GDR tour 1956
The 1956 GDR tour took place from July 5th to 15th. The eighth stage race was won by Belgian Alfonse Hermans , while SC Wissenschaft Leipzig won the team competition .
Attendees
The field of 95 drivers was divided into 19 teams. After 1952, the WAC Hoboken was the first time an international team took part. The state associations of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia each sent a team. The local drivers came from three sports clubs (SC) and 13 teams from the GDR-wide sports associations (SV). The following teams competed:
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Route
The 1956 GDR tour had to cover 1561 kilometers in ten stages. The route led through eleven of the 14 GDR districts , start and finish was in East Berlin . The longest stage led to the start of the tour with 242 kilometers from East Berlin to Rostock. The eighth stage from Zwickau to Karl-Marx-Stadt , an individual time trial, was the shortest at 50 kilometers. With the sixth section Halle (Saale) - Gotha there was only one mountain stage in which the Hainleite had to be overcome.
Race course
The strongest rider in the field was 19-year-old Alfons Hermans from the Belgian cycling club WAC Hoboken. After Erich Schulz from Berlin led the individual ranking for two stages, Hermans took over the top position after the third day. He had to hand it over to Rudi Kirchhoff from SC Dynamo Berlin a day later , and on the sixth stage Dieter Köhler from SV Stahl wore the yellow jersey of the leader. On this part of the day the Belgian fought back to the top position, then won the eighth stage and reached the finish in East Berlin as a sure winner with a lead of almost six minutes over Siegfried Wustrow from Leipzig. The strongest team turned out to be the SC Wissenschaft Leipzig team , which won the team championship with a margin of 49 seconds over the WAC Hoboken. Of the 95 drivers who started, 73 reached the finish. The tour was overshadowed by the death of Erich Schulz from Berlin, who died on the sixth stage of the consequences of a fractured skull in a fall.
stage | Start finish | Length (km) | winner | team | Time (h) |
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1 | East Berlin - Rostock | 242 | Erich Schulz | SV Post | 5:54:36 |
2 | Rostock - Schwerin | 93 | Erich Schulz | SV Post | 2:35:44 |
3 | Around Schwerin | 90 | Alfons Hermans | WAC Hoboken | 2:18:29 |
4th | Schwerin - Magdeburg | 221 | Rudi Kirchhoff | SC Dynamo Berlin | 5:19:40 |
5 | Magdeburg - hall | 142 | Fritz yearling | SV turbine | 3:31:52 |
6th | Halle - Gotha | 172 | Siegfried Wustrow | SC Science Leipzig | 4:47:50 |
7th | Gotha - Zwickau | 198 | Willy Hanssen | WAC Hoboken | 5:42:51 |
8th | Zwickau - Karl-Marx-Stadt | 50 | Alfons Hermans | WAC Hoboken | 1:17:07 |
9 | Karl-Marx-Stadt - Bautzen | 148 | Fritz yearling | SV turbine | 4:17:27 |
10 | Bautzen - East Berlin | 205 | Hans Kubicki | SV steel | 5:30:12 |
Final results
driver | team | time | |
1 . | Alfons Hermans | WAC Hoboken | 38:59:16 h |
2. | Siegfried Wustrow | SC Science Leipzig | + 5:52 min |
3. | Heinz Zimmermann | SC Science Leipzig | + 9:40 min |
4th | Egon Adler | SV rotation | + 9:58 min |
5. | Horst Kappel | SC unit Berlin | + 10:03 min |
6th | Erwin Wittig | SC unit Berlin | + 10:07 min |
7th | Rudi Kirchhoff | SC Dynamo Berlin | + 12:29 min |
8th. | Dieter Koehler | SV steel | + 13:19 min |
9. | Willy Hanssen | WAC Hoboken | + 15:18 min |
10. | Passport | LV North Rhine-Westphalia | + 17:12 min |
... |
team | Time (h) | |
1 . | SC Science Leipzig | 120: 13: 46 |
2. | WAC Hoboken | 120: 14: 35 |
3. | SC unit Berlin | 120: 40: 21 |
4th | SC Dynamo Berlin | 120: 57: 00 |
5. | SV turbine | 121: 02: 18 |
6th | SV bismuth | |
7th | SV steel | |
8th. | SV progress | |
9. | SV Chemistry | |
10. | SV engine | |
11. | SV rotation | |
12. | SV locomotive | |
13. | SV Up | |
14th | SV tractor | |
15th | LV North Rhine-Westphalia | |
16. | SV structure | |
17th | SV medicine | |
18th | LV Lower Saxony | |
SV Post | eliminated |
literature
- GDR sports newspaper Deutsches Sportecho , issue from June 30, 1958 (review of 1956)