Federico Bahamontes

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Federico Bahamontes during the Tour de France 1960
Bahamontes in his bike shop (2005)

Federico Martín Bahamontes (* 9. July 1928 in Santo Domingo-Caudilla , Toledo ) is a former Spanish professional - cyclist and the first Spaniard to the Tour de France won.

Career

He won his first bike race in 1947, the Grand Prix de Toledo. Bahamontes applies all time as one of the best mountain climbers, which also won six climbs in the Tour de France confirm. This fact earned him the nickname "The Eagle of Toledo (el águila de Toledo)" .

He became legendary through his attacks on steep mountain slopes, where he often left the field by minutes. However, by being overly careful on the descents, he often gambled away the lead he had gained on the climbs and was criticized for this. An anecdote that Bahamontes even bought and ate an ice cream on a Tour de France pass was partially confirmed by him: he had a 14-minute lead on this mountain when two spokes broke on the same side of the wheel. While he was waiting for the repair, he noticed an ice cream dealer and decided to have an ice cream.

After winning the mountain classification of the Tour de France in 1954 and 1958 , he devoted himself more consistently to the overall classification in 1959 and was the first Spaniard to achieve overall victory, the greatest success of his career, and again the mountain classification. He could not repeat the tour victory, but won the mountain classification three more times in 1962 , 1963 and 1964 . Bahamontes was the first to cross one of the tour's big Cols 51 times. He had a total of 97 victories in his career in road races , plus some successes in track races.

After his racing career, he took over the organization of the Vuelta a Toledo stage race in his home region. He held this position until 2015, before retiring for reasons of age at the age of 87.

Since the death of Roger Walkowiak in February 2017, Bahamontes has been the oldest living overall winner of the Tour de France.

Successes (selection)

Grand Tour placements

Grand Tour 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
Yellow jersey Vuelta a España - - 4th 2 6th DNF DNF - - - - 10
Maglia Rosa Giro d'Italia - - DNF - 17th - - - - - - -
Yellow jersey Tour de France 25th - 4th DNF 8th 1 - - 14th 2 3 -
Legend: DNF: did not finish , abandoned or withdrawn from the race due to timeout.

literature

Web links

Commons : Federico Bahamontes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Jean-Paul Ollivier: Federico Bahamontes . Editions Glenat, Grenoble 2000, pp. 207, 217 (French).
  2. ↑ a b Alasdair Fotheringham: End of an Era . In: Procycling , German edition . December, 2015, p. 82 ff .
  3. ^ Hans Blickensdörfer, Tour de France. Myth and history of a cycling race, Künzelsau, p. 142.
  4. ↑ Walter Rottiers: The great cycling stars, Munich 1991, p. 24
  5. ↑ Interview with Bahamontes on elpais.com (Spanish) accessed on July 18, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Bahamontes, Federico
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bahamontes, Federico Martín (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Santo Domingo Caudilla , Toledo