1947 Tour de France

After the 1939 Tour de France, the Second World War had made it impossible to organise a big cycling event in France, although some attempts had been taken. The rights on the Tour de France, previously owned by l'Auto, had been transferred to the French government. There were two newspapers interested in taking over these rights, so they both organised cycling events. The event organised by l'Équipe, "La Course du Tour de France", was more successful, and l'Équipe was given the right to organise the 1947 Tour de France.

Dutch riders after stage one

The national teams format, which had been in use before the Second World War, was used again in 1947. The German team was not invited, and the Italian team was made up of Franco-Italians living in France, [1] as the peace treaty between France and Italy was not yet official, so the countries were technically still at war.[2]

The Tour organisers invited ten teams of ten cyclists each. Besides the Italian team, there was also a French team and a Belgian team, and a combined Swiss/Luxembourgian team.[3] The plan was to have a joint Dutch-British team, but the Dutch cyclists protested because the British cyclists were too inexperienced, and the British cyclists were replaced by "French strangers".[4] There were also five French regional teams: Île-de-France, West, North-East, Centre/South-West and South-East.[3] Of the 100 cyclists, 53 finished the race.[5]

The teams entering the race were:[3]

The 1947 Tour de France started on 25 June, and had five rest days, in Besançon, Briançon, Nice, Luchon and Vannes.[6] The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,556 m (8,386 ft) at the summit tunnel of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 8.[7][8]

Stage characteristics and winners[9][6][10][11]

Stage	Date	Course	Distance	Type		Winner
1	25 June	Paris to Lille	236 km (147 mi)		Plain stage	Ferdinand Kübler (SUI)
2	26 June	Lille to Brussels (Belgium)	182 km (113 mi)		Plain stage	René Vietto (FRA)
3	27 June	Brussels (Belgium) to Luxembourg City (Luxembourg)	314 km (195 mi)		Plain stage	Aldo Ronconi (ITA)
4	28 June	Luxembourg City (Luxembourg) to Strasbourg	223 km (139 mi)		Plain stage	Jean Robic (FRA)
5	29 June	Strasbourg to Besançon	248 km (154 mi)		Plain stage	Ferdinand Kübler (SUI)
	30 June	Besançon			Rest day
6	1 July	Besançon to Lyon	249 km (155 mi)		Plain stage	Lucien Teisseire (FRA)
7	2 July	Lyon to Grenoble	172 km (107 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Jean Robic (FRA)
8	3 July	Grenoble to Briançon	185 km (115 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Fermo Camellini (ITA)
	4 July	Briançon			Rest day
9	5 July	Briançon to Digne	217 km (135 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	René Vietto (FRA)
10	6 July	Digne to Nice	255 km (158 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Fermo Camellini (ITA)
	7 July	Nice			Rest day
11	8 July	Nice to Marseille	230 km (143 mi)		Plain stage	Édouard Fachleitner (FRA)
12	9 July	Marseille to Montpellier	165 km (103 mi)		Plain stage	Henri Massal (FRA)
13	10 July	Montpellier to Carcassonne	172 km (107 mi)		Plain stage	Lucien Teisseire (FRA)
14	11 July	Carcassonne to Luchon	253 km (157 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Albert Bourlon (FRA)
	12 July	Luchon			Rest day
15	13 July	Luchon to Pau	195 km (121 mi)		Stage with mountain(s)	Jean Robic (FRA)
16	14 July	Pau to Bordeaux	195 km (121 mi)		Plain stage	Giuseppe Tacca (ITA)
17	15 July	Bordeaux to Les Sables-d'Olonne	272 km (169 mi)		Plain stage	Éloi Tassin (FRA)
18	16 July	Les Sables-d'Olonne to Vannes	236 km (147 mi)		Plain stage	Pietro Tarchini (SUI)
	17 July	Vannes			Rest day
19	18 July	Vannes to Saint-Brieuc	139 km (86 mi)		Individual time trial	Raymond Impanis (BEL)
20	19 July	Saint-Brieuc to Caen	235 km (146 mi)		Plain stage	Maurice Diot (FRA)
21	20 July	Caen to Paris	257 km (160 mi)		Plain stage	Briek Schotte (BEL)
	Total		4,642 km (2,884 mi)[12]

Ferdinand Kübler crossing the finish line in Lille ahead of André Mahé to win the opening stage

After Ferdinand Kübler had won the first stage, René Vietto took the lead by winning the second stage. After the third stage only Aldo Ronconi was within 90 seconds of Vietto, and the third man in the general classification was already more than eight minutes behind.[13]

In the seventh stage, when the Alps mountains were climbed, Ronconi took over the lead, but two stages later Vietto took back the lead, helped by Apo Lazaridès.[14]

Jean Robic had lost six minutes in that ninth stage, and lost more time in the tenth stage. He was already more than 25 minutes behind, and was no longer considered a favourite, but Robic was convinced that he would win the Tour.[15]

In the fourteenth stage, Albert Bourlon escaped directly after the start. He stayed away until the end of the stage, 253 km (157 mi) later. This is the longest escape in the Tour de France after the second World War.[12]

In the fifteenth stage, Robic escaped in the Pyrénees, and beat the other by more than ten minutes. Because of the time bonuses for reaching the mountain tops first, he even won back more than fifteen minutes.[1] In the general classification, Robic rose to fifth place.[16] With only three stages to go in the Tour, Vietto was still in the lead, 94 seconds ahead of Pierre Brambilla. The nineteenth stage was an individual time trial, the longest in Tour history.[13] In that stage, Vietto lost considerable time, and Brambilla took over the lead in the general classification.[13] Vietto performed worse than expected; there was speculation about why he performed so badly, and some said it was because of the motorcycle accident of a friend, while others said it was because he drank a bottle of cider during the time trial.[17]

General classification before stage 21[18]

Rank	Cyclist	Team	Time
1	Pierre Brambilla (ITA)	Italy	140h 44' 38"
2	Aldo Ronconi (ITA)	Italy	+ 53"
3	Jean Robic (FRA)	West	+ 2' 58"
4	René Vietto (FRA)	France	+ 5' 16"
5	Édouard Fachleitner (FRA)	France	+ 6' 56"

The last stage was flat, which makes it hard for escapers to win time.[19] In that last stage, there was a hilltop prime, where money could be won by the first cyclist that passed. Although a group had already passed that hill, Robic was not aware of this, and sprinted for this prime.[13] When he reached the top, Brambilla had been dropped. Robic and Fachleitner, fifth in the general classification, started to work together, and left Brambilla and Ronconi minutes behind. Around 140 km before the finish, they were three minutes ahead of Brambilla, which made Robic the virtual leader of the race. At that point Robic told Fachleitner: "You can not win the Tour, because I will not let you escape. If you ride with me, I will pay you 100.000 Francs."[19]

When they reached Paris, they had won 13 minutes on them, enough to make Robic the winner of the Tour de France.[13]

The cyclist to reach the finish in the least time was the winner of the stage. The time that each cyclist required to finish the stage was recorded. For the general classification, these times were added together. If a cyclist had received a time bonus, it was subtracted from this total; all time penalties were added to this total. The cyclist with the least accumulated time was the race leader, identified by the yellow jersey.[20] With his victory, Robic won 500.000 francs. Additionally, future exhibitions and endorsements due to the Tour victory would give him another 3 to 4 million francs.[21]

Additionally, there was the mountains classification, which did not have a jersey associated with it in 1947.[22] Sixteen mountains were selected by the Tour organisation, divided in two classes.[9] In the first-class mountains, the ten first cyclists received points, with 10 points for the first, 9 for the second, and so forth, to 1 point for the tenth. In the second-class mountains, only the first five cyclists received points, 5 for the first one to 1 for the fifth one. The mountains classification was won by Pierre Brambilla.

The team classification was calculated in 1947 by adding up the times of the best three cyclists of a team; the team with the least time was the winner.[23]

The Souvenir Henri Desgrange was given in honour of Tour founder Henri Desgrange to the first rider to pass a point by his final residence, the "Villa Mia" in Beauvallon, Grimaud, on the French Riviera on stage 11. This prize was won by Raymond Impanis.[24][25]

Classification leadership by stage[26]

Stage	Winner	General classification	Mountains classification[lower-alpha 1]	Team classification
1	Ferdinand Kübler	Ferdinand Kübler	no award	France-West
2	René Vietto	René Vietto		Belgium
3	Aldo Ronconi			Italy
4	Jean Robic
5	Ferdinand Kübler
6	Lucien Teisseire
7	Jean Robic	Aldo Ronconi
8	Fermo Camellini		Fermo Camellini
9	René Vietto	René Vietto
10	Fermo Camellini
11	Édouard Fachleitner
12	Henri Massal
13	Lucien Teisseire			France
14	Albert Bourlon
15	Jean Robic		Pierre Brambilla
16	Giuseppe Tacca			Italy
17	Éloi Tassin
18	Pietro Tarchini
19	Raymond Impanis	Pierre Brambilla
20	Maurice Diot
21	Briek Schotte	Jean Robic
Final		Jean Robic	Pierre Brambilla	Italy

Robic never wore the yellow jersey as leader in the general classification in 1947, because he only became leader in the final stage. Only Jan Janssen has repeated that, in the 1968 Tour de France.[19] Later in his career, Robic wore the yellow jersey for one day in the 1953 Tour de France.[15]

• 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)
• Dauncey, Hugh; Hare, Geoffrey (2003). Tour de France 1903-2003 : a century of sporting structures, meanings and values. London: Frank Cass.
• Maso, Benjo (2003). Wij waren allemaal goden (in Dutch). Amsterdam: AmstelSport. ISBN 978-90-482-0003-0.
• McGann, Bill; McGann, Carol (2006). The Story of the Tour de France: 1903–1964. Vol. 1. Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59858-180-5.
• Nauright, John; Parrish, Charles (2012). Sports Around the World: History, Culture, and Practice. Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-300-2.
• Seray, Jacques [in French]; Lablaine, Jacques (2006). Henri Desgrange, l'homme qui créa le Tour de France [Henri Desgrange, the man who created the Tour de France] (in French). Saint-Malo, France: Editions Cristel. ISBN 978-2-84421-042-5.

Media related to 1947 Tour de France at Wikimedia Commons