Читать книгу Tour Climbs: The complete guide to every mountain stage on the Tour de France - Chris Sidwells - Страница 11

The Tour de France saw a change of direction after the Second World War. When the race started up again in 1947, Henri Desgrange had fallen ill and his place was taken by Jacques Goddet, the son of L’Auto’s first company accountant. Goddet was a well-educated man who had spent part of his youth in England, and who spoke several languages.

L’Auto was shut down by the allies when they liberated Paris in 1945, but Goddet just upped sticks and set up a new newspaper across the road. He called it L’Equipe, and today it is one of the biggest and best-known daily sports newspapers in the world.

Goddet took the Tour de France with him, and L’Equipe owned the race until they sold it to the Amaury Sport Organisation in the mid-1980s. Amaury are still the company behind the Tour de France, and the whole thing, along with a number of other international bike races and other sporting events, is run from a modern office block in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Molineux.

The Tour prospered under Goddet. He was quite modern, even though he didn’t look it, especially when the race was in the hot south of France when Goddet used to wear his tropical gear of pith helmet, shorts, long socks and a Safari shirt. Goddet also had a shrewd assistant called Felix Levitan, who looked after the commercial side of the race. Between them they ruled with a rod of iron, and despite there being official referees and judges on the race, Goddet and Levitan’s word on anything was final.