Tour of Flanders - The First Races

The First Races

The first race (1913) was won by Paul Deman, a 25-year-old who went on to win Bordeaux–Paris in 1914. His career almost ended with the First World War. He joined Belgium's espionage underground war effort and smuggled documents, via bicycle into the neutral Netherlands. After many trips he was arrested by the Germans, jailed in Leuven and was held for execution. The Armistice saved him. He started racing again and won Paris–Roubaix in 1920 and Paris–Tours in 1923.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen of 1913 had 27 riders, followed by five cars. In 1914 the field was 47. A disappointed van Wijnendaele said later:

Sportwereld was so young and so small for the big Ronde that we wanted. We had bitten off more than we could chew (verder springen dan zijn stok lang is). It was hard, seeing a band of second-class riders riding round Flanders, scraping up a handful of centimes to help cover the costs. The same happened in 1914. No van Hauwaert, no Masselis, no Defraeye, no Mosson, no Mottiat, no van den Berghe, all forbidden to take part by their French bike companies.

However, there were hints of the growing status of the race as a symbol of Flemish nationalism. Marcel Buysse insisted on taking part even though his Alcyon team had ordered Belgian riders not to participate. The race was interrupted by World War I By the 1930s, there were 116 riders and seven times as many cars and motorbikes following them, said Het Nieuwsblad. The historian, Fer Schroeders said:

In the previous years, De Ronde had been above all an affair for Flandrians. For a long time ridden on the same day as Milan – San Remo, the Tour of Flanders had, until 1948, just one sole foreign winner, the Swiss Henri Suter. And so it wasn't until after the Second World War that the race became international, the organiser changing the date to meet the needs of the new Challenge Desgrange-Colombo That said, the Flandrians never stopped thinking that 'their' Ronde was a private affair, giving little chance to the foreign opposition to show itself.

Above all, he said, the northern Belgians came into their own on the repeated hills and recovered quickly after them. He quoted the Walloon writer, Paul Beving, and his tribute to his northern countrymen's race:

La Ronde is as much part of the heritage of the Flemish people as the processions of Veurne and Bruges, the festival of cats at Ypres or the ship blessing at Ostend. This cycle race is the most fabulous of all the Flemish festivals . No other race creates such an atmosphere, such a popular fervour.