The 1950 Tour de France was the 37th edition of the
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
, taking place from 13 July to 7 August. It consisted of 22 stages over .
Gino Bartali, captain of the Italian team, threatened and assaulted by some French supporters accusing him to have caused Jean Robic's fall on the Col d'Aspin, retired after winning the 12th stage from Pau to Saint-Gaudens and left the race together with all the other Italian riders (including Fiorenzo Magni, who was wearing the yellow jersey). The lead transferred to Swiss cyclist
Ferdinand Kübler
Ferdinand Kübler (; 24 July 1919 – 29 December 2016) was a Swiss cyclist with 71 professional victories, including the 1950 Tour de France and the 1951 World Road Race Championship.
Biography
Kübler was born in Marthalen. He began racing ...
, who was able to keep the lead until the end of the race. Kübler became the first Swiss winner of the Tour de France.
The mountains classification was won by
Louison Bobet
Louis "Louison" Bobet (; 12 March 1925 - 13 March 1983) was a French professional road racing cyclist. He was the first great French rider of the post-war period and the first rider to win the Tour de France in three successive years, from 1953 t ...
, while the Belgian team won the team classification.
Algerian-French cyclist Abdel-Kader Zaaf became famous in this Tour de France by being so disoriented that he rode in the wrong direction.
Innovations and changes
The "interest" for the yellow jersey (the prize money for the leader of the general classification after each stage) was increased to 100.000 French Francs.
In 1949, the French TV had reported every evening about the Tour de France, and in 1950, live coverage of every stage was given.
The time cut-offs, the maximum time a cyclist was allowed to finish a stage, was reduced.
In the previous years, the Tour de France had been decided in the mountains. The organisation wanted the other aspects of the race to be more important, so some mountains were not visited in 1950, and the time bonification for cyclists that reached mountain tops first was reduced. from 1 minute in 1949 to 40 seconds in 1950.
The riders had sometimes been helped by team assistants who directly assisted the riders by pushing them from within the team cars, under the pretence of supplying them with a drink. In 1950, the Tour organisation paid extra care for this, and penalised the cyclists if it happened.
The prize for winning a stage was increased from 30.000 French Francs to 50.000 French Francs.
Teams
![Dutch team at the start in Paris, 1950 Tour de France](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Dutch_team_at_the_start_in_Paris%2C_1950_Tour_de_France.jpg)
As was the custom since the
1930 Tour de France
The 1930 Tour de France was the 24th edition of the Tour de France, taking place from 2 to 27 July. It consisted of 21 stages over .
The 24th tour de France introduced a new format to team racing; teams were organised by country with ten riders ...
, the 1950 Tour de France was contested by national and regional teams. The three major cycling countries in 1950, Italy, Belgium and France, each sent a team of 10 cyclists. Other countries sent teams of 6 cyclists: Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Italy and Belgium also sent two extra teams of young riders of 6 cyclists each.
The French regional cyclists were divided into five teams of 10 cyclists: Paris, Île-de-France/North-East, West, Centre/South-West and South-East. Originally, the plan was to have one extra international team of six cyclists with Spanish cyclists, but this extra team became a North African team, with Moroccan and Algerian cyclists; at the time, portions of Morocco were
a French protectorate, and Algeria was
an integral part of France. This was the first African team to compete in the Tour de France.
Altogether this made 116 cyclists.
There were 60 French cyclists (of which 2 French-Moroccan and 4 French-Algerian), 22 Italian, 16 Belgian, 6 Dutch, 6 Luxembourg and 6 Swiss cyclists.
On the first day of the race, before the Tour had started, French cyclist
Charles Coste was replaced by
Paul Giguet.
The teams entering the race were:
* Italy
* Belgium
* France
* Switzerland
* Luxembourg
* Netherlands
* Italy Cadets
* Belgium Aiglons
* Paris
* Île-de-France/North-East
* West
* Centre/South-West
* South-East
* North Africa
Pre-race favourites
The winner of the previous Tour de France,
Fausto Coppi
Angelo Fausto Coppi (; 15 September 1919 – 2 January 1960) was an Italian cyclist, the dominant international cyclist of the years after the Second World War. His successes earned him the title ''Il Campionissimo'' ("Champion of Champions ...
, was injured during the
1950 Giro d'Italia, so he could not defend his title. Still the Italians were favourites, especially
Gino Bartali
Gino Bartali (; 18 July 1914 – 5 May 2000), nicknamed Gino the Pious and (in Italy) Ginettaccio, was a champion road cyclist. He was the most renowned Italian cyclist before the Second World War, having won the Giro d'Italia twice, in 19 ...
, who had come second in the 1950 Giro d'Italia behind
Hugo Koblet
Hugo Koblet (; 21 March 1925 – 6 November 1964) was a Swiss champion cyclist. He won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia as well as competing in six-day and pursuit races on the track. He won 70 races as a professional. He died in a car ...
, who did not enter the 1950 Tour de France. Other candidates for the victory were Bobet, Kübler, Ockers and Geminiani. Two days before the Tour started, the organisation held a poll amongst 25 journalists, who each gave their eight favourites for the victory. Bartali was on the most lists, 23. Robic was written on 20 lists, Lauredi on 19, Bobet and Goldschmidt on 17.
Route and stages
The 1950 Tour de France started on 13 July, and had four rest days, in Dinard, Pau, Nice and Saint-Étienne. The route had been revealed in January 1950.
The
highest point of elevation in the race was at the summit of the
Col d'Izoard
Col d'Izoard () is a mountain pass in the Alps in the department of Hautes-Alpes in France.
It is accessible in summer via the D902 road, connecting Briançon on the north and the valley of the Guil in Queyras, which ends at Guillestre in the s ...
mountain pass on stage 18.
Race overview
The start of the 1950 Tour de France was given on 13 July by
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
. Things started well for the Italian team, as they won five of the first ten stages,
although the yellow jersey for the leader of the general classification was exchanged between Luxembourgian Jean Goldschmit and French Bernard Gauthier.
![Ferdi Kübler 1954](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Ferdi_K%C3%BCbler_1954.jpg)
The sixth stage was won by Swiss cyclist
Ferdinand Kübler
Ferdinand Kübler (; 24 July 1919 – 29 December 2016) was a Swiss cyclist with 71 professional victories, including the 1950 Tour de France and the 1951 World Road Race Championship.
Biography
Kübler was born in Marthalen. He began racing ...
. During the race, Kübler had changed jerseys, which gave him 25 seconds penalty time.
In the eleventh stage, the first mountain stage of the race,
Gino Bartali
Gino Bartali (; 18 July 1914 – 5 May 2000), nicknamed Gino the Pious and (in Italy) Ginettaccio, was a champion road cyclist. He was the most renowned Italian cyclist before the Second World War, having won the Giro d'Italia twice, in 19 ...
was away together with French
Jean Robic
Jean Robic (; 10 June 1921 – 6 October 1980)L'Équipe, 9 July 2003 was a French road racing cyclist, who won the 1947 Tour de France. Robic was a professional cyclist from 1943 to 1961. His diminutive stature (1.61m, 60 kg) and appearance ...
. There was a lot of crowd, and they pressed forward to see the cyclist coming.
This caused Bartali to fall down during the descent of the
Col d'Aspin
Col d'Aspin ( oc, Còth d'Aspin) (elevation ) is a mountain pass in the French Pyrenees in the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It connects Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, in the upper Adour valley, with Arreau, on the River Neste.
Details of the cl ...
, and this caused Robic to also fall down.
Bartali got up and won the stage, but felt threatened by spectators, who punched and kicked him. One spectator had threatened Bartali with a knife.
Bartali told his team manager
Alfredo Binda
Alfredo Binda (11 August 1902 – 19 July 1986) was an Italian road cyclist of the 1920s and 1930s. He was the first to win five editions of the Giro d'Italia, and a three-time world champion. In addition he won Milan–San Remo twice, and the ...
that he was leaving the Tour de France, and that all Italian cyclists should abandon the race. Not all Italian cyclists wanted to leave: the members from the second Italian team (the Italian Cadets) and Adolfo Leoni wanted to stay. Some Italian cyclists said they wanted to stay in the race to help Magni defend the leading position. Magni felt bad about giving up the chance to win the Tour de France, but accepted the decision. The Tour organisation wanted to keep the Italian cyclists in the race, and among other compromises offered to give them neutral gray jerseys, so the spectators would not recognize them. None of this helped, and both Italian teams left the race. As a consequence, the fifteenth stage, that was originally scheduled to end in Italy (
Sanremo
Sanremo (; lij, Sanrémmo(ro) or , ) or San Remo is a city and comune on the Mediterranean coast of Liguria, in northwestern Italy. Founded in Roman times, it has a population of 55,000, and is known as a tourist destination on the Italian Rivie ...
), was rescheduled to end in Menton.
With Magni out of the race, Swiss
Ferdinand Kübler
Ferdinand Kübler (; 24 July 1919 – 29 December 2016) was a Swiss cyclist with 71 professional victories, including the 1950 Tour de France and the 1951 World Road Race Championship.
Biography
Kübler was born in Marthalen. He began racing ...
became the new leader of the general classification, closely followed by Bobet and Geminiani. Out of respect for Magni, Kübler did not wear the yellow jersey (indicating the leader in the general classification) in the 12th stage.
In the twelfth stage, all the favourites finished together. That stage was won by Belgian
Maurice Blomme
Maurice Blomme (29 October 1926 – 11 April 1980) was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer. He competed in the team pursuit event at the 1948 Summer Olympics. In 1950, Blomme was the winner of the 12th stage of the 1950 Tour de Franc ...
, but not without difficulties: he was so exhausted that he mistook a dark shadow for the finish line, and stopped racing. The secretary of the Tour de France,
Jean Garnault
Jean Garnault (1 July 1925 – 5 December 2023) was a French sporting director and politician of the Rally for the Republic (RPR).
Garnault served as Mayor of Auxerre from 1998 to 2001.
Biography
Born in Paris on 1 July 1925, Garnault's family ...
, had to put him back on his bicycle so he would ride the last meters of the stage.
In that stage thirteen, the temperature was extremely high. Two riders from the North African team,
Marcel Molinès and
Abdel-Kader Zaaf, broke away after 15 kilometers, and created a large gap, also because the other cyclists were more occupied with getting drinks.
Some 20 kilometers from the finish, Zaaf started to zigzag across the road. A safety official pulled him from the race, afraid for his safety, and Molinès rode through alone. Zaaf did not agree with the safety official, and mounted his bicycle again. He quickly fell off his bicycle and fell asleep, and spectators moved him into the shade of a tree.
When he woke up, he realised that he was in a race, got on his bicycle again and rode away, but going into the wrong direction. An ambulance was called, and Zaaf was taken away. Zaaf claimed that he had received wine from a spectator, and as a Muslim he was not used to the alcohol. Behind the two North-African cyclists, Kübler had attacked, and left his rivals
Raphaël Géminiani
Raphaël Géminiani (born Clermont-Ferrand; born 12 June 1925) is a French former road bicycle racer. He had six podium finishes in the Grand Tours. He is one of four children of Italian immigrants who moved to Clermont-FerrandColin, Jacques ( ...
and
Louison Bobet
Louis "Louison" Bobet (; 12 March 1925 - 13 March 1983) was a French professional road racing cyclist. He was the first great French rider of the post-war period and the first rider to win the Tour de France in three successive years, from 1953 t ...
minutes behind.
Of the favourites, only Ockers managed to stay with Kübler.
In stage fifteen, it was still hot, and the riders were not motivated to race. They stopped during the race to cool down in the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...
, but were quickly ordered by
Jacques Goddet
Jacques Goddet (21 June 1905 – 15 December 2000) was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France road cycling race from 1936 to 1986.
Goddet was born and died in Paris. His father, Victor Goddet, was co-founder and finance di ...
to continue the race. The journalists that followed the race reported on this in a humorous way, and the organisation therefore fined them.
In the sixteenth stage, Ockers and Bobet finished shortly after Kübler. The Tour de France jury said Bobet came in second, and gave him the 30 seconds bonification time, but the Belgian team manager
Sylvère Maes protested against this decision, because he argued that Ockers came in second. Maes threatened to take the Belgian team out of the race, but the Tour direction did not change their decision. In the end, the Belgian team stayed in the race.
Second placed rider in the general classification, Ockers was unable to win back time in later stages, so Kübler stayed in the lead for the rest of the race, and became the first Swiss winner of the Tour de France.
Kübler's victory is seen as partially his own accomplishment, but also partially due to the absence of Fausto Coppi and the withdrawal of the Italian teams. According to Kübler, it became more difficult to win the race after the Italians had left the race, because the attention was no longer focussed on the Italians, but on Kübler. Kübler felt that he would have been able to win the 1950 Tour de France if the Italians would have not abandoned, because he was the best in the time trials.
Classification leadership and minor prizes
![Wiemu17](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Wiemu17.jpg)
The time that each cyclist required to finish each stage was recorded, and these times were added together for the
general classification
The general classification (or the GC) in road bicycle racing is the category that tracks overall times for riders in multi-stage races. Each stage will have a stage winner, but the overall winner in the GC is the rider who has the fastest cumulat ...
. If a cyclist had received a time bonus, it was subtracted from this total; all time penalties were added to this total. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey. The total prize money in the 1950 Tour de France was 14 million French Francs; 1 million French Francs were for the winner of the general classification. Of the 116 cyclists that started the 1959 Tour de France, 51 finished the race.
Points for the
mountains classification
The King of the Mountains (KoM) is an award given to the best climbing specialist in a men's cycling road race; in women's cycle racing
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a femal ...
were earned by reaching the mountain tops first. The system was the same as in 1949: there were two types of mountain tops: the hardest ones, in category 1, gave 10 points to the first cyclist, the easier ones, in category 2, gave 5 points to the first cyclist, and the easiest ones, in category 3, gave 3 points. Louison Bobet won this classification after having led the classification almost the entire race, although he only reached 2 of the 14 mountain tops first.
The
team classification The team classification is one of the different rankings for which competitors can compete in a multiple stage cycling race. It differs from the other usual rankings (general classification, points, king of the mountain and best young rider competi ...
was calculated by adding the times in the general classification of the best three cyclists per team. It was won by the Belgian team, with a large margin over the French team. Of the other four teams that started, the two Italian teams had abandoned the race, and the North African team finished with only two riders and the Dutch team with only one rider, therefore they were ineligible for the team classification. The
Souvenir Henri Desgrange
The Souvenir Henri Desgrange is an award and cash prize given in the yearly running of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. It is won by the rider that crosses a particular point in the race, mostly the summits of the highest a ...
was given in honour of Tour founder
Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange (31 January 1865 – 16 August 1940) was a French bicycle racer and sports journalist. He set twelve world track cycling records, including the hour record of on 11 May 1893. He was the first organiser of the Tour de France.
...
to the first rider to pass the summit of the
Col du Lautaret
Col du Lautaret () is a high mountain pass in the department of Hautes-Alpes in France.
It marks the boundary between the valleys of the Romanche and the Guisane, a tributary of the Durance which has its source at the col. The valleys are linke ...
on stage 19. This prize was won by
Apo Lazaridès
Apo Lazaridès (16 October 1925 – 30 October 1998) was a French champion cyclist.
Born Jean-Apôtre Lazaridès in Marles-les-Mines, Pas-de-Calais of Greek ancestry (he became French in 1929). During the German occupation of France, Lazar ...
.
The special award for the best regional rider was won by sixth-placed
Kléber Piot
Kléber Piot (20 October 1920 – 5 January 1990) was a French cyclist. He rode in the 1947 and 1948 Tour de France
The 1948 Tour de France was the 35th edition of the Tour de France, taking place from 30 June to 25 July 1948. It consis ...
.
Final standings
General classification
Mountains classification
Team classification
Aftermath
The French-Algerian cyclist Zaaf, who fell out in the thirteenth stage after riding into the wrong direction, became famous, and got to ride in many
criterium
A criterium, or crit, is a bike race consisting of several laps around a closed circuit, the length of each lap or circuit ranging from about 400 m to 10,000 m.
Overview
Race length can be determined by a number of laps or total time, ...
s, until he left two years later to Algeria.
Kübler did not enter the next three Tours de France, but when he returned in
1954, he finished in second place, and won the green jersey for the
points classification
The points classification is a secondary award category in road bicycle racing. Points are given for high finishes and, in some cases, for winning sprints at certain places along the route, most often called ''intermediate sprints''. The points cl ...
.
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:1950 Tour De France
Tour De France, 1950
Tour de France by year
1950 in road cycling
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...
Tour de France
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...