit finishes. Two of the time trials were also longer than usual - Stage 5, contested by the teams, was 67km; Stage 18, contested by individuals, was 61km (the prologue would nowadays have to be classed as Stage 1 - at 8.2km it was longer than the maximum length currently permitted for a prologue, 8km).

Lance Armstrong was widely expected to win for the third time and, since Marco Pantani's Mercatone-Uno team hadn't be invited after a police raid turned up a syringe containing traces of insulin in his room (the eight-month ban he received as a result was later overturned when it was shown that the syringe couldn't be proven to be his), Jan Ullrich was considered the only man capable of challenging him and it was noted that the German was looking fitter than he had done since he'd won in 1997.

Armstrong sat back and took it easy for the first nine stages - a plan that could very easily have become a disaster because a 14-man break got away during Stage 8, driven on by a desire to get out of the appalling weather as much as a desire for victory: as a result, he ended Stage 9 35'19" down in the General Classification, which was far greater than he'd have liked. What was more important, however, was that he was ahead of Ullrich who was 35'46" down - after all, many a Tour has been won in the mountains, and the mountains didn't start until the next day. On Stage 10, he began playing mind games, hovering around the back of the peloton and looking as though he was sick; knowing full well that the other team's managers would be watching with great interest on the televisions fitted inside their team cars. He did nothing as Laurent Roux led over La Madeleine and the Col du Glandon. For a while, he allowed the bunch to get a short way ahead of him; then when the race began climbing the Alpe d'Huez, he caught up and looked Ullrich in the eyes before dropping the entire Tour and winning the stage by 1'59". His time on the Alpe that day - 38'01" - was the third fastest ever recorded, eleven years later it remains fourth fastest ever (and the man who beat it since then was... Lance Armstrong, in 2004).

Armstrong on hairpin #5, Alpe d'Huez, 2001

He was, though, still 20'07" behind overall, and that meant that there was work to do. Fortunately, the next day was the mountain time trial and while he wasn't the last man down the ramp (as riders prefer, since they then know the times they need to beat and how much they can hold back, saving energy), he won with a 1' lead on Ullrich and shaved seven minutes off his overall time. He beat Ullrich by a minute again on Stage 13 and this time the maillot jaune was his - Andrei Kivilev was second overall, 3'54" behind him. Ullrich trailed in fourth with +5'13" and knew that despite his form he was beaten, yet the next day when they crossed the finish line atop Luz-Ardiden he held out his hand and the two men finished with arms linked. During that stage Jonathan Vaughters - who is now the manager of the Garmin-Sharp team but was then a rider for Crédit Agricole - was stung on the face by a wasp and suffered a reaction that caused his right eye to swell so much he couldn't open it. He was prescribed a medicated cream but team manager Roger Legeay was told by the UCI that it couldn't be used as it contained cortisone - a steroid that has no recognised performance-enhancing of its own but, since it can be used to mask the presence of other steroids that do, is on the list of banned drugs. In most cases, medical exemption will be given provided a genuine prescription can be shown; this time, for reasons not entirely clear (more than one argument suggests that it was prejudice on the part of Tour organisers towards an American rider because they were angry at Armstrong's domonation of the race), it was refused. Vaughters had no option but to abandon the race.

From this point, Armstrong's lead was unassailable, especially once he increased it to 6'44" in the Stage 18 time trial. The rest of the race, therefore, passed without incident; his final advantage was 6'44".

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 86h 17' 28"
2 Jan Ullrich (GER) Telekom +6' 44"
3 Joseba Beloki (ESP) ONCE +9' 05"
4 Andrei Kivilev (KAZ) Cofidis +9' 53"
5 Igor González (ESP) ONCE +13' 28"
6 François Simon (FRA) Bonjour +17' 22"
7 Óscar Sevilla (ESP) Kelme +18' 30"
8 Santiago Botero (COL) Kelme +20' 55"
9 Marcos Antonio Serrano (ESP) ONCE +21' 45"
10 Michael Boogerd (NED) Rabobank +22' 38"


2007

Cancellara, 2007

20 stages + prologue, 3,569.9km.
For the third time in its history, the Tour visited Britain - this time, the prologue took place in London (and was held in memory of the victims of the 7th of July bombings two years earlier) and was followed by a road race from London to Canterbury the following day. Unfortunately, this edition was hit hard by doping scandals with three riders and two teams being withdrawn. Michael Rasmussen, who had been leading the race, was removed by Rabobank in line with the team's strict zero-tolerance doping policy after evidence was found to suggest that he'd lied about his whereabouts during tests prior to the Tour.

Fabian Cancellara won the prologue by 13", then survived a large crash in Stage 2 before increasing his overall advantage to 33" by winning Stage 3. He managed to maintain it at about that level with consistent good results through the first week, only letting go of the maillot jaune when the race reached the mountains in Stage 7 and he came 148th, dropping to 108th overall with a disadvantage of 22'15". Linus Gerdemann, who would later become Cancellara's team mate at Leopard Trek, became race leader with an advantage of 1'24". He didn't have it for long - Rasmussen won the next day and took the jersey from him.

Stage 13 was won by Alexander Vinokourov, who had started the race as favourite but then injured both his knees in a crash and lost a lot of time in the Alps: this placed him 5'10" behind Rasmussen and fans began to wonder if he might just win after all. However, the sample he provided to doping control after his victory turned out to have a suspiciously high level of red blood cells, evidence that he might have had a homologous transfusion (ie, one using his own preserved blood). He was, therefore, removed from the Tour and disqualified from his Stage 13 and 15 wins(later, he was banned from competition for one year; there are those, however, who still argue that he might also have been innocent - he knew that he was already under suspicion due to his links with the infamous Dr. Michele Ferrari and would be tested regularly, they point out, so why would be cheat?)

Alberto Contador

Rasmussen remained in yellow all the way through the Alps and into the Pyrenees despite an attempt Alberto Contador to take it from him in Stage 14. At the end of Stage 15, Contador was 2'23" behind overall; this rode to 3'10" when Rasmussen won Stage 16, meaning that it's possible he'd have won the Tour had he not then have been removed. However, several riders were judged likely to beat him in the Stage 19 time trial - the biggest threats being Contador and, especially, Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer - it's also very possible that he would not, even if he was cheating (Evans has never been connected to any doping case. Contador was later banned for doping in a highly controversial case, Leipheimer had "unintentionally doped" in 1996 - and, if rumours surrounding the investigation into Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel at the time of writing are to be believed, may be about to reveal more; but there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that either man was cheating in the 2007 Tour. For the majority of fans, then, there is no question of whether Rasmussen might have won or not - he doped, therefore he could never have been a true winner).

Leipheimer and Evans both beat Contador in the time trial, Leipheimer by 2'18" (which won him the stage) and Evans by 1'27", which left the Spaniard in first place overall but with an advantage of just 23" over Evans and 31" over Leipheimer. There was still one stage to go but, by gentleman's agreement, the Tour is decided at the end of the penultimate stage, the final run into Paris is largely ceremonial for everyone except the domestiques and also-rans who try to grab any last opportunity to please their sponsors while the main contenders mug it up for the press. It could have been contested and the eventual outcome could have changed completely, but neither Evans nor Leipheimer were about to break with tradition and they accepted Contador as winner.

Top Ten Final General Classification
1 Alberto Contador (ESP) Discovery Channel 91h 00' 26"
2 Cadel Evans (AUS) Predictor-Lotto + 23"
3 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Discovery Channel + 31"
4 Carlos Sastre (ESP) Team CSC + 7' 08"
5 Haimar Zubeldia (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi + 8' 17"
6 Alejandro Valverde (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne + 11' 37"
7 Kim Kirchen (LUX) T-Mobile Team + 12' 18"
8 Yaroslav Popovych (UKR) Discovery Channel + 12' 25"
9 Mikel Astarloza (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi + 14' 14"
10 Óscar Pereiro (ESP) Caisse d'Epargne + 14' 25"

Llangollen-Wolverhampton

Percy Stallard

Britain's first modern-era mass start cycling road race took place on this day in 1942, organised by Percy Stallard and without the approval of the National Cycling Union which had strictly banned all racing (other than time trials) on British roads since 1890 due to a belief that racing would lead to a ban on all bicycles on public roads. Stallard was inspired by a race on the Isle of Man (which, having its own parliament and passports, was not subject to NCU rules) and approached the police to gauge their reaction: contrary to the NCU's fears, the police were supportive and offered to help.

The NCU were livid, especially when the race passed without incident and was even quite successful - Stallard and fifteen others involved in organising the race were handed a sine die ban: one without a specific date upon which it would end but which could be lifted at any time if the subject either successfully appealed or, as the organisation presumably hoped would be the case in this instance, apologised and did as he or she was told. Yet still Stallard would not back down, especially now that he had proved mass-start races could be held on British roads, so in November he helped launch the British League of Racing Cyclists - an organisation of like-minded riders that act as an umbrella body co-ordinating a number of pre-existing groups and would go head-to-head with the cycling establishment. In 1945 they organised the Victory Race to celebrate the end of the war - after growing, vanishing, reappearing and growing once again, it eventually became the modern Tour of Britain.

Cyclists born on this day: Sharon Laws (born Kenya, British nationality, 1974); Werner Riebenbauer (Austria, 1974); Nigel Donnelly (New Zealand, 1968); Elizabeth Hepple (Australia, 1959); Brian Smith (Great Britain, 1967); Fabrizio Trezzi (Italy, 1967); Mirco Gualdi (Italy, 1968); Sergey Klimov (USSR, 1980); Sataporn Kantasa-Ard (Thailand, 1950); Fernand Decanali (France, 1925); Erik Zabel (East Germany, 1970); Robert Vidal (France, 1933); Hans-Jürgen Geschke (East Germany, 1943); Angelo Ciccone (Italy, 1980); Guido Fulst (West Germany, 1970); Børge Gissel (Denmark, 1915); Héctor Pérez (Mexico, 1959).