Victor Fontan
Encyclopedia
Victor Fontan was a French cyclist who led the 1929
Tour de France
but dropped out after knocking at doors at night to ask for another bicycle. His plight led to a change of rules to prevent its happening again. He was also one of three riders who all wore the yellow jersey
of leadership on the same day, the only time it has happened.
when young. His father was a clog-maker. Fontan married a local girl, Jeanne Larquey, but couldn't go out with her without a chaperone, the mother of Marcel Triep-Capdeville, later mayor of Nay. The couple had a son, Francis, who became a heart surgeon in Bordeaux
, and a daughter, Gaby, a teacher in Pau. Fontan spent his early career in local races near the Pyrenees
He raced from 1910, became a professional in 1913, then fought in the first world war
. He was shot twice in one leg. On demobilisation in 1920 he started racing again and became the best rider in the south-west. He was reluctant to race far from home, which made him unattractive to national sponsors.
as an individual entrant, but he did not finish. He was assumed to already be too old for such intense competition, plus being handicapped by being less known outside the south-west.
for a local sponsor, the Elvish bicycle company. His team was so poor that he lost time looking after the others. He could not leave them to themselves because the seven flat stages were run as team time trials, the organiser, Henri Desgrange
still trying to find a way to stop riders taking much of each day steadily and racing only as they neared the finish. The American historian Bill McGann wrote:
The rule not only separated weak teams from the strong. It favoured weak riders who could be pulled along by stronger team-mates and handicapped strong riders, like Fontan, slowed by having too few good riders to share the pace-making. Only when individual racing was allowed as the Tour approached the mountains could Fontan ride at his own level. He won the stage from Les Sables d'Olonne that took the field within distance of the Pyrenees
at Bordeaux
. The Pyrenees were his local climbs but he was so far behind the leaders - 1h 45m - that the favourites disregarded him when he raced off alone from Hendaye
, on the Spanish border, to Luchon. He took seven minutes on Nicolas Frantz
of Luxembourg
.
Fontan finished seventh in Paris, 5h 7m 47s behind Frantz, who had led from beginning to end. But deduct the time by which Fontan had been delayed by his team compared to the strength of Frantz's Alcyon
team and the positions could have been reversed.
had been in the same leading group and all three had the same elapsed time. For the only time in the Tour de France, the yellow jersey was given to three riders on the same day.Three riders sharing the yellow jersey was a situation that Desgrange hadn't imagined, his riders usually being separated by hours rather than seconds. Rules were introduced to establish tie-breaks, precedence for riders with the same time.
The novelty lasted only a day. Gaston Rebry
escaped next day with two others and took the lead, although the three previous leaders were now equal second. A day later, Fontan was back in the lead. He wore the yellow jersey again for a stage of 323 km that started before sunrise. He rode seven kilometres and then fell. Some accounts say he rode into a gutter, others that he was knocked off by a dog. The fall broke his front forks and the rest of the race rode by. Fontan was entitled to ride a replacement bike but only if he could show the irreparable damage to judges.
The judges had passed and Fontan had no second bike. He reached a village and walked from house to house, knocking on doors before dawn to ask for one. When a villager obliged, Fontan set off through the Pyrenees with his broken bicycle on his back. Eventually it became too much and he gave up at 6am. He sat by a village fountain at Saint-Gaudens and sobbed. It was the first Tour to be covered by radio and he was found there by Jean Antoine and Alex Virot of L'Intransigeant, who were broadcasting for Radio Cité. The recording of Fontan's sobbing was broadcast a little less than two hours after it had happened and led Louis Delblat of Les Echos des Sports to write:
, rather than sprinters.
1927
1928
1929
1929 Tour de France
The 1929 Tour de France was the 23rd Tour de France, taking place from 30 June to 28 July 1929. It consisted of 22 stages over 5,286 km, ridden at an average speed of 28.320 km/h....
Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
but dropped out after knocking at doors at night to ask for another bicycle. His plight led to a change of rules to prevent its happening again. He was also one of three riders who all wore the yellow jersey
Yellow jersey
The general classification in the Tour de France is the most important classification, the one by which the winner of the Tour de France is determined. Since 1919, the leader of the general classification wears the yellow jersey .-History:...
of leadership on the same day, the only time it has happened.
Background
Victor Fontan was born in Pau but moved to the neighbouring commune of Nay, Pyrénées-AtlantiquesNay, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Nay is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It lies in the former province of Béarn.-Geography:The land of the commune are crossed by the Gave de Pau and one of its tributaries, the Béez-Place names:...
when young. His father was a clog-maker. Fontan married a local girl, Jeanne Larquey, but couldn't go out with her without a chaperone, the mother of Marcel Triep-Capdeville, later mayor of Nay. The couple had a son, Francis, who became a heart surgeon in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, and a daughter, Gaby, a teacher in Pau. Fontan spent his early career in local races near the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
He raced from 1910, became a professional in 1913, then fought in the first world war
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. He was shot twice in one leg. On demobilisation in 1920 he started racing again and became the best rider in the south-west. He was reluctant to race far from home, which made him unattractive to national sponsors.
1924: an individual entrant
Fontan rode the 1924 Tour de France1924 Tour de France
The 1924 Tour de France was the 18th edition of the Tour de France and was won by Ottavio Bottecchia. He was the first Italian cyclist to win the Tour and the first rider to hold the yellow jersey the entire event. The race was held over 5,425 km with an average speed of 23.972 km/h...
as an individual entrant, but he did not finish. He was assumed to already be too old for such intense competition, plus being handicapped by being less known outside the south-west.
1928: a win in the mountains
He rode the 1928 race1928 Tour de France
The 1928 Tour de France was the 22nd Tour de France, taking place June 17 to July 15, 1928. It consisted of 22 stages over 5,476 km, ridden at an average speed of 28.4 km/h...
for a local sponsor, the Elvish bicycle company. His team was so poor that he lost time looking after the others. He could not leave them to themselves because the seven flat stages were run as team time trials, the organiser, Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange
Henri Desgrange was a French bicycle racer and sports journalist. He set 12 world track cycling records, including the hour record of 35.325 kilometres on 11 May 1893. He was the first organiser of the Tour de France.-Origins:Henri Desgrange was one of two brothers, twins...
still trying to find a way to stop riders taking much of each day steadily and racing only as they neared the finish. The American historian Bill McGann wrote:
- Desgrange... wanted the Tour de France to be a contest where unrelenting individual effort in the cauldron of intense competition resulted in the supreme test of both the body and will of the athlete. Desgrange was convinced that the teams were combining to fix the outcome of the race. At the very best, even if they were honest, they helped a weaker rider do well. He also felt that on the flat stages the riders did not push themselves, saving their energy for the mountains.
The rule not only separated weak teams from the strong. It favoured weak riders who could be pulled along by stronger team-mates and handicapped strong riders, like Fontan, slowed by having too few good riders to share the pace-making. Only when individual racing was allowed as the Tour approached the mountains could Fontan ride at his own level. He won the stage from Les Sables d'Olonne that took the field within distance of the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
at Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
. The Pyrenees were his local climbs but he was so far behind the leaders - 1h 45m - that the favourites disregarded him when he raced off alone from Hendaye
Hendaye
Hendaye is the most south-westerly town and commune in France, lying in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and located in the traditional province Lapurdi of the French Basque Country...
, on the Spanish border, to Luchon. He took seven minutes on Nicolas Frantz
Nicolas Frantz
Nicolas Frantz , born in Mamer, Luxembourg, was a bicycle racer with 60 professional racing victories over his 12-year career . He rode for the Thomann team in 1923 and then for Alcyon-Dunlop from 1924 to 1931. He won the Tour de France in 1927 and 1928.Nicolas Frantz was the son of a prosperous...
of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
.
Fontan finished seventh in Paris, 5h 7m 47s behind Frantz, who had led from beginning to end. But deduct the time by which Fontan had been delayed by his team compared to the strength of Frantz's Alcyon
Alcyon
The Alcyon was a French bicycle, automobile and motorcycle manufacturer between 1890 and 1957.- Origins :Alcyon originated from about 1890 when Edmond Gentil started the manufacture of bicycles in Neuilly, Seine. In 1902, this was complemented by motorcycle production and in 1906, the first cars...
team and the positions could have been reversed.
1929: distress of the maillot jaune
The 1929 Tour de France had 22 stages, the longest over 366 km, and lasted 5,257 km.Some accounts state that the 1929 Tour was 29 km longer, at 5,286km instead of 5,257km. Team time-trials were dropped for all but three stages, except as a threat should any stage be ridden at less than 30kmh. Fontan rode as an individual entrant. Freed of looking after others, he became the maillot jaune at Bordeaux, where he had won a stage the previous year. A unique problem faced the organisers because Frantz and André LeducqAndré Leducq
André Leducq was a French cyclist who won the 1930 and 1932 Tour de France.-Career:...
had been in the same leading group and all three had the same elapsed time. For the only time in the Tour de France, the yellow jersey was given to three riders on the same day.Three riders sharing the yellow jersey was a situation that Desgrange hadn't imagined, his riders usually being separated by hours rather than seconds. Rules were introduced to establish tie-breaks, precedence for riders with the same time.
The novelty lasted only a day. Gaston Rebry
Gaston Rebry
Gaston Rebry was a Belgian former champion road racing cyclist between 1928 and 1935....
escaped next day with two others and took the lead, although the three previous leaders were now equal second. A day later, Fontan was back in the lead. He wore the yellow jersey again for a stage of 323 km that started before sunrise. He rode seven kilometres and then fell. Some accounts say he rode into a gutter, others that he was knocked off by a dog. The fall broke his front forks and the rest of the race rode by. Fontan was entitled to ride a replacement bike but only if he could show the irreparable damage to judges.
The judges had passed and Fontan had no second bike. He reached a village and walked from house to house, knocking on doors before dawn to ask for one. When a villager obliged, Fontan set off through the Pyrenees with his broken bicycle on his back. Eventually it became too much and he gave up at 6am. He sat by a village fountain at Saint-Gaudens and sobbed. It was the first Tour to be covered by radio and he was found there by Jean Antoine and Alex Virot of L'Intransigeant, who were broadcasting for Radio Cité. The recording of Fontan's sobbing was broadcast a little less than two hours after it had happened and led Louis Delblat of Les Echos des Sports to write:
- How can a man lose the Tour de France because of an accident to his bike? I can't understand it. The rule should be changed so that a rider with no chance of winning can give his bike to his leader, or there should be a a car with several spare bicycles. You lose the Tour de France when you find someone better than you are. You don't lose it through a stupid accident to your machine. Next year Desgrange modified the rules.In 1930 Henri Desgrange changed the rules about spare bicycles, and he revamped almost everything else as well. In 1929 the race was won by Maurice De Waele, even though he was sick. Fellow Alcyon riders had paced him to the end, which was against the rules. Desgrange had fought a long war with team sponsors, who urged their riders to race as a team rather than rivals as the rules insisted. "My race has been won by a corpse", Desgrange protested, and next year he told sponsored teams to stay away and ran the Tour for teams representing their country. In that way he also accepted team racing, which let riders exchange bicycles between themselves.
Retirement and memorial
Fontan rode the Tour in the French national team in 1930, after Desgrange had done away with sponsored teams (see note below). He was too old to make a difference and he retired to run a transport business. He is commemorated by a plaque on his house in the place de la République, at Nay, close to La Maison Carree. He is buried with his son Francis in the cemetery across the river Gave. The former mayor, Maurice Triep-Capdeville, said the region turned out climbers, like Fontan and Raymond MastrottoRaymond Mastrotto
Raymond Mastrotto was a French professional road bicycle racer. In 1962, Mastrotto won the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. At the end of his career, in 1967, he also won a stage of the 1967 Tour de France. In 1968, Mastrotto had to end his career after he was hit by a car during a training.-...
, rather than sprinters.
- You have to acknowledge that the sprints are dangerous. You have to have vista, be crafty. But the mountains, they're the big face-to-face. They put the finish at the top of mountains because, up there, there is no pity. Without them, it would be a Flemish kermesse!
Results
1926- 1st, Overall, Volta a Catalunya
- 1st, Stages 2, 4 and 5
1927
- 1st, Overall, Volta a Catalunya
- 1st, Stages 3 and 8
- 1st, Overall, Vuelta al País Vasco
- 1st, Stage 3
1928
- 4th, Overall, Giro d'Italia1928 Giro d'ItaliaThe 1928 Giro d'Italia of cycling was held from 12 May to 3 June 1928, consisting of 12 stages for a total of 3,044 km, ridden at an average speed of 26.75 km/h. It was won by Alfredo Binda....
- 7th, Overall, Tour de France1928 Tour de FranceThe 1928 Tour de France was the 22nd Tour de France, taking place June 17 to July 15, 1928. It consisted of 22 stages over 5,476 km, ridden at an average speed of 28.4 km/h...
- 1st, Stages 7 & 9
1929
- Did not finish, Tour de France1929 Tour de FranceThe 1929 Tour de France was the 23rd Tour de France, taking place from 30 June to 28 July 1929. It consisted of 22 stages over 5,286 km, ridden at an average speed of 28.320 km/h....