1952 Tour de France in Encyclopedia

The 1952 Tour de France was the 39th Tour de France, taking place June 25 to July 19, 1952. It was composed of 23 stages over 4807 km, ridden at an average speed of 31.739 km/h.^[1] Newly introduced were the arrivals on mountain peaks.

The race was won by Italian Fausto Coppi. Coppi dominated the race, winning five stages and the mountains classification, and was a member of the winning Italian team. His dominance was so large that the Tour organisation had to double the prize money for second place to make the race interesting. At the end, Coppi had a margin of almost half an hour over the second-ranked cyclist, such a margin has never been achieved again.

Changes from the 1951 Tour de France

The 1952 Tour de France saw the introduction of the combativity award, a daily award for the most combative rider of the stage.^[2] The winner of that award received 100,000 French Francs.^[3] (The supercombativity award, the award for the most combative rider of the entire Tour de France, would first be given in 1953.)

The team classification had been awarded and calculated since 1930, but in 1952 the daily team classification was also calculated: for each stage, the best team (calculated as the team of which the best three cyclists had the lowest accumulated team in that stage) received a prize.^[4]

Another innovation was the stage arrivals on mountain peaks. This happened three times in 1952, on stages 10, 11 and 21.^[3]

Participants

As was the custom since the 1930 Tour de France, the 1952 Tour de France was contested by national and regional teams. The three major cycling countries in 1952, Italy, Belgium and France, each sent a team of 12 cyclists. Other countries sent teams of 8 cyclists: Switzerland, Luxembourg (together with Australia), Netherlands and Spain. The French regional cyclists were divided into four teams of 12 cyclists: Paris, North East Center, South East and West South West. The last team of eight cyclists was made up out of cyclists from the French North African colonies. In the end, Luxembourg only sent 6 cyclists, so altogether this made 122 cyclists.^[4]

There were 57 French (of which 6 Algerian), 13 Italian, 12 Belgian, 8 Dutch, 8 Spanish, 8 Swiss, 5 Luxembourgian and 1 Australian cyclist.^[5]

The winners of the last two editions, Swiss cyclists Hugo Koblet and Ferdi K bler, were injured and did not enter the race, neither did French cyclist Louison Bobet.^[4]

On the last press conference before the race, Jacques Goddet did a poll amongst journalists, to see who they considered the main favourite. Coppi received 29 votes in that poll, followed by G miniani and Bartali, both 26 votes.^[6]

Race details

In the fourth stage, Jean Robic, the winner of the 1947 Tour de France was in a group with his team mate Rapha l G miniani, and Robic let G miniani do all the work. After the stage, Robic told reporters that he had been smart, because he had saved energy and was in a better position to win the Tour. G miniani then became angry and held Robic's head in a hotel room sink. It was the last year that Robic rode on the national team.^[7] At that moment, Nello Lauredi was the leader in the race.

In the sixth stage, Fiorenzo Magni escaped, and became the leader of the general classification by twelve seconds. In the 1950 Tour de France, Magni had already become the leader, but left the race without riding in the yellow jersey.^[7] In the time trial in stage seven, won by Fausto Coppi, Magni lost his lead, and Lauredi became leader again.

The first high mountains appeared in stage eight. Magni and Lauredi stayed together, but because Magni took a twenty-second bonification for finishing second, they swapped positions again, and Magni became leader again.^[7]

In the ninth stage, a group of eight cyclists got away, including Coppi's team mate Andrea Carrea. At the end of the stage, the group had a margin of more than nine minutes. Carrea went to the hotel after the finish, but was picked up by the police. Carrea asked what he had done wrong, but he was told that he was the new leader of the race, and had to go to the ceremony to receive the yellow jersey. Carrea apologized to his team leader Coppi, in fear that his team leader would be angry because a helper occupied the highest rank, but Coppi was not angry.^[7]

Fausto Coppi, the winner of the 1952 Tour de France. In the tenth stage, Robic attacked, and only Coppi was able to follow him. Later, Robic had a flat tire. Because his team director was far away, he lost several minutes, and lost so much time that he dropped from second place to fifth place.^[8] Coppi rode away and won the stage, taking over the lead in the general classification from his team mate. The top three riders were all Italian at that moment.^[7]

After the rest day, the eleventh stage was again a mountain stage. The cyclists from the French national team, especially G miniani, attacked on the Galibier, but Coppi counterattacked and escaped easily. At the end of the stage, Coppi won by a large margin. His lead in the general classification was now almost 20 minutes.^[7]

The margin was so large that Coppi didn't need to attack in the twelfth stage. When Coppi had a flat tire, his team mate Gino Bartali gave him his own wheel, which was a sign that the rivalry between the two cyclists was over. Even though Coppi rode conservatively in the that stage, the cyclist directly behind him in the general classification, Alex Close, lost another four minutes, and Coppi was now 24 minutes ahead.^[7]

The Tour organisation feared that the race would become dull, now that Coppi's lead was so large. Therefore, they doubled the prize money for second and third place, hoping to keep the other cyclists aggressive.^[7]

In the sixteenth stage, the riders were apparently not motivated by the double prize money, as they were slow that day. The organisation then responded by canceling the prize money; there was still a rule from before 1947, that said that stage winners had to go at least 30 km/h to win prize money. The winner, Andr Rosseel, had only reached 29 km/h.^[9]

In the seventeenth stage, G miniani, who was already in fourteenth place, 52 minutes behind in the general classification, escaped. Coppi did not chase him, and allowed G miniani to win the stage.^[7] In the eighteenth stage, Coppi reached the top of the mountains first, but took it easy on the descent, and allowed other cyclists to get back to him. He still won the sprint at the end of the stage.^[7]

Coppi also won the last mountain stage, stage 21, and increased his lead to more than 31 minutes. In the time trial on the next day, Coppi apparently took it easy. Previously he was an expert in such time trials, but on that day he allowed other cyclists to win back some time, and finished on the fourteenth place.^[7]

Stages

The final stage was from Vichy, the capital of Vichy France in the Second World War, to Paris. Vichy had never before been visited, and the distance Vichy France was significantly longer than the other stages. A newspaper described it as linking the two cities together. The stop in Vichy was successful, with a new record of 150.000 live spectators.^[10]

Stage results^[4]^[11]
Stage	Date	Route	Terrain
1	25 June	Brest Rennes	22px Plain stage
2	26 June	Rennes Le Mans	22px Plain stage
3	27 June	Le Mans Rouen	22px Plain stage
4	28 June	Rouen Roubaix	22px Plain stage
5	29 June	Roubaix Namur	22px Plain stage
6	30 June	Namur Metz	22px Plain stage
7	1 July	Metz Nancy	22px Individual time trial
8	2 July	Nancy Mulhouse	22px Stage with mountain(s)
9	3 July	Mulhouse Lausanne	22px Stage with mountain(s)
10	4 July	Lausanne L'Alpe d'Huez	22px Stage with mountain(s)
11	6 July	Le Bourg d'Oisans Sestri res	22px Stage with mountain(s)
12	7 July	Sestri res Monaco	22px Stage with mountain(s)
13	8 July	Monaco Aix-en-Provence	22px Plain stage
14	9 July	Aix-en-Provence Avignon	22px Stage with mountain(s)
15	10 July	Avignon Perpignan	22px Plain stage
16	11 July	Perpignan Toulouse	22px Plain stage
17	13 July	Toulouse Bagn res-de-Bigorre	22px Stage with mountain(s)
18	14 July	Bagn res-de-Bigorre Pau	22px Stage with mountain(s)
19	15 July	Pau Bordeaux	22px Plain stage
20	16 July	Bordeaux Limoges	22px Plain stage
21	17 July	Limoges Clermont-Ferrand	22px Stage with mountain(s)
22	18 July	Clermont-Ferrand Vichy	22px Individual time trial
23	19 July	Vichy Paris	22px Plain stage

Classification leadership

Results

General classification

The time that each cyclist required to finish each stage was recorded, and these times were added together for the general classification. 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. Of the 123 cyclists that started the 1951 Tour de France, 66 finished the race.

Final general classification (11 66)
Rank	Rider	Team	Time
11		France	+1h 02' 47"
12		Switzerland	+1h 04' 19"
13		Belgium	+1h 07' 15"
14		Belgium	+1h 17' 37"
15		Netherlands	+1h 30' 34"
16		Luxembourg	+1h 49' 47"
17		Netherlands	+1h 50' 54"
18		North Africa	+1h 51' 02"
19		France	+1h 59' 43"
20		South East	+2h 01' 17"
21		France	+2h 02' 38"
22		Netherlands	+2h 07' 22"
23		Spain	+2h 08' 32"
24		North East Center	+2h 09' 44"
25		Netherlands	+2h 09' 45"
26		West South West	+2h 20' 09"
27		Italy	+2h 24' 16"
28		Belgium	+2h 29' 59"
29		Belgium	+2h 34' 31"
30		Spain	+2h 41' 18"
31		Paris	+2h 44' 42"
32		North East Center	+2h 47' 21"
33		West South West	+2h 48' 03"
34		France	+2h 49' 26"
35		Italy	+2h 49' 57"
36		Paris	+2h 50' 35"
37		France	+2h 51' 56"
38		Belgium	+2h 52' 16"
39		North Africa	+2h 52' 48"
40		Paris	+2h 53' 01"
41		Italy	+2h 53' 09"
42		Spain	+2h 53' 48"
43		France	+2h 54' 24"
44		South East	+2h 59' 06"
45		North East Center	+3h 02' 26"
46		Italy	+3h 03' 05"
47		Spain	+3h 06' 01"
48		Paris	+3h 14' 39"
49		West South West	+3h 15' 21"
50		Switzerland	+3h 21' 34"
51		Italy	+3h 28' 04"
52		Switzerland	+3h 28' 42"
53		Netherlands	+3h 29' 05"
54		North Africa	+3h 30' 54"
55		North East Center	+3h 34' 31"
56		Italy	+3h 37' 32"
57		Luxembourg	+3h 38' 19"
58		Italy	+3h 40' 46"
59		France	+3h 40' 56"
60		Netherlands	+3h 41' 55"
61		North East Center	+3h 42' 46"
62		Italy	+3h 50' 34"
63		France	+3h 57' 16"
64		France	+4h 02' 18"
65		South East	+4h 06' 33"
66		South East	+4h 08' 35"
67		South East	+4h 08' 58"
68		South East	+4h 09' 30"
69		Netherlands	+4h 18' 54"
70		West South West	+4h 34' 34"
71		South East	+4h 41' 59"
72		Switzerland	+4h 45' 51"
73		West South West	+4h 58' 32"
74		West South West	+4h 59' 48"
75		West South West	+5h 19' 19"
76		Netherlands	+5h 21' 13"
77		North Africa	+7h 11' 36"
78		North Africa	+7h 15' 09"

Mountains classification

Points for the mountains classification were earned by reaching the mountain tops first. The system was the same as in 1951: there were two types of mountain tops: the hardest ones, in category 1, gave 10 points to the winner, the easier ones in category 2 gave 6 points to the winner. Fausto Coppi won this classification.^[4]

Team classification

The team classification was calculated by adding the times in the general classification of the best three cyclists per team. It was won by the Italian team.

The Luxembourgian team finished with only two cyclists, and therefore were not eligible for the team classification.

Other awards

The special award for the best regional rider was won by eighteenth-placed Marcel Zelasco.^[3]

Aftermath

The daily combativity award was a success, and has been awarded ever since. The mountain finishes also were spectacular enough to have been included in every Tour de France since.

The team selecters for the French national team felt that Rapha l G miniani had held back when chasing Fausto Coppi, because they rode for the same sponsor. For that reason, G miniani was left out the national team for the 1952 UCI World Championships. To avoid these problems in the future, G miniani switched teams at the end of the season.^[7]