1913 Tour de France

In 1905, the format of the Tour de France had been changed from the time system to the points system, to reduce the cheating that had caused the first four cyclists of the 1904 Tour de France to be disqualified. In the 1912 Tour de France, this system had been working against Eugène Christophe's chances, who would have been leading the time classification up until the final stage where he allowed a group to ride away.[2] The system had been working against a French cyclist and in favor of a Belgian cyclist (Odiel Defraye, who won the Tour de France in 1912), and the French organisation changed the system back again to the time system: the finishing times of all stages were added per cyclist, and the cyclist with the least total time was the winner. This was also intended to increase combativity, because in the points system riders did not care about time gaps, so escaped low-ranked riders were ignored by high-ranked cyclists.[3]

For the first time, the route of the race was in the opposite direction. Prior to the 1913 race, the Tour the France always had been in the clockwise direction through France, and in 1913 it was anticlockwise.[4]

The 1913 Tour started with 140 cyclists; there were 51 cyclists distributed over 9 teams, including all favourites for the overall victory. The remaining 89 cyclists started in the isolés category.[5]

Although cyclists had started in teams previously, the rules had forbidden them to work together against other cyclists. In 1913, this changed, and cyclists from the same team were allowed to work together. The organisers preferred riders to ride solo, so they added a rule that if a cyclist would win a stage with a margin of 20 minutes or more, he would not only get his own prize money, but also the half of all the other cyclists' prize money of that stage.[6]

The first African cyclist took part in the Tour de France in 1913: Ali Neffati from Tunisia. Neffati had been discovered by Tour organiser Henri Desgrange, and would later become a driver at l'Auto, the newspaper that organised the Tour de France.[7]

Philippe Thys, winner of the 1913 Tour de France, after finishing the race

This edition started with six former Tour de France winners (Louis Trousselier, Lucien Petit-Breton, François Faber, Octave Lapize, Gustave Garrigou and Odile Defraye), the most ever.[8]

In the first stages, not much happened in the overall classification, as most cyclists were saving their energy for the Pyrenees.[9] The stage was won by Italian Giovanni Micheletto in a sprint. Micheletto was not part of the first group in the second stage, and thus lost his lead. There were four cyclists who had been in the lead group in both stages, and they were jointly leading the Tour.[10]

The most important event occurred in the third stage, when former winner Lapize stopped the race; either because he considered his earning insufficient,[7] or because he thought his team was not good enough.[3]

The crucial stage proved to be the sixth. At the start of the sixth stage, last year's winner Defraye led the general classification, some 5 minutes ahead of Eugène Christophe.[3] In that sixth stage, the first mountains were climbed. Defraye was dropped quickly, and Christophe led the race.[8] Christophe came up first on the Aubisque, and in second place behind Philippe Thys on the Tourmalet. On the way down from the Tourmalet, Christophe was hit by a race vehicle,[11] and his fork broke, rendering his bike unusable, and the rules said that he had to repair it himself. He walked more than 10 km down to the next village, and found a place where he could repair his bicycle. He worked on it for over three hours, being watched by race officials who made sure that he was not helped by anyone. When Christophe asked a small boy, of seven years old, to work the bellows, he was fined with ten minutes.[8][12] During this repair, angry with the draconian rules, he snapped: (at the hungry race commissaires) "If you're hungry, eat charcoal! [...] I am your prisoner and you will remain my wardens till the end".[13] After his bicycle was fixed, he rode away and finished the stage, 3 hours and 50 minutes later than the stage winner Thys. Christophe's chances to win the 1913 Tour de France were over.[14]

After that sixth stage, Marcel Buysse was in the lead. In the ninth stage, Buysse had mechanical failure with a broken handlebar, and finished almost three and a half hours after stage winner Lambot. This was the end of the chances for Buysse for the victory.[7] Buysse did not give up, and won four of the remaining five stages.[9]

The lead had transferred to Thys now. In the last stages, the race focussed on the duel between Petit-Breton and Thys. In the 14th stage, Petit-Breton fell down and stopped the race. In the same stage, Thys also fell down and remained unconscious for a while. When he was conscious again, he was helped to repair his bicycle. All help was illegal in 1913, but the jury only gave him a 10-minute penalty.[4] Thys finished the stage, and kept 8'37" in front of Gustave Garrigou in the general classification. In the final stage, Thys stayed with Garrigou, and so won the 1913 Tour de France.

• Amels, Wim (1984). De geschiedenis van de Tour de France 1903–1984 (in Dutch). Valkenswaard, Netherlands: Sport-Express. ISBN 978-90-70763-05-3.
• Augendre, Jacques (2016). Guide historique [Historical guide] (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 August 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2016. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Cleijne, Jan (2014). Legends of the Tour. London: Head of Zeus. ISBN 978-1-78185-998-8.
• Cossins, Peter; Best, Isabel; Sidwells, Chris; Griffith, Clare (2013). Le Tour 100: The Definitive History of the World's Greatest Race. London: Hachette UK. ISBN 978-1-84403-759-9.
• McGann, Bill; McGann, Carol (2006). The Story of the Tour de France: 1903–1964. Vol. 1. Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59858-180-5.

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