Mapping Le Tour: The unofficial history of all 100 Tour de France races. Ellis Bacon
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Gustave Garrigou battles the Col d’Aubisque on his way to overall victory
| Start: Paris, France, on 30 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 28 July | |
| Total distance: 5319 km (3305 miles)Longest stage: 470 km (292 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 7 | |
| Starters: 131Finishers: 41 | |
| Winning time: 49 pointsAverage speed: 27.894 kph (17.333 mph) | |
| 1. Odile Defraye (Bel) 49 points2. Eugène Christophe (Fra) 108 points 3. Gustave Garrigou (Fra) 140 points |
The 1912 Tour followed the same route as the 1911 edition, save for a slightly shortened sixth stage. This time, the French fans’ hero was to be Eugène Christophe, who effectively replaced Émile Georget in their hearts after the third-placed finisher in 1911 abandoned on the third stage of the 1912 race.
Christophe’s was a name that was about to become synonymous with the Tour de France for a number of reasons in the years following the 10th edition of the race, but became legendary enough in 1912 when the French rider staged the race’s longest-ever successful breakaway.
Just as Georget had done the year before, it was Christophe who led the race over the Aravis, Télégraphe, Lautaret and Galibier as part of a 315-km (196-mile) break, winning in Grenoble with only two-and-a-half minutes to spare over countryman Octave Lapize.
With that 315 km (196 miles) being around 100 km (62 miles) longer than any complete stage in the modern era, it’s not going to be beaten any time soon – read, ever.
By virtue of winning three stages – stage 4 by a considerable margin of more than 13 minutes – it’s likely that Christophe would have won the race overall in 1912 had it been contested on time. Instead, for the final time that it was decided on points, it was Odile Defraye who became the first ever Belgian winner of the Tour, easily beating Christophe for consistency by finishing in the top ten on every one of the race’s fifteen stages, bar one.
From 1912 on, Belgian riders would come to play a huge part in the race’s success and history.
Eugène Christophe on his incredible 315-km breakaway
| Start: Paris, France, on 29 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 27 July | |
| Total distance: 5388 km (3348 miles)Longest stage: 470 km (292 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 7 | |
| Starters: 140Finishers: 25 | |
| Winning time: 197 h 54’ 00”Average speed: 26.715 kph (16.600 mph) | |
| 1. Philippe Thys (Bel)2. Gustave Garrigou (Fra) at 8’ 37” 3. Marcel Buysse (Bel) at 3 h 30’ 55” |
As well as reverting back to cumulative time rather than points deciding the race’s overall winner, the Tour headed off from Paris for an anti-clockwise circuit of France for the first time in 1913. That said, it followed an extremely similar route to the previous two editions of the race, visiting almost all of the same towns, from the other direction.
Some went as far as to say that organiser Desgrange’s decision to revert to time as the measure of his race’s winner was in an effort to help a Frenchman win – namely Eugène Christophe, runner-up in 1912.
However, what happened to Christophe on stage 6, on the road between Bayonne and Luchon, soon put the kibosh on that theory. While descending the Col du Tourmalet, Christophe’s forks snapped, requiring him to run the rest of the way down the mountain to the town at the bottom – Ste-Marie-de-Campan – where he found a blacksmith willing to allow him to use his tools to effect a repair. However, the fact that the blacksmith’s assistant operated the bellows to help Christophe contravened race rules that stipulated that a rider couldn’t receive any outside assistance.
The Frenchman was handed a time penalty, and Belgian rider Philippe Thys went on to win the race by just eight-and-a-half minutes over Frenchman Gustave Garrigou, meaning that, for the second year in a row, there was a foreign winner, which wouldn’t have pleased an organiser trying to promote a French newspaper to a French public.
In fact, Belgian riders would win the race seven times in a row before a French rider would win his home race again.
Anyone who thinks that today’s maladie of there having been no French winner since 1985 need only look to the past to see that everything goes in cycles.
Eugène Christophe’s repairs are in vain as he is subsequently penalised for accepting outside assistance
| Start: Paris, France, on 28 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 26 July | |
| Total distance: 5391 km (3350 miles)Longest stage: 470 km (292 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 7 | |
| Starters: 145Finishers: 54 | |
| Winning time: 200 h 28’ 48”Average speed: 27.028 kph (16.795 mph) | |
| 1. Philippe Thys (Bel)2. Henri Pélissier (Fra) at 1’ 50” 3. Jean Alavoine (Fra) at 36’ 53” |
After 1913’s relatively close finish to the race, reigning champion Philippe Thys started the 1914 Tour in earnest, winning the sprint