Читать книгу Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races - Ellis Bacon - Страница 23
Оглавление“No rider deserves it more than he does.”
Henri Desgrange on Eugène Christophe’s credentials for being the first rider ever to wear the Tour’s yellow jersey
| Start: Paris, France, on 29 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 27 July | |
| Total distance: 5560 km (3455 miles)Longest stage: 482 km (300 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col d’Izoard: 2556 m (8386 ft)Mountain stages: 6 | |
| Starters: 67Finishers: 10 | |
| Winning time: 231 h 07’ 15”Average speed: 24.056 kph (14.948 mph) | |
| 1. Firmin Lambot (Bel)2. Jean Alavoine (Fra) at 1 h 42’ 54”3. Eugène Christophe (Fra) at 2 h 26’ 31” |
The Tour resurfaced with a cold, wet and just downright miserable schlep of a 1919 edition through a war-ravaged France. Three past winners – Lucien Petit-Breton, François Faber and Octave Lapize – had been killed during the First World War, and many of the riders arrived at the race weary and out of shape, which was said to have contributed to what was, and remains, the Tour’s slowest ever average speed: 24.056 kph (14.948 mph).
It won’t have helped, either, that the organisers saw fit to include the race’s longest-ever stage: a 482-km (300-mile) route between Les Sables-d’Olonne and Bayonne. It was a stage the race would then use every year until 1924; it was common in the early years of the Tour to repeat stages year after year, but today, with competition between towns to host stages fierce, the race follows a different route every year.
French darling Eugène Christophe was back in 1919, as was defending champion Philippe Thys, winner in 1913 and 1914. Thys, however, soon abandoned, ill, on stage 1; he’d be back the following year. Christophe, though, took over the race lead from compatriot Henri Pélissier after stage 4.
After six stages at the head of the race, Christophe was awarded a yellow jersey by race organiser Henri Desgrange at the café L’Ascenseur in Grenoble, at the start of stage 11 on 19 July. The choice of colour to identify the race leader was in order to further publicise Desgrange’s newspaper, L’Auto, which was printed on yellow paper.
Christophe held the maillot jaune for another four stages before bad luck hit. Ironically, just as they had done in 1913 on the Tourmalet, Christophe’s forks broke while riding the cobbles between Metz and Dunkirk on stage 14, forcing him to fix them and cede the race lead – and the jersey – to Belgium’s Firmin Lambot, who wore it, and defended it, on the next day’s final stage to Paris.
Firmin Lambot is congratulated after claiming the yellow jersey in Dunkirk
