100 years for 'le maillot jaune'

It was the 19th of July 1919, Eugène Christophe had been leading le tour de France for the last 14 days when in the start town of Grenoble, he begrudgingly rolled to the start line. It was 2 am and he was wearing a canary yellow woollen jersey.

Origins

The first tour de France, ridden in 1903, was won by ‘The Little Chimney-sweep’, Maurice Garin. There was no yellow jersey in this year, Garin instead wore a small green arm band on his left arm to signify his leadership in the race. This method of identification was kept the same throughout the scandalous edition of the 1904 Tour and on through until the Great war.

Philippe Thys - a 3 time tour victor - was asked, during his first victory in 1913 to wear a coloured leader’s jersey by the race organiser Henri Desgrange. Thys refused. The idea of a distinguishing jersey being given to the leader was not revisited until that morning mentioned, in Grenoble in 1919.

Yellow was chosen.

Desgrange's peculiar choice of colour was explained in a clipping from his newspaper “This morning I gave the valiant Christophe a superb yellow jersey. You already know that our director decided that the man leading the race should wear a jersey in the colours of L'Auto.”

However, most people see this in a more cynical light, supposing that yellow was chosen as, with it being an unpopular colour, it was the only one available to create the needed quota of jerseys at such a late date.

Like Thys, Christophe disliked the idea of having to wear le maillot jaune. His nickname didn’t help, ‘Cri-Cri’ (French for swoop or squawk) meant that throughout his stay in yellow he was ridiculed by the public on the side of the road.

In the end Monsieur Cri-Cri needn't have worried, as he only wore yellow for three stages.

On the pavé of post war Northern France his front fork buckled. The rules, at the time, meant that if a rider had a mechanical mishap, he cannot receive any outside assistance and must mend it himself.

Christophe knew this rule better than many others. In 1913, again leading the general classification by 18 minutes he crested the highest pass in the Pyrenees, the Col du Tourmalet. Flipping his flip-flop hub to give him a larger gear for the descent he set about plummeting down the mountain when disaster struck. Again, his forks broke. Knowing his only hope is continuing down the mountain, he starts walking when through sobbing eyes he sees all his competitors flying past. After a desperate 15km walk he finds a blacksmith’s forge in the village of Ste-Marie-de-Campan, where he starts fixing his own bike. The repairs took 3 hours to complete and when setting off the race judge penalised him a further 10 minutes (reduced later to 3) for letting a 7-year-old boy pump the bellows for him. And with this all hopes of winning disappeared.

Back to 1919, close to Valenciennes, Christophe set about fixing his own fork (he must be now a dab hand at it) and by doing so again he lost over 2 and a half hours and the race lead to the stage winner Firmin Lambot.

It is Lambot that has gone into history for being the first man to wear le maillot jaune into Paris.

Legacy

In the following 100 years, yellow has become synonymous with our sport and there has been some unbelievable tales that all create a history like no other. These stories range from the farcical (Chris Froome running up Mont Ventoux in 2016), to those we cannot speak of – looking at you Lance. But of cause the preferred history, is that of obscene efforts of human endurance and enduring will power.

Who better to epitomise these herculean exploits than the greatest cyclist of all time, Eddy Merckx.

Tuesday the 15th of July 1969, Merckx was riding his first Tour de France. It was stage 17, the penultimate mountain stage, and he was leading the Tour comprehensively by over 8 minutes. He was also leading the green Points Classification, the polka dot Mountain Classification and the white Combination Classification. All convention and general common sense would suggest that all he was required to do was sit in with his rivals and not risk losing any time by blowing up drastically.

However, this is Eddy. The Cannibal.

As they crested the Tourmalet, Merckx jumped out of the diminished peloton to gain more mountain points and extend his lead in the polka dot jersey. Seeing he had a sizable gap, he pressed on over the top as to eliminate any unnecessary risk of any crashes occurring in front of him on the descent.

When at the feed station at the bottom still with 105 km left in the day he was told he was now 3 minutes ahead. That was enough for Merckx, he was going to carry on.

Slaving away, Merckx was exhausted. When on the picturesque slopes of the Col d'Aubisque, a race official on motorcycle pulled alongside holding a chalkboard telling hm he had accumulated a total of a 7-minute lead over his closest pursuer. He drove himself to exhaustion.

He crossed the line 7 minutes and 57 seconds ahead of Michelle Dancelli in second place.

Almost doubling his overall lead in the process and guaranteeing total dominating in all classification. In this year Merckx won the yellow jersey, green jersey, polka dot jersey, white jersey, total combativity award and was part of Faema who won the team classification award. Total domination.

This is the power of the yellow jersey. It is more than an article of clothing. It’s an inspiration.