Firmin Lambot

Firmin Lambot (pronounced: [fiʁ.mɛ̃ lɑ̃.bo]; 14 March 1886 – 19 January 1964) was a Belgian bicycle racer who twice won the Tour de France.

Born in the small town of Florennes, Lambot worked as a saddler. He worked 12 hours a day, starting at 6am. He bought his first bicycle at 17 and began riding 50 km a day to and from work. His first race was in a local village; he won five francs as first prize. He then bought a racing bike.

He began racing professionally in 1908. In that year he won the championships of Flanders and Belgium. He rode the Tour de France from 1911 to 1913 but the First World War ended the race for the next five years.

When the Tour returned in 1919 it was a miserable affair of war-torn roads, fractured logistics and former contenders no longer alive to compete. Only 11 riders finished. Lambot was approached at the Buffalo track in Paris, where he had ridden a 24-hour race, to ride the Tour in the Globe Cycles team. He was second for much of the race but took the lead when Eugène Christophe broke a fork. Observers felt Lambot owed his victory more to Christophe’s bad luck than his own ability and a collection for Christophe surpassed the prize money Lambot received. His performance brought him a contract from the larger Peugeot team at 300 francs a month. He was engaged to ride just the Tour de France.

Tour de France

The Tour de France (French pronunciation: ​[tuʁ də fʁɑ̃s]) is an annual multiple stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally making passes through nearby countries. The race was first organized in 1903 to increase paper sales for the magazine L'Auto; it is currently run by the Amaury Sport Organisation. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1903 except when it was stopped for the two World Wars. As the Tour gained prominence and popularity the race was lengthened and its reach began to extend around the globe. Participation expanded from a primarily French field, as riders from all over the world began to participate in the race each year. The Tour is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams, with the exception of the teams that the organizers invite.

The Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España make up cycling's prestigious, three-week-long Grand Tours; the Tour is the oldest and generally considered the most prestigious of the three. Traditionally, the race is held primarily in the month of July. While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same with the appearance of time trials, the passage through the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and the Alps, and the finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The modern editions of the Tour de France consist of 21 day-long segments (stages) over a 23-day period and cover around 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi). The race alternates between clockwise and counterclockwise circuits of France.

France

France (French: [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 643,801 square kilometres (248,573 sq mi) and has a total population of 66.6 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. The Constitution of France establishes the state as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people.

During the Iron Age, what is now Metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which held Gaul until 486. The Gallo-Romans faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453) strengthening French state-building and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy. During the Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the beginning of a global colonial empire. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).

Philippe Thys

Philippe Thys (pronounced: [fi.lip tis]; Dutch: Philippe Thijs; 8 October 1889 – 16 January 1971) was a Belgian cyclist and three times winner of the Tour de France.

Professional career

In 1910, Thys won Belgium's first national cyclo-cross championship. The following year he won the Circuit Français Peugeot, followed by stage races from Paris to Toulouse and Paris to Turin. He turned professional to ride the Tour de France.

Thys won the Tour in 1913 despite breaking his bicycle fork and finding a bicycle shop to mend it. The repair cost him a 10-minute penalty but he won by just under nine minutes. Thys took the stage and the race lead when Eugène Christophe broke his fork on the way to Luchon. Marcel Buysse overtook him in the results the following day. Another broken fork on the way to Nice gave Thys the lead again but drama continued when he fell on the penultimate stage from Longwy to Dunkirk. Despite being knocked out and being penalised for help from teammates to repair his bike, he won 8 minutes and 37 seconds ahead of Gustave Garrigou, with Buysse third.

Lucien Petit-Breton

Lucien Georges Mazan (18 October 1882 – 20 December 1917) was a French racing cyclist (pseudonym: Lucien Petit-Breton, pronounced: [ly.sjɛ̃ pə.ti.bʁə.tɔ̃]).

He was born in Plessé, Loire-Atlantique, a part of Brittany, now part of Pays de la Loire. When he was six he moved with his parents to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he took the nationality. His cycling career started when he won a bike in a lottery at the age of sixteen. As his father wanted him to do a 'real' job, he adapted the nickname Lucien Breton for races, to deceive his father. Later he changed it to Petit-Breton, because there already was another cyclist called Lucien Breton.

Professional career

His first notable victory was the track cycling championship of Argentina but in 1902 he was drafted in the French Army and he moved back to France. Two years later in 1904 he won the Bol d'Or track event at the second attempt, having finished second the previous year. In 1905 he broke the world hour record on the Buffalo cycling track in Paris with 41.110 km. The same year he started road-racing and finished the Tour de France in an astonishing fifth overall. In 1906, he won the third Paris–Tours race and improved on his previous performance by finishing fourth in the Tour.