1914 Tour de France - Race Details

Race Details

Thys was dominant in the entire race. Even though he only won the first stage, he finished in the top five every other stage. In that first stage, Jean Rossius finished second with the same time. The second stage was won by Rossius, with Thys in the same time. Both had the same time, and the same finishing places, so they were both given the lead in the general classification.

In the third stage, the riders reached the first check point one hour late, after they had taken the wrong route and rode 30 km in the wrong direction. The race was then stopped and restarted from the first check point.

The lead remained shared between Rossius and Thys until after the fifth stage, when Thys got away from Rossius. After that stage, Pélissier was third in the classification with only 5'27" behind.

In the sixth stage, the Pyrénées mountains appeared. The stage was won by Lambot, with Thys only 7 minutes behind. The other competitors did worse, with Pélissier losing over 30 minutes and Rossius over one hour. Thys was firmly in the lead. In that stage, Ali Neffati was hit by a car from the organization, and could not continue. According to the rules, he did not have to finish the stage, and was given a time which allowed him to keep his 42nd place in the overall classification. In the sixth stage, Girardengo crashed again, and retired from the Tour, never to come back.

The weather was hot, and in the eighth stage, the cyclists did not want to race and cycled at a low speed. Tour organizer Henri Desgrange then stopped the race, and organized a sprint tournament, with semifinals and finals, which was won by Octave Lapize. In the ninth stage, former winner Faber was penalized with 90 minutes, because he had been pushed and took drinks from a motor cyclist.

Pélissier, still in second place, had done his best to win back time, but he only managed to win back a few minutes. After the thirteenth stage, he was still 31 minutes and 50 seconds behind. In the 14th stage to Dunkerque, Thys' bicycle broke. It was not allowed to get help while fixing your bicycle, and in the 1913 Tour de France, Eugene Christophe lost his chances of a victory by repairing his own bicycle. Thys decided to take the risk of a time penalty, and bought a new wheel at a shop. This cost him a 30 minute penalty, which left Thys with only 1:50 ahead of Pélissier. Pélissier did his best to overcome the gap, but Thys followed him. In the stage to Dunkerque, Pélissier claimed spectators prevented him from getting away from Thys. In the end, Thys stayed less than two minutes ahead of Henri Pélissier, and managed to keep that margin until the finish in Paris.