Daily Cycling Facts 08.11.12

On this day in 1949, German track rider Paul Kroll died during the Berlin 1000 Laps at the Funkturm Velodrome

Nicolas Frantz

Nicolas Frantz

Nicolas Frantz, the Luxembourg-born winner of the Tour de France in 1927 and 1928, died on this day in 1985 - four days after his 86th birthday. The son of a wealthy family, Frantz was expected by his parents to take over their profitable farm but he showed no interest in doing so and, having won the fist race he entered, decided in 1914 that cycling would be his life.

The First World War brought most European cycling to a halt, and also ended the lives of many of ther great riders from before the conflict. By 1923 when Frantz turned professional, however, a new generation had arisen to take their place; riders such as Ottavio Bottecchia who won the Tour (the first Italian to do so and the first rider to have ever worn the maillot jaune from beginning to end) in 1924 and 1925. Frantz's first Tour was 1924 and he finished in second place, 35'36" behind Bottecchia but almost an hour ahead of Lucien Buysse. The following year Frantz was fourth, then second again in 1926.

During Stage 11 in 1927 a relatively unknown touriste-routier named Michele Gordini managed to secretly launch a solo breakaway and, in those days before race radio and team cars with Internet, it took the peloton so long to discover his absence that he built up a lead of 45 minutes before they gave chase. Had he have maintained it he'd have begun the next stage in the maillot jaune, but mechanical problems put him out of action and Frantz, who had led the efforts to catch him, won the stage and became race leader. By the end of Stage 16 his lead stood at over an hour; he would subsequently lose time to Maurice Dewaele but, with the mountains behind them, the race was his. In 1928, Frantz topped Bottecchia's 1924 achievement by starting in yellow and keeping the jersey all the way to finish. Disaster seemed about to rob him of victory in Stage 19 when his frame snapped on a railway crossing, but he borrowed a step-through bike from a woman watching the race and was assisted back to the peloton by his Alcyon team, continuing on it though it was too small for him until he could be supplied with a replacement Alcyon machine and went on to win his second Tour.

Among Frantz's other achievements were victory at the National Road Race Championships from 1923 to 1934 and at the Tour of the Basque Country in 1926.



Happy birthday to Jan Raas, the Dutch ex-World Road Champion (1979) and winner of ten stages in the Tour de France. Raas also won two Ronde van Vlandaarens, a Paris-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and five Amstel Gold Races during the 1970s and 80s. He later became manager of Team Rabobank, a position he held until 2003.

George Pilkington Mills, an English cyclist who won the first Bordeaux-Paris in 1891, died on this day in 1945.

Elsy Jacobs starts Friday

For anybody who cares about women's cycling, it's very easy to feel miserable at the moment - we've just had news that another race has been cancelled, the prizes on offer at the majority of the races are a joke compared to what the men win (and frequently about the same amount the riders could earn for putting in a full week in a fast food restaurant, provided they got a bit of overtime) and the salaries they receive (those who are lucky enough to receive salaries, that is; which is why some of them have to put in a full week in a fast food restaurant and hope for a bit of overtime) are quite frankly an insult in many cases. Be thankful, then, that this week brings us that celebration of all things good in women's cycling, the Festival Luxembourgeois Elsy Jacobs.

Combined, this is a two stage race with a TT prologue. However, in the Elsy Jacobs each stage is a race within its own right to a far greater extent than in any other event and every day has an entirely different feel to the others. The prologue has the feel of a party, not least of all because it takes place in the evening on a 1.7km parcours on Luxembourg city - and as that parcours is both stupendously fast and passes by some of the city's most vibrant bars, it's a full-on party in celebration of speed.

Stage 1 follows the famous parcours of the GP Elsy Jacobs, the one-day race named in honour of the world's first Women's Road Race World Champion and from which this festival grew. It heads north out of Garnich, Jacobs' hometown, then follows a 53.6km loop up to Mersch and back to Garnich again where riders complete five laps of a 9.8km circuit. Those in the know say that it's impossible to predict how this race will end, and more than once the fates have conspired to allow a relative unknown to take the glory.

“The courses are actually pretty aggressive, they provide very good races. I asked the girls to be aggressive at certain points, and they didn’t have to look too hard to find the opportunity to do that. There a million and one little climbs that provide a chance for groups to get away.” - David McPartland, GreenEDGE directeur sportif

Stage 2, named in honour of twelve-time National Champion and twice winner of the Tour de France Nicolas Frantz, uses the same 53.6km loop as Stage 1 but this time sets off from Frantz's hometown Mamer, ending with five 8.9km circuits through the narrow streets.

It's sometimes difficult to follow women's races as many simply don't have the budget to provide the sort of coverage many men's events enjoy - which is, of course, a serious problem for the sport. However, this one rivals the Grand Tours with an expertly-designed website that provides full details of the three courses, results and just about everything else a fan might wish to know.

One day, all women's races will be like this - but the Festival will always be unique, and there really is no other race quite like it.

Official site

Technical details

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