Tom Simpson's ex-directeur sportive Gaston Plaud dies at age 98

Gaston Plaud, directeur sportive at Peugeot of one of Great Britain's greatest ever cyclists, the late Tom Simpson, has died at the age of 98.

Plaud was directeur sportive of the Peugeot team betweeen 1958 and 1974, with its roster during that period including some of cycling's greatest names.

Charly Gaul, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Thevenet and Roger Pingeon were among the riders to sport the iconic black-and-white Peugeot jersey while Ploud was directeur sportive.

It was with the French team that Simpson enjoyed most of his major successes on the road.

He already had victory in the Tour of Flanders among his palmares and had become the first British rider to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France when he joined the team in 1963.

In his debut season under Plaud, he won Bordeaux-Paris, and in the following two seasons won two further Monuments to add to that Flanders success - Milan-San Remo and the Giro di Lombardia, the latter in the world champion's jersey he won in 1965.

In 1967, Simpson rode the Vuelta - then raced in the spring - as preparation for the Tour de France.

During that race, in which Simpson one two stages, there came a point when Plaud had to tell him to stop following an attack, since he appeared so spent.

It was, perhaps, a harbinger of the events of July that year, when Simpson died on the slopes of Mont Ventoux.

With the Tour de France contested by national rather than trade teams at the time, Simpson was riding for Great Britain at the race that year.

The British rider had suffered from illness in the days before the Tour headed towards Mont Ventoux on Stage 13 - the stage on which Simpson died.

Cycling writer William Fotheringham in his book, Put Me Back On The Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson, recounts how Plaud begged him not to start that stage.

It was a plea that Simpson chose not to heed, and in the saddest of circumstances, he passed into cycling legend.