International Peace Tour 1956

The 9th International Peace Tour (Course de la paix) was a cycling race that was held from May 2nd to 15th, 1956. The three-country stage race from Warsaw via East Berlin to Prague was won by Pole Stanisław Królak , and the team from the Soviet Union won the team classification .

Attendees

141 drivers from 24 teams set a new record for participation. For the first time teams from the Federal Republic of Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland started. The following teams were involved:

The cycling section of the GDR Sports Committee had nominated the following participants: Günter Grünwald , Dieter Lüder , Lothar Meister I , Lothar Meister II , Gustav-Adolf Schur and Helmut Stolper .

In the race for the Federal Republic of Germany : Hans Brinkmann, Willy Funke, Fritz Grünefeld, Reiner Hardt, Siegfried Schönberg and Heino Steinzen.

Route

The race, which was divided into twelve stages, had a total length of 2220 kilometers. The longest part of the day led on the last day of the race over 224 kilometers from Brno to Prague , while the shortest stage with 110 kilometers led "around Warsaw ". Flatland stages were driven from Warsaw to Karl-Marx-Stadt , the last third of the tour consisted of four mountain stages that led through the Ore Mountains and the Bohemian Forest.

Race course

Tour winner: Stanislaw Krolak (Poland)

The race was evenly balanced on the first stages without a clear favorite emerging. The Italian team got off to a furious start, taking the first three places on the first part of the day, but with Dino Bruni and Aurelio Cestari only had two top drivers. The two-time stage winner Bruni, like two other Italians, had to give up prematurely, so that Italy only ended up in tenth place in the team classification. The yellow jersey of the leader in the individual classification changed almost every day up to the eighth stage, and GDR driver Gustav-Adolf Schur , three-time stage winner, wore it for one day. On stages seven and eight, Stanisław Królak from Poland worked his way up so far that he wore the yellow jersey from the ninth stage. He didn't give it up until Prague. The best GDR driver remained Schur, who finished eleventh in the final ranking. The GDR team had the bad luck that Günter Grünwald was eliminated after the third stage and Dieter Lüder on the tenth stage. As a result, the GDR only came fourth in the team standings. For the first time, the Soviet Union won the team classification, which was clearly over seven minutes ahead of the second-placed Poles. The West German athletes who took part in the Peace Tour for the first time all ended the race, but played no role in the decisions. The best FRG driver was Willy Funke from Hanover in 18th place, while the team was only 15th, more than six hours behind the Soviet Union.

Stage overview
stage	Start finish	Stage length	Stage winner	Time (h)	km / h
01.	Around Warsaw	110 km	Dino Bruni (Italy)	2:38:06	41.3
02.	Warsaw - Łódź	140 km	Gustav-Adolf Schur (GDR)	3:33:28	39.1
03.	Łódź - Katowice	215 km	Dino Bruni (Italy)	5:06:21	41.1
04th	Katowice - Wroclaw	185 km	Nikolai Columbet (USSR)	4:32:33	40.4
05.	Breslau - Görlitz	190 km	Gustav-Adolf Schur (GDR)	5:33:42	34.1
06th	Görlitz - East Berlin	228 km	Lothar Master I (GDR)	5:56:27	37.9
07th	East Berlin - Leipzig	208 km	Martin Wolfs (Netherlands)	5:30:18	37.8
08th.	Leipzig - Karl-Marx-Stadt	190 km	Stanislaw Królak	5:02:56	37.4
09.	Karl-Marx-Stadt - Karlsbad	144 km	Arend van ten Hof (Netherlands)	4:11:55	34.6
10.	Karlovy Vary - Tábor	207 km	Donald Sanderson (England)	5:22:29	38.3
11.	Tábor - Brno	179 km	Gustav-Adolf Schur (GDR)	4:37:33	38.4
12.	Brno - Prague	224 km	Yevgeny Klewzow (USSR)	6:39:27	33.5

Final results

Individual evaluation
	driver	team	time
01 .	Stanislaw Królak	Poland	59:11:56 h
02.	Constantin Dumitrescu	Romania	+ 02:24 min
03.	Nikolai Columbet	USSR	+ 04:15 min
04th	Paul Nyman	Finland	+ 05:45 min
05.	Dimitr Kolew	Bulgaria	+ 06:12 min
06th	Aurelio Cestari	Italy	+ 08:15 min
07th	Martin Wolfs	Netherlands	+ 08:57 min
08th.	Gabriel Borra	Belgium	+ 13:22 min
09.	Pavel Wostryakov	USSR	+ 15:42 min
10.	Grzegorz Chwiendacz	Poland	+ 15:49 min
11.	Gustav-Adolf Schur	GDR	+ 17:02 min
12.	Benito Romagnoli	Italy	+ 20:05 min
13.	Lothar Master II	GDR	+ 22:23 min
14th	Camille Le Mann	France	+ 30:47 min
15th	Donald Sanderson	England	+ 32:18 min
16.	Roger Baudechon	Belgium	+ 33:06 min
17th	Arend van ten Hof	Netherlands	+ 37:32 min
18th	Willy Funke	FRG	+ 37:41 min
19th	Karl-Ivar Andersson	Sweden	+ 38:40 min
20th	Marian Więckowski	Poland	+ 38:52 min
...
23.	Helmut Stolper	GDR	+ 46:38 min
52.	Lothar Master I.	GDR	+ 2:33:50 h
58.	Hans Brinkmann	FRG	+ 3:31:44 h
66.	Reiner Hardt	FRG	+ 4:27:13 h
70.	Fritz Grünefeld	FRG	+ 4:51:37 h
77.	Siegfried Schoenberg	FRG	+ 5:34:16 h
80.	Heino Steinzen	FRG	+ 5:50:03 h
...
101.	Gani Dervishi	Albania	+ 17:33:05 h

Team ranking
	team	time
01.	Soviet Union	177: 37: 19 h
02.	Poland	+ 07:06 min
03.	Belgium	+ 32:42 min
04th	GDR	+ 33:59 min
05.	Czechoslovakia	+ 46:56 min
06th	Romania	+ 51:55 min
07th	Netherlands	+ 01:30:50 h
08th.	Bulgaria	+ 01:34:38 h
09.	Sweden	+ 01:54:33 h
10.	Italy	+ 01:56:15 h
11.	Yugoslavia	+ 03:45:40 h
12.	France	+ 04:32:05 h
13.	Denmark	+ 04:36:14 h
14th	Hungary	+ 05:37:20 h
15th	FRG	+ 06:14:38 h
16.	Finland	+ 10:06:42 h
17th	Switzerland	+ 10:18:47 h
18th	Austria	+ 11:08:43 h
19th	Norway	+ 14:02:56 h
20th	Albania	+ 21:52:54 h
21st	Egypt	+ 32:41:43 h
	retired: England Luxembourg Poles living in France

literature

Klaus Ullrich. Every time in May. Sportverlag Berlin, 1987, pp. 215-219, ISBN 3-328-00177-8 .
IX. International Peace Trip Warsaw-Berlin-Prague 1956. Sport im Bild, Berlin 1956, 16 pages