1924 Tour de France

The 1924 Tour de France was the 18th edition of the Tour de France and was won by Ottavio Bottecchia. He was the first Italian cyclist to win the Tour and the first rider to hold the yellow jersey the entire event. The race was held over 5,425 km with an average speed of 23.972 km/h (14.896 mph).[1] 60 riders finished the race from the original 157 cyclists.

1924 Tour de France
Route of the 1924 Tour de France followed counterclockwise, starting in Paris
Race details
Dates22 June – 20 July
Stages15
Distance5,425 km (3,371 mi)
Winning time222h 15' 30"
Results
Winner  Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA) (1st class)
  Second  Nicolas Frantz (LUX) (1st class)
  Third  Lucien Buysse (BEL) (1st class)

Entrants of the 1924 Tour included several past and future winners including defending champion Henri Pélissier (1923), Philippe Thys (1913, 1914, 1920), Lucien Buysse (1926) and Nicolas Frantz (1927, 1928).

The event saw the increase of the time bonus for stage wins move from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. In addition, it was the final year of the 15-stage format that had started in 1910. One of the most important events of the race occurred on the third stage, when defending champion Pélissier quit the race because of a new fight with tour organiser Henri Desgrange.

Innovations and changes

In 1923, a time bonus of two minutes for each stage winner had been introduced. This was considered successful, and the time bonus was increased to three minutes for the 1924 Tour de France.[2]

After the 1923 Tour de France, the winner Henri Pélissier had said that the runner-up Bottecchia would go on to win the race.[3]

Participants
For a more comprehensive list, see List of cyclists in the 1924 Tour de France.

Race overview
Main articles: 1924 Tour de France, Stage 1 to Stage 8 and 1924 Tour de France, Stage 9 to Stage 15
Ottavio Bottecchia, winner of the 1924 Tour de France

In 1924, there was a rule that the cyclists had to finish with everything they started with, and the officials suspected that Pélissier would start in the cold morning with many jerseys, and remove them once the day warmed up.[4] The rule had been introduced in 1920, when all the cyclists were sponsored by the combined sponsor La Sportive, to prevent waste of material.[5] Pélissier objected to the rule, on the ground that the jerseys that he wore were his own, and had not been provided by the sponsor.

At the start of the third stage, a tour official checked how many jerseys Henri Pélissier was wearing. Pélissier was angry, and declared that he would not start the race.[5] He did so anyway, but retired at Coutances, together with his brother Francis Pélissier and teammate Maurice Ville.[4] The three cyclists met journalist Albert Londres of Petit Parisien,[6] to whom they complained about the circumstances in which the cyclists had to race.[4] In that third stage, that ended on a circuit, Theophile Beeckman crossed the finish line first. However, the bell indicating the last lap was not rung, and Philippe Thys was placed ex aequo on the first place by the officials.[6]

In the first five stages, the cyclists finished in groups, and the time bonus of three minutes for the winner was the only thing that separated the cyclists. After the third and fourth stage, Bottecchia had the same time as Beeckman, although Bottecchia was still given the yellow jersey as classification leader.[2] In the sixth and seventh stage, Bottecchia extended his lead in the Pyrenees.[7] After these stages, he had a margin of 50 minutes over second-placed Nicolas Frantz.

In the Alps, Bottecchia was not so dominant anymore. In stages 10 to 13, Frantz won back a few minutes per stage, but it was not enough. In the thirteenth stage, Bottecchia ran into a dog and fell.[8] Nicolas Frantz tried to win back time, but failed.

In the penultimate stage, Italian Giovanni Brunero was in third place in the overall classification,[2] when he had to give up.[8] Prior to the last stage, the margin between Bottecchia and Frantz was still 32 minutes. Bottecchia won the final stage to Paris, and the time bonus of 3 minutes made the margin 35 minutes.

Results

In each stage, all cyclists started together. The cyclist who reached the finish first, was the winner of the stage. The time that each cyclist required to finish the stage was recorded. For the general classification, these times were added up; the cyclist with the least accumulated time (after compensating for time bonuses and/or time penalties) was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey.

Stage winners
Stage characteristics and winners[2][9][10][11][12]
Stage Date Course Distance Type[lower-alpha 1] Winner Race leader
1 22 JuneParis to Le Havre381 km (237 mi)Plain stage Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
2 24 JuneLe Havre to Cherbourg371 km (231 mi)Plain stage Romain Bellenger (FRA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
3 26 JuneCherbourg to Brest405 km (252 mi)Plain stage Philippe Thys (BEL)
 Théophile Beeckman (BEL)		 Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
4 28 JuneBrest to Les Sables-d'Olonne412 km (256 mi)Plain stage Félix Goethals (FRA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
5 30 JuneLes Sables-d'Olonne to Bayonne482 km (300 mi)Plain stage Omer Huyse (BEL) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
6 2 JulyBayonne to Luchon326 km (203 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
7 4 JulyLuchon to Perpignan323 km (201 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
8 6 JulyPerpignan to Toulon427 km (265 mi)Plain stage Louis Mottiat (BEL) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
9 8 JulyToulon to Nice280 km (170 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Philippe Thys (BEL) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
10 10 JulyNice to Briançon275 km (171 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Giovanni Brunero (ITA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
11 12 JulyBriançon to Gex307 km (191 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Nicolas Frantz (LUX) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
12 14 JulyGex to Strasbourg360 km (220 mi)Stage with mountain(s) Nicolas Frantz (LUX) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
13 16 JulyStrasbourg to Metz300 km (190 mi)Plain stage Arsène Alancourt (FRA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
14 18 JulyMetz to Dunkerque433 km (269 mi)Plain stage Romain Bellenger (FRA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
15 20 JulyDunkerque to Paris343 km (213 mi)Plain stage Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA) Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)
Total 5,425 km (3,371 mi)[1]

General classification

Bottecchia became the first Italian cyclist who won the Tour de France, and the first cyclist to wear the yellow jersey from the start to the end of the Tour de France.[4]

Final general classification (1–10)[13]
RankRiderCategoryTime
1  Ottavio Bottecchia (ITA)1226h 18' 21"
2  Nicolas Frantz (LUX)1+ 35' 36"
3  Lucien Buysse (BEL)1+ 1h 32' 13"
4  Bartolomeo Aimo (ITA)1+ 1h 32' 47"
5  Théophile Beeckman (BEL)1+ 2h 11' 12"
6  Joseph Muller (FRA)1+ 2h 35' 33"
7  Arsène Alancourt (FRA)1+ 2h 41' 31"
8  Romain Bellenger (FRA)1+ 2h 51' 09"
9  Omer Huyse (BEL)2+ 2h 58' 13"
10  Hector Tiberghien (BEL)1+ 3h 05' 04"

Aftermath

A few days after Henri Pélissier quit the race, he sent a letter to the communist magazine l'Humanité, writing that he accepted "‘excessive fatigue, suffering, pain" as part of the cycling profession, but that he wanted to be treated as a human being.[14] Tour organiser Desgrange still kept to his formula of trying to get the cyclists to ride individually until 1930, when he accepted that cyclists would run in teams and introduced nationalized teams.

The number of stages increased in the next years. For example, in 1925 the cyclists went from Brest to Bayonne in two stages, racing 900 km (560 mi) in total; in 1926 this was done in four stages, racing 894 km (556 mi). With these shorter stages, the cyclists did not have to start in the middle of the night.

Bottecchia would win the Tour de France again in 1925. The runner-up, Nicolas Frantz, would win in 1927 and 1928; in 1928 he would repeat the feat of Bottecchia of wearing the yellow jersey the entire race.

Notes
  1. There was no distinction in the rules between plain stages and mountain stages; the icons shown here indicate which stages included mountains.
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References
  1. Augendre 2016, p. 108.
  2. "18ème Tour de France 1924" (in French). Mémoire du cyclisme. Archived from the original on 22 July 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
  3. "The Tour - Year 1923". Amaury Sport Organisation. Archived from the original on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
  4. Tom James (15 August 2003). "1924: Le Tour de Souffrance". VeloArchive. Archived from the original on 21 July 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
  5. Dauncey & Hare 2003, pp. 86–88.
  6. "18ème Tour de France 1924 - 3ème étape" (in French). Mémoire du cyclisme. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  7. "1924 - 18th Tour de France". Amaury Sport Organisation. Archived from the original on 15 July 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
  8. "1924: Ottavio Bottecchia bezorgt Italië eerste Touroverwinning" (in Dutch). Tourdefrance.nl. 19 March 2003. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
  9. "283 coureurs cyclistes vont partier pour un voyages de 5.425 kilomètres". Le Petit Parisien (in French). Gallica Bibliothèque Numérique. 21 June 1924. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
  10. Augendre 2016, p. 22.
  11. Arian Zwegers. "Tour de France GC top ten". CVCC. Archived from the original on 10 June 2009. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
  12. "The history of the Tour de France – Year 1924 – The stage winners". Tour de France. Amaury Sport Organisation. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  13. "The history of the Tour de France – Year 1924 – Stage 15 Dunkerque > Paris". Tour de France. Amaury Sport Organisation. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  14. Christopher Thompson (1 June 2003). "The tour in the inter-war years: political ideology, athletic excess and industrial modernity" (PDF). International Journal of the History of Sport. Retrieved 25 June 2005.

Bibliography

Media related to 1924 Tour de France at Wikimedia Commons

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