60th Tour de France 1973

Talented Spanish Climber Dominates a Climber’s Tour

The 1973 Tour de France was tailor made for a Spanish climber. The Tour profile was one of the most mountainous in race history. Four-time defending champion Eddy Merckx chose not to race because of the rigors of his early season triumphs. Luis Ocana, winner of the Dauphine Libere, Raymond “Pou Pou” Poulidor, winner of Paris-Nice, and Dutch climber Joop Zoetemelk headed the list challengers for the wide-open Tour victory.

SPECIAL NOTE: Luis Ocana came to the TdF in 1973 with a new lightweight bicycle material. After working with aviation engineers, Ocana discovered bicycle tubing made of titanium. 

The TdF organizers in an effort to expand the scope and appeal of the race scheduled the start of the Tour in Scheveningen, Netherlands. Dutchman Joop Zoetemelk delighted his countrymen with a stage win the prologue time trial. 

With the sprinters controlling the flat stages of the Tour Luis Ocana got a gift on stage 3. Ocana joined a long breakaway group of 9 riders on the roads between Roubaix and Reims. By the finish in Reims, some 160 km later, Ocana finished 8th on the stage and had a surprising 2’34” time gain on Poulidor, Lucien Van Impe, Bernard Thevenet and Zoetemelk. 

Ocana continues his move to the top of the General Classification as the Tour enters the main Alpine climbing on stage 7. The morning of the two-part stage, Ocana attacked his adversaries again. He arrived alone at the finish in Gaillard with a 53 second lead on the main contenders. The Maillot Jaune passed over to Ocana.

The profile of the next brutal stage 8 included two category 1 climb (Galibier and Izoard) and two category 2 climb (La Madelaine and Telegraphe) before the finish line at the summit of the category 1 Les Orres. Ocana and Spanish countryman Jose-Manuel Fuente managed to break away from the other contenders as they began to turn the lead from seconds into minutes. On the finishing climb to Les Orres Ocana succeeded in dropping Fuente and won the stage by 58 seconds. The time gap to the contenders was significant. Thevenet lost 6’59”, Zoetemelk, Van Impe, Agostinho, and Poulidor all lost a huge 20’24”.   

Luis Ocana rode into Paris with a 15’51” lead on second placed Frenchman Bernard Thevenet. His dominance included six stage wins and control of the Maillot Jaune from stage 7 until the end in Paris.

TdF 1972

TdF 1974

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