The 1956 Tour de France was the 43rd Tour de France, taking place from July 5 to 28, 1956. It consisted of 22 stages over 4498 km, ridden at an average speed of 36.268 km/h.
There was no previous Tour winner competing for the 1956 Tour, which had only previously happened in 1903 and 1927. An unknown rider from a regional team, Roger Walkowiak on the Northeast-Center French team, ended up winning the Tour. Many Tour fans dismissed the win as being lucky or unworthy at the time, which Walkowiak took hard; this made him not often speak of his win.
The Tour was ridden at the fastest average speed so far, over 36 km/h. Walkowiak became only the second rider, after Firmin Lambot in the 1922 Tour de France, to win without taking a single stage, and is the only Tour de France winner to date who never won a stage in any year.
Read more about 1956 Tour De France: Changes From The 1955 Tour De France, Participants, Race Details, Stages, Classification Leadership, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words tour and/or france:
“Left Washington, September 6, on a tour through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia.... Absent nineteen days. Received every where heartily. The country is again one and united! I am very happy to be able to feel that the course taken has turned out so well.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)