André Darrigade

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André Darrigade at the Tour de France 1960

André Darrigade (born April 24, 1929 in Narrosse , Département Landes ) is a former French cyclist .

Athletic career

In his time as an amateur, he also competed in track races. In 1949 he defeated Antonio Maspes in a sprinter match for the Paris medal. He was one of the most successful sprinters of the 1950s and 1960s. He won the points classification twice and 22 stages of the Tour de France . He was both road world champion and French champion once . Between 1951 and 1966 he won a total of 138 races.

On flat terrain, Darrigade was usually superior to the competition. In the Tour de France alone, he won 22 stages. No less than five of them on the first day; in this regard, nobody has been able to overtake him until today. In 1959 and 1961 he wore the green jersey as the winner of the points classification as far as Paris . In total, he took part in the Tour de France 14 times in a row; he only had to give up the race once.

On the last day of the 1958 Tour de France , Darrigade was involved in a fatal accident. In Paris' Parc des Princes , he raced into Constant Wouters, the stadium director, who had taken a step too far and died eleven days later from his injuries. Darrigade got away with a head laceration.

Outside of France, Darrigade rarely won. Significant exceptions are the victory of the Tour of Lombardy in 1956 and the win of the world championship title in 1959 in Zandvoort, the Netherlands . The two years before that he had finished third at the World Cup. In the 1960 road cycling world championship at the Sachsenring , he finished second behind Belgian Rik Van Looy .

Private

Darrigade opened a hotel in Dax that he ran with his wife. His brother Roger Darrigade was also a cyclist and at times rode with him in a racing stable . Darrigade received the Prix ​​Orange from the French press in 1959 for being particularly kind to the press (the prize was awarded annually to a French athlete).

Most important victories

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966
Yellow jersey Vuelta a España
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia - - - - - - 42 64 - - - - - -
Yellow jersey Tour de France 37 49 49 16 17th 21st 16 16 32 21st DNF 67 91 62
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Swiss Cycling Association (ed.): SRB calendar 1965 . Grenchen 1965, p. 169 .
  2. a b Association of German Cyclists (ed.): Cycling . No. 35/1959 . Deutscher Sportverlag Kurt Stoof, Cologne 1959, p. 2 .