Читать книгу Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races - Ellis Bacon - Страница 38
Оглавление“I thought my Tour was over. But then, suddenly, on one of the corners further down the descent, I spied Vietto making his way back up to me – in order to give me his bicycle.”
1934 winner Antonin Magne was grateful for the help he received from French national team-mate René Vietto
| Start: Paris, France, on 3 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 29 July | |
| Total distance: 4370 km (2716 miles)Longest stage: 293 km (182 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft)Mountain stages: 11 | |
| Starters: 60Finishers: 39 | |
| Winning time: 147 h 13’ 58”Average speed: 30.360 kph (18.865 mph) | |
| 1. Antonin Magne (Fra)2. Giuseppe Martano (Ita) at 27’ 31”3. Roger Lapébie (Fra) at 52’ 15” | |
| Mountains: René Vietto (Fra) |
This purple patch of home Tour winners like André Leducq, Antonin Magne and Georges Speicher was all well and good, but what the French public really loved – and still love – is a rider up against it, selfless and emotional.
With former fans’ favourite, the hapless Eugène Christophe, having retired in 1926, 20-year-old René Vietto fitted the bill perfectly to become France’s new chouchou. Riding in the service of defending champions Speicher, Leducq and Magne, Vietto found himself having to help Magne, in particular. On the descent of the Col de Puymorens, on stage 15, Magne damaged his front wheel, and so Vietto stopped and gave him his. Having been in the front group, and perhaps overcome with the frustration of being left behind, Vietto wept at the side of the road while waiting for a new wheel. Pretty endearing. The next day, while descending the Portet d’Aspet, it was deja-vu: this time it was Magne’s rear wheel and Vietto was in Magne’s group again. It was some time before he realised there was a problem. Once he did, he rode back up the hill to give Magne his bike so that his French team-mate could continue – and win the Tour de France.
Those tears shed by Vietto would have dried soon enough, though: not only did Vietto come away with four stage victories, but he also won the second edition of the race’s official mountains competition, out-climbing inaugural winner Vicente Trueba. He won French hearts, too.
In all, the French won twenty stages out of twenty-four, which in 1934 included the Tour’s first ever individual time trial as part of the Tour’s first ever ‘split stage’: stage 21a in the morning – an 81-km (50-mile) road race between La Rochelle and La-Roche-sur-Yon; and stage 21b that afternoon – the 90-km (56-mile) time trial from La-Roche-sur-Yon to Nantes.
For the first time, too, the Tour’s average speed crept above the 30 kph (18.6 mph) mark.
An altruistic René Vietto (left) aids compatriot Antonin Magne on the Col de Puymorens
