1971 Tour de France was a scene of an epic Luis Ocaña vs Eddy Merckx battle. Eventually, the tour was a great tragedy for Luis Ocaña, who won the Tour de France in 1973 and the Vuelta a España in 1970. Eddy Merckx won Tour de France in 1969 and 1970, and it looked like …
Tag Archives: Unforgettable Moments of Cycling
Missing the Tour de France Start
Pedro Delgado, the defending champion, missed his start time with 2:40 at the prologue at the start of the 1989 Tour de France. Delgado covered the distance only 14 seconds slower than Erik Breukink, the stage winner. But adding the 2 minutes and 40 seconds at his time, he became the only defending champion to …
Eight Seconds
1989 edition of Tour de France won by Greg LeMond with the narrowest margin in its history: eight seconds. It was LeMond’s second Tour victory. Before the final stage of the 1989 Tour de France, Frenchman Laurent Fignon (Système U) was 50 seconds ahead of American Greg LeMond (ADR). Fignon took the yellow jersey from LeMond …
Eugène Christophe and the first yellow jersey (Tour de France 1919)
In 1919, Frenchman Eugène Christophe became the first rider to wear the race leader’s yellow jersey (maillot jaune) of the Tour de France. In the first few years after the 1st world war, there was a shortage of material and dye for jerseys. So many of the teams wore the same grey colored tops: the cycle industry …
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Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali as football players
Two great cycling rivals, Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali were protagonists of an exceptional derby (a football match between local rivals. i.e. teams that are from the same city or the same part of the country) which took place on 14 January 1950 at the Milan Arena. Football (calcio) was the second popular sport after …
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