Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races. Ellis Bacon
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Название: Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races
Автор: Ellis Bacon
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007585427
isbn:
Just as it had done since 1913, the Tour continued to follow the same tried and trusted anti-clockwise route from Paris to Le Havre on stage 1, down France’s west coast, through the Pyrenees, then the Alps, with a final stage from Dunkirk back to Paris. The drudgery seemed to be amplified by yet another Belgian win – the seventh in succession – this time a second win by 1919 champion Firmin Lambot, now a relic of a man at 36 years, 4 months and 9 days old. He remains the oldest ever winner of the race.
Stage 4, between Brest and Les Sables-d’Olonne, saw some older names come to the fore as Philippe Thys – Tour champ in 1913, 1914 and 1920 – took the stage victory, and perennial nearly-man Eugène Christophe took hold of the yellow jersey.
However, on the Galibier, on stage 11, Christophe – having by then dropped out of overall contention by losing too much time on stage 9 – experienced the misfortune of his forks breaking for a third time at the Tour. Yellow jerseys and stage wins had made him a household name, but luck – or a lack of it – would see to it that he was destined never to win his beloved Tour de France.
While Alpine giants the Col d’Izoard and Col de Vars both made their first Tour appearances – on stage 10 between Nice and Briançon – crowd favourite the Col du Tourmalet, which had appeared in the race every year since 1910, had to be dropped from the route of stage 6 due to snow.
Firmin Lambot and Joseph Muller quench their thirst between Les Sables-d’Olonne and Bayonne
| Start: Paris, France, on 24 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 22 July | |
| Total distance: 5396 km (3353 miles)Longest stage: 482 km (300 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 5 | |
| Starters: 139Finishers: 48 | |
| Winning time: 222 h 15’ 30”Average speed: 24.233 kph (15.057 mph) | |
| 1. Henri Pélissier (Fra)2. Ottavio Bottecchia (Ita) at 30’ 41” 3. Romain Bellenger (Fra) at 1 h 04’ 43” |
If the previous few editions of the race had become dull and somewhat predictable, national pride was restored when Henri Pélissier became the first French winner since Gustave Garrigou in 1911.
Pélissier’s victory came despite organiser Henri Desgrange having opined a couple of years earlier that Pélissier “will never win”, threatening he would never put him on the front of his newspaper, L’Auto, in retaliation for what he viewed as Pélissier’s laziness as a rider.
Pélissier set Desgrange straight all right in 1923, forcing the Tour organiser to print a L’Auto cover that went against his earlier wishes as Pélissier crushed his closest rivals by more than half-an-hour overall.
Along the way, runner-up Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian to wear the yellow jersey after sprinting to victory on stage 2 from Le Havre to Cherbourg, and proceeded to ride a consistent race, while Pélissier took a beating from compatriot and two-time runner-up Jean Alavoine in the Pyrenees. However, Alavoine crashed on stage 10 and was forced to retire the next day, while Bottecchia was outclassed in the Alps by Pélissier.
In a combination of what Desgrange had done with his race in the past – first basing it on overall time, then on points, and then back to cumulative time – for the first time in 1923, a two-minute time bonus to the winner of each stage was introduced. It was a practice that was to fall in and out of favour over the years.
Pélissier clashed again with Desgrange at the 1924 Tour and, following his retirement from cycling in 1927, Pélissier’s life took a turn for the worse. After his wife committed suicide in 1933, he was shot and killed in 1935 by his mistress, who had acted in self-defence.
Ottavio Bottecchia became the first Italian to don the iconic maillot jaune
“One of these days he’s going to make us put lead weights in our pockets because he thinks that God made man too light.”
1923 Tour champion Henri Pélissier after quitting the 1924 Tour in disgust at what for him were Henri Desgrange’s constant efforts to make the race even harder
| Start: Paris, France, on 22 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 20 July | |
| Total distance: 5425 km (3371 miles)Longest stage: 482 km (300 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 6 | |
| Starters: 157Finishers: 60 | |
| Winning time: 226 h 18’ 21”Average speed: 24.250 kph (15.068 mph) | |
| 1. Ottavio Bottecchia (Ita)2. Nicolas Frantz (Lux) at 35’ 36” 3. Lucien Buysse (Bel) at 1 h 32’ 13” |
With the life of the winner of the 1923 Tour, Henri Pélissier, ending in tragedy, what an ill-fated time it was in the Tour’s history, when 1924 and 1925 champion Ottavio Bottecchia was also found dead in mysterious circumstances years later.
Bottecchia was found unconscious at the side of the road in June 1927, close to his home near Udine, in northern Italy, seemingly having crashed on his bike. He had a fractured skull and never regained consciousness, dying twelve days later. Officially, his death was attributed to injuries sustained from the crash. The conspiracy theory, however, is that he was murdered by Mussolini-supporting fascists for voicing his low opinion of the Italian prime minister.
Bottecchia won the first stage of the 1924 Tour – a stage that had become the regular opener, between Paris and Le Havre – and then held on to his lead along each side of ‘the hexagon’, over fifteen СКАЧАТЬ