Abdel-Kader Zaaf

Abdel-Kader Zaaf

To person
Date of birth	January 28, 1917
date of death	September 22, 1986
nation	Algeria / France
discipline	Street

Abdel-Kader Zaaf (born January 28, 1917 in Chibli , Wilaya Blida , † September 22, 1986 in Algeria ) was an Algerian cyclist . He took part in the Tour de France four times ( 1948 , 1950 , 1951 and 1952 ) , but only reached the finish in Paris in 1951 , where he finished 66th in the overall ranking. Nevertheless, he is one of the drivers who made tour history.

From amateur to professional driver

From 1935, Abdel-Kader Zaaf appeared regularly in the lists of winners of amateur races in North Africa and France. In 1942 he was the first French road team champion with the Vélo Club Musulman and was able to repeat this success in 1947. In 1946 he became the Algerian individual champion. He then received a professional contract with Team Volta in 1948, the following year with Duralca, for 1950 and 1951 with Team Terrot-Wolber, and from 1952 to 1955 with his successor Terrot-Hutchinson. During the Tour de France at that time, however, there were no works, but national and regional teams; Zaaf drove for one of the French teams (1950 for the North Africa team, for example) because his home country was still part of France ( Algérie française ) .

The legendary wine story

Abdel-Kader Zaaf became famous for an episode during the Tour de France 1950 : On the 13th stage from Perpignan to Nîmes , he and the eventual winner of the day Marcel Molinès started a successful breakaway attempt - maximum lead over the pursuers: 16 minutes - when he felt very thirsty in the scorching heat of the Languedoc . He stopped briefly at an inn, where he bought two bottles of white wine and emptied them. He is then said to have taken a short nap on the side of the road, from which spectators soon woke him up. Zaaf got on his racing bike - and in his confusion drove back towards the starting point. After that, he did not take part in the 14th stage.

This story went through the forest of leaves, and as a result he was invited to numerous post-tour criteria . Even at the beginning of the 21st century, hardly any tour commentator refrains from telling this string . At the beginning of the 1980s, however, Zaaf presented the incident differently during a hospital stay in France: He was handed a bottle from a spectator at the track, which he promptly emptied and which made him so sick that he fell off his bike. He was then placed in the shade of a tree and given wine to strengthen him.

Palmarès

From 1948 to 1955, Abdel-Kader Zaaf won several round trip stages and day races every year, with 1950 being his most successful season with a total of nine first places. Among other things, he won the Tour d'Algérie , the Tour du Maroc , the Tour d'Afrique du Nord , the Circuit de la Côte d'Or and the Ronde des Champions . At the Tour of Luxembourg in 1951, he finished the first stage in second place. In 1950 he competed in the Tour de Suisse , in 1951 in Paris-Brussels and in 1952 in the Dortmund six-day race.

literature

• Bürte Hoppe: Encyclopedia Tour de France. The workshop, Göttingen 2008 ISBN 978-3-89533-577-8 .
• Ralf Schröder: Lexicon cycling. The workshop, Göttingen 2005 ISBN 3-89533-473-1 .
• Ralf Schröder / Hubert Dahlkamp: Not all heroes wear yellow. The history of the Tour de France. The workshop, Göttingen 2003 ISBN 3-89533-406-5 .

Remarks

1. ↑ according to Schröder and Schröder / Dahlkamp 61st place
2. ↑ Schröder / Dahlkamp, ​​pp. 102 and 332/333
3. ↑ complete Palmarès on http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/palmares/zaaf_abdel_kader.php

Web links

• Zaafs Palmarès
• Article "And, Abdel, are you drunk?" About the different variants of the process on the 13th stage of the tour in 1950 (including historical film recordings of the incident)