Maurice De Waele (; 27 December 1896 – 14 February 1952) was a Belgian professional

road bicycle racer Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common ...

. De Waele placed 2nd in the

1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith becomes the first Director-General. * January 7 ** ...

Tour, an hour and fifty eight minutes Nicolas Frantz and 3rd in

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhanov, J ...

, again won by Frantz. However, he is most famous for winning the 1929 Tour de France. He led the Tour until stage seven when two punctures on the way to

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture o ...

cost him the yellow jersey to no less than three other rides on the same time in the general classification, Frantz, Andre Leducq and Victor Fontan. Fontan was the sole leader of the race when a broken bike led to his retirement, leaving De Waele in the lead, seventy five seconds ahead of Frantz. However, punctures to De Waele gave the lead to his nearest rival until he too suffered the same problem. With Frantz out of the running for the title, sickness in

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

nearly cost him too but with help from his teammates, he was led to victory. After winning the 1929 Tour, the organiser,

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. ...

despaired so much of the trickery that he thought had let such a minor rider succeed that he abandoned commercially sponsored teams and ran the Tour for national teams for two decades. Desgrange had until then insisted that while riders could compete in the name of their sponsors, cooperation or tactics between those riders was not allowed. They were to consider everyone their rival and ride against them whether they had the same sponsor or not. De Waele was sponsored by the French bicycle company, Alcyon, whose ability to employ many of the leading riders gave it a dominant place in the sport. Clashes between Alcyon and Desgrange were frequent and came to a head when De Waele won the Tour with the illegal help of other Alcyon riders even though he was ill. "My Tour has been won by a corpse," Desgrange complained and from the following year denied entries to commercial teams and accepted national teams instead. De Waele finished 5th in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 � ...

. Other notable wins include the 1928 and 1929

Tour of the Basque Country The Tour of the Basque Country (Officially: ''Itzulia Basque Country'', es, Vuelta al País Vasco, links=no, eu, Euskal Herriko Itzulia) is an annual road cycling stage race held in the Spanish Basque Country in April. It is one of the races t ...

Career achievements

Major results

;1927 – Labor-Dunlop :

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's Race stage, multiple-stage cycle sport, bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tour (cycling), Grand Tours (the Giro d'It ...

:: 2nd overall, @ + 1h 48' 21" :: 1st, Stage 2 (

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to New ...

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very ...

), 103km :: 1st, Stage 13 (

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fran ...

), 360km ;1928 – Alcyon-Dunlop :

:: 3rd overall, @ + 56' 16" :: 1st, Stage 8 (

Hendaye Hendaye ( Basque: ''Hendaia'')HENDAIA
Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 271km : 1st overall,

;1929 – Belgium :

1st overall, 5254km in 186h 39' 16" (28.319km/h) :: 1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 270km : 1st overall, Tour of the Basque Country ;1931 – Belgium : 1st overall,

Tour of Belgium The Tour of Belgium ( nl, Ronde van België; french: Tour de Belgique) is a five-day bicycle race which is held annually in Belgium, and is part of the UCI ProSeries. It was held annually between 1908 and 1981, except during both world wars. Betw ...

Grand Tour results timeline

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Waele, Maurice Belgian male cyclists Tour de France winners Belgian Tour de France stage winners 1896 births 1952 deaths Cyclists from East Flanders People from Lievegem Belgian cyclo-cross champions