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news
Tour de France logo on yellow 3x2Oldest surviving Tour de France winner Roger Walkowiak dies at 89
Roger Walkowiak, winner of the 1956 Tour de France and briefly, the oldest survivor of those to have won the yellow jersey, has passed away at the age of 89.
His wife, Pierrette, said that her husband had died early today in a hospital near Vichy, reports the Associated Press.
The previous oldest living Tour de France champion, the Swiss rider Ferdy Kuebler, died aged 97 last December.
Walkowiak’s Tour de France win was a huge shock. He first took the leader’s jersey after getting into a big breakaway on the Stage 7 in Angers in the Loire Valley.
He lost it in Bayonne on Stage 10, but after again getting into breakaways and taking time from his rivals, got back into it at the end of Stage 17 to Turin and kept it to the finish at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
Born in the south west of France where his father, originally from Poland, worked in a factory, Walkowiak was a lost minute addition to the Nord-Est-Centre team for the 1956 Tour de France, which was then raced by regional and national teams.
His surprise victory was not popularly received either by the public or the press and he would retire from professional cycling in 1960, disappointed by the reaction to his win.
It would be sandwiched by victories of two greats of French cycling – Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil – neither of whom rode it in the year of Walkowiak’s unlikely victory.
His name was even borrowed for a French expression “a la Walko” – to do something unexpectedly, or without flair.
He returned to south west France to run a bar, but fed up with customers teasing him about his Tour de France win, he went back to working in the car factory he had left for the world of professional cycling.
Although he was a Grand Tour stage winner, with one stage victory each in the 1956 and 1957 editions of the Vuelta, he was the only overall winner of the Tour de France never to have won a stage of the race during his career.
Walkowiak’s wife said: ''He always did his job conscientiously and his Tour win was not so surprising after all. He was always well placed, and loved to ride at the front.''
Spain’s Federico Bahamontes, nicknamed the Eagle of Toledo and winner of the 1959 race, becomes the oldest surviving Tour de France champion at 88 years of age.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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9 comments
Sometimes; rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jersey_statistics#Yellow_jersey_winners_without_winning_any_stage
Startt's interview with Walkowiak was from 2012:
http://www.bicycling.com/culture/people/lamentation
His 1956 Tour win, and more recent wins by unfancied riders, is discussed in this week's Cycling Podcast:
https://audioboom.com/posts/5588096-double-trouble-and-bucket-breaks-epi...
(it's on iTunes too but I'm not that way inclined)
The same has been said about many countries. There may be some truth in it but such statements are invariably a stereotype based on ignorance.
A Polish cycling website makes only passing reference to his father, but does say "son of a Polish emigrant" – masculine singular, so implying his mother was French. It also has a quote from an interview he gave to the American journaist James Startt:
"Was it because my father was a Polish emigrant that people said I was different? That was very difficult, I can't explain how I felt. They had it in for me before we crossed the line in Paris. The press started criticising me, and so did the directeurs sportifs of several teams."
http://naszosie.pl/2017/02/07/roger-walkowiak-zyje/
But the same article also gives as an explanation for this criticism the fact that he'd won the Tour without a single stage victory. He didn't come from nowhere though: he'd been second to Bobet in the previous year's Dauphine.
Born 1927, so his father would have arrived in France either following or before the First World War. Or possibly even during it but that seems less likely, though not impossible! Neither this article, nor his Wikipedia page, nor Le Monde:
http://www.lemonde.fr/cyclisme/article/2017/02/07/cyclisme-roger-walkowi...
make any mention of his mother. Was she also Polish or was she French?
What poor treatment - as previously stated - still a Champion and should be remembered as such.
I love the underdog story - bet the peleton in those days were as shocked as the public - somewhat disobedient to win when you were not known!
I love it - bet the French would love to have him now - deperate for such talent these days as they continue to live in hope of another French winner in the new hopefully clean(er) era.
France, a beautiful country sometimes spoiled by the French. It's almost like the 'public and press' don't know the rules of the sport.
Seems very unfair if he was treated as badly as they say, seems hard to blame a chap for winning.
I guess this means there's now a new oldest TdF winner. Would now be a good time to highlight their great achievements?
He's a TdF champ. Deserves his picture up.
Pretty disgusting how he was treated. RIP fella!!