The Golden Age

The Tour de France

Course 1 · Chapter 4 · After the War: Coppi, Bartali and the Golden Age

When the Tour restarted in 1947 it became a symbol of reconstruction, and for the next twenty years it produced rivalries that are still retold: two Italians who divided their country, a Frenchman who won five times, and the "eternal second" who was loved more than the winner. The period also saw the arrival of live television and the first death on the race that the sport could not ignore. This chapter follows those rivalries and the changing economics of the sport. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Race Restarts

1947

After the Second World War the Tour resumed in 1947, under the direction of Jacques Goddet, with national teams again (check). France was still short of food and fuel, and the race was a sign that normal life was returning. The first post-war winner was the Frenchman Jean Robic, in 1947 (check).

Bartali, 1948

Gino Bartali, winner of 1938, won again in 1948, ten years after his first victory. Italian legend says that his success calmed the country after the shooting of the communist leader Palmiro Togliatti that July (check; the story is often repeated and hard to prove). Bartali is also recognised for helping to hide Jewish people in Italy during the war, for which he was honoured by Israel's Yad Vashem in 2013 (check).

Television

French television began to cover the Tour in the late 1940s and showed it live from 1952 (check). Millions could now watch it at home, and the race's audience moved from the roadside and the radio to the screen (Chapter 8).

Coppi and Bartali

Italy divided Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali were rivals for the national title and for the affections of Italy. Bartali was older, devout and conservative, and Coppi younger, elegant and modern; the country took sides (check; the picture of a Catholic and a communist rivalry is a simplification). Coppi won the Tour in 1949 and 1952, and the Giro d'Italia and Tour in the same year, a double that had never been done (check). In 1952 he won the first stage to finish at the top of Alpe d'Huez (check), the climb that became the Tour's most famous. His private life, an affair with a married woman, brought scandal in Catholic Italy (check), and he died in 1960 of malaria (check).

The Golden Age Winners

Rider (check each)	Note
Hugo Koblet, Ferdi Kübler	Swiss winners of 1951 and 1950. Koblet was a stylish "pedaller of charm", and Kübler a showman.
Louison Bobet	France's hero of the 1950s and the first man to win three Tours in a row, 1953 to 1955.
Charly Gaul	Luxembourg's "Angel of the Mountains", a small, reserved climber who won in 1958, especially in bad weather.
Federico Bahamontes	The "Eagle of Toledo", Spain's first winner in 1959, who attacked on the climbs and was said to wait for ice cream at the top.
Jacques Anquetil	The first five-time winner (1957 and 1961 to 1964), a cool time-trial specialist who was nicknamed "Maître Jacques". He was open about his use of drugs, and is reported to have said that races could not be ridden on water alone (check).
Felice Gimondi, Lucien Aimar, Roger Pingeon	Winners of 1965, 1966 and 1967, as the mid-60s produced less dominant champions.

Anquetil and Poulidor

Two Frances. Anquetil was a Norman from a Parisian background, elegant and calculating; Raymond Poulidor, the son of a poor farmer from the Limousin, was loved as a man of the people. The country divided into supporters of each (check).
The eternal second. Poulidor never won the Tour or wore the yellow jersey, but finished second three times and third five times (check). The French name him l'éternel second and treated him as an affectionate national figure, in a way that suggests that the French sometimes love the underdog more than the winner.
1964. On the Puy de Dôme, Anquetil and Poulidor rode side by side up the climb in one of the most famous duels in the history of the race; Anquetil kept the jersey by a small margin (check).
Trade teams return. From 1962 the race was again contested by teams financed by sponsors, not national squads, as manufacturers pushed for it (check). It remains the model today.

Tom Simpson, 1967

The rider

Tom Simpson, born in County Durham in 1937, was the leading British professional of his day. He was the first British rider to wear the yellow jersey (1962), a world champion in 1965 and BBC Sports Personality of the Year that year (check).

The death

On 13 July 1967, on the climb of Mont Ventoux in extreme heat, Simpson collapsed and died at the roadside, aged 29. An inquiry found that he had taken amphetamines, together with alcohol, in addition to the heat and exhaustion (check). His death shocked the sport.

The aftermath

A memorial stands near the spot, and cyclists still leave tributes there. The sport introduced doping controls the following year (check), but the problem of drugs in the sport continued (Chapter 6).

A British comparison British participation began slowly. Brian Robinson of Yorkshire is usually named as the first Briton to finish the Tour (1955) and the first to win a stage (1958) (check), followed by Simpson and, in the 1960s and 1970s, Barry Hoban, who won several stages (check). They rode for continental teams and were mostly unknown to the British public until Simpson's death. For a Scottish reader, the Tour's next big link comes with Robert Millar in the 1980s (Chapter 5).

Check the details This era is full of legends, and several of them are about private lives and politics (Bartali's role in 1948, the Coppi scandal, quotations attributed to Anquetil). Check each against a biography or a reputable history. The picture of Italy divided into two camps is a journalists' simplification, and the details of Simpson's final day are covered in an inquest and in several books.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Why did the rivalry of Coppi and Bartali capture a national imagination? Give the case for treating it as a political story, and a case for treating it as a sporting one.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Why was Poulidor loved more than many winners? Suggest three reasons and say what evidence you would use.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Describe the effects of Tom Simpson's death on the sport and its attitude to drugs, using the evidence of what changed and what did not.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

1947: the Tour restarts; 1948: Bartali wins again
Coppi: winner 1949 and 1952; first Alpe d'Huez finish (1952); died 1960
Others: Bobet (three in a row), Gaul, Bahamontes, Anquetil (five wins)
Rivalry: Anquetil and Poulidor, the 1964 duel on the Puy de Dôme
1962: trade teams return; 1967: Tom Simpson dies on Mont Ventoux