Henri Desgrange - The Tour de France

The Tour De France

The historian Jim McGurn said:
"It was a magnificently imaginative invention, a form of odyssey in which the lonely heroism of unpaced riders was pitted against relentless competition and elemantal nature. The Tour encompassed the territory of France, and Desgrange later claimed that it encouraged a sense of national identity, establishing La Patrie in clear geographic terms."

Desgrange is credited with founding the Tour de France in 1903 but the idea came from one of his journalists, Géo Lefèvre, who said he blurted out the idea because he felt under pressure to say something at a crisis meeting held at the newspaper's headquarters at 10 rue faubourg Montmartre to resolve its poor circulation. Desgrange looked at the third man present, Georges Prade, and then back to his young journalist. "If I understand you right, petit Géo, what you are proposing is a Tour de France", he said. The words had been used for other sporting events but never for cycling.

Desgrange was cautious and suggested that he and Lefèvre lunch at the Taverne Zimmer in the boulevard de Montmartre. The subject wasn't mentioned until coffee, Lefèvre recalled, and the most Desgrange would say is that he would discuss it with Victor Goddet, the L'Auto financial manager. Lefèvre said he was sure Desgrange was passing the buck.

Instead, Goddet was delighted and was said to have pointed at the safe and invited Desgrange to take all he needed. L'Auto announced the race on January 19, 1903.

Although Desgrange liked to be called "the father of the Tour", the idea was not only not his but he was so unsure of it that he stayed away from the first event in 1903 until it turned out, against his expectations, to be a success. He wasn't even at the start, when the riders were waved away from outside the Reveil Matin in Montgeron outside Paris. His uncertainty extended to taking the riders into the Pyrenees. That idea came from another colleague, Adolphe Steinès, who proposed it so persistently that Desgrange finally exploded and told him to do whatever he wished. He regretted the decision when riders began protesting they would be eaten by bears even assuming they reached the summits alive. Desgrange feigned illness and stayed away, leaving the race to his deputy, Victor Breyer.

Promotion of the Tour de France proved a great success for the newspaper. Circulation leapt from 25,000 before the Tour to 65,000 after it. In 1908, the race boosted circulation past a quarter of a million, and during the 1923 Tour, it was selling 500,000 copies a day. The record circulation claimed by Desgrange was 854,000, achieved during the 1933 Tour.

Lefèvre, whose idea it had been and who had reported the first race while travelling by bicycle and train, was switched from cycling to other sports.