70th Tour de France 1983

Tour Rookie Wins

Defending champion Bernard Hinault suffered from a severe knee injury and did not enter the Tour. Cyrille Guimard, who directed Hinault to his Tour de France championships, had a new French star by the name of Laurent Fignon.

SPECIAL NOTE: Tour organizers experimented with a new open race format. For the first time, they opened the competition to an amateur team from “cycling crazy” Columbia. The invitation generated great interest in the cycling community. 32 enthusiastic Colombian journalists were given TdF press credentials. The Grand Boucle Mystique was coming to Latin America and the Western Hemisphere.

By the time the Tour reached the Pyrenees Mountains and the “Circle of Death” on stage 10, no clear favorite had stepped forward. 

Stage 10 from Pau to Bagneres de Luchon became extremely hard when the weather offered stifling heat. Colombia Patrocinio Jimenez attacked the climb of the Col d’Aubisque and broke away with only Belgian climber Lucien Van Impe and Beat Breu. Jimenez’s pace in the heat caused problems for both Van Impe and Brau, they both fell off the leader’s wheel on the second climb, the brutal Col du Tourmalet. A new chase group of three, Robert Millar, Pedro Delgado, and Pascal Simon formed and caught Jimenez on the final climb. Millar (GBr) attacked the group in the closing kilometers and gained the stage win. He finished 6 seconds ahead Pedro Delgado (Spa) and 1’13” in front of the new race leader Pascal Simon (Fra). Laurent Fignon’s strong closing effort on the final climb gained enough time to jump into second place overall, +4’22” behind Simon.

The Tour moved through the Massif Central region of France. Misfortune struck the race leader the day after he took the Maillot Jaune when Simon crashed hard, fracturing his shoulder blade. The amazing power gained by the Maillot Jaune inspired Simon to continue the race. Slowly over the next few stages Simon began to lose time. The race for the General Classification headed for a showdown in the Alps.

The final stage before the Alpine climbing was the 16 km ITT up the fabled climb of the Puy de Dome. The race leader boldly raced up the climb but could not give the effort necessary hold off the changing Fignon. Simon finished 5’10” behind the stage winner Angel Arroyo (Spa) and 3’22” behind Fignon. Simon’s race lead was safe but the shoulder pain was growing.

Slowly Simon’s overall lead was slipping away. The injured shoulder became too painful to sustain the effort necessary to hold the race lead. With the Maillot Jaune on his back Simon abandoned the Tour mid-way through the stage to Alpe d’Huez. Laurent Fignon with a 5th place finish on the stage inherited the race lead at the top of Alpe d’Huez.

Two very hard climbing stages remained in the Alps and full attention to detail was foremost. Inspired by the Maillot Jaune, the young Frenchman contained the pure climbers and exited the Alps with a 2’35” lead on Peter Winnen (Ned).

The final test before Paris would be the 50 km individual time trial ITT in Dijon. Fignon carried a 2’55” lead into the stage. The finish in Paris was a day away and Fignon put any doubt of his superiority to rest. Flying around the Stage 19 ITT course in Dijon, Fignon gained his first stage win and put the overall lead out of reach. 

Laurent Fignon rode down the Champs Elysees to claim the Tour de France victory on his first try. 

SPECIAL NOTE: At the age of 22, he became the youngest TdF champion since 20 year old Henri Cornet in 1904. 

TdF 1982

TdF 1984

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