International Peace Trip 1968

The 21st International Peace Tour (Course de la paix) was a cycling race that took place from May 9th to 24th, 1968 and ran from East Berlin via Prague to Warsaw . The GDR driver Axel Peschel won the individual classification, while Poland won the team classification.

Attendees

Eighteen teams had registered for the 1968 Peace Trip, two fewer than in the previous year. Compared to 1967, the Federal Republic, Algeria , Yugoslavia , Morocco and Mongolia were missing , and the teams from Italy , Norway and Sweden who had already participated were new to the field again . As usual, each team started with six drivers, only the Dutch were only five, so that a total of 107 athletes started. The teams at a glance:

The GDR Cycling Association had nominated the following riders:
Klaus Ampler , Günter Hoffmann , Siegfried Huster , Rainer Marks , Dieter Mickein and Axel Peschel .

route

Between East Berlin and Warsaw, 2,352 kilometers had to be covered in 16 stages. There were three mountain stages in the Thuringian Forest and the Ore Mountains , as well as two individual time trial stages in the GDR and in Poland. The longest part of the day with 198 kilometers had to be covered in Poland between Rzeszów and Lublin , the shortest stage was the 30 km time trial from Suhl to Ilmenau .

Race course

Individual winner: Axel Peschel, GDR

In adverse weather conditions, the tour took a changeable course. At first it looked as if the race with the Soviet driver Vladimir Cherkassov would have a clear favorite. He took over the yellow jersey after the fourth stage and dominated the field afterwards, although he was initially attacked by the Czechoslovak Karel Vavra and later by the GDR drivers Mickein and Peschel. Only on the 14th and longest stage did things turn when an eight-man leading group broke away without Cherkassov and reached the finish in Lublin with a seven-minute lead. Vavra took over the yellow jersey again, which he had lost to Cherkassov in the time trial of the fourth stage, only to immediately lose it to Axel Peschel in the time trial of the 15th stage. On the last stage, Peschel did not let the Czechoslovakian drive away and saved his 16-second lead as far as Warsaw.

A duel between Poland and the GDR broke out for the blue jerseys in the team competition. After the third stage, the Poles took the lead, but lost it to the GDR team on the fifth stage. This was then in the front until the time trial of the 14th stage, but in the time trial the Poles of the GDR lost eight minutes and thus laid the foundation for the final team win.

Forty drivers had to pay tribute to the bad weather, so that only 67 participants reached the finish in Warsaw. Finland, France, Cuba, Norway and Sweden dropped out of the team championship prematurely because they had lost more than half of their drivers.

Stage overview

stage	Start finish	Stage length	Stage winner	Time (h)	km / h
01	East Berlin - Frankfurt (Oder) - East Berlin	170 km	Zygmunt Hanusik (Poland)	3:48:40	44.5
02	East Berlin - Halle (Saale)	189 km	Noël Van Tyghem (Belgium)	4:48:19	39.2
03	Halle - Suhl	194 km	Zenon Czechowski (Poland)	5:16:55	36.9
04th	Suhl - Ilmenau (time trial)	030 km	Thorleif Andresen (Norway)	0:48:16	36.2
05	Ilmenau - Aue	181 km	Klaus Ampler (GDR)	4:40:50	38.9
06th	Aue - Prague	195 km	Dieter Mickein (GDR)	4:47:05	40.4
07th	Prague - Hradec Králové	145 km	Joseph Schoeters (Belgium)	3:26:30	42.5
08th	Around Hradec Králové	119 km	Joseph Schoeters (Belgium)	2:49:11	42.2
09	Vamberk - Otrokovice	179 km	Giacinto Santambrogio (Italy)	4:05:27	43.9
10	Gottwaldov - Karviná	150 km	Jiří Zelenka (CSSR)	3:41:53	40.9
11	Karviná - Katowice	131 km	Josef Ripfel (Sweden)	3:05:07	42.6
12	Katowice - Krakow	135 km	Rino Montanari (Italy)	3:09:55	42.7
13	Krakow - Rzeszów	161 km	Ole Højlund (Denmark)	3:54:52	41.2
14th	Rzeszów - Lublin	198 km	Virginio Levati (Italy)	4:46:35	41.8
15th	Puławy - Radom (time trial)	050 km	Jan Magiera (Poland)	1:09:57	42.9
16	Radom - Warsaw	125 km	Klaus Ampler (GDR)	2:52:07	44.2

Final results

Individual evaluation
	driver	team	time
01.	Axel Peschel	GDR	57:45:58 h
02.	Karel Vavra	CSSR	+ 0:16 min
03.	Jan Magiera	Poland	+ 0:54 min
04th	Gainan Saidchushin	USSR	+ 1:06 min
05.	Ole Hojlund	Denmark	+ 1:38 min
06th	Zygmunt Hanusik	Poland	+ 2:24 min
07th	Serge Pacary	France	+ 4:04 min
08th.	Joseph Schoeters	Belgium	+ 4:12 min
09.	Dieter Mickein	GDR	+ 6:07 min
10.	Zenon Czechowski	Poland	+ 6:09 min
11.	Kazimierz Jasiński	Poland	+ 6:30 min
12.	Andrzej Bławdzin	Poland	+ 7:42 min
13.	Klaus Ampler	GDR	+ 7:45 min
14th	Günter Hoffmann	GDR	+ 10:01 min
15th	Jiří Zelenka	CSSR	+ 11:59 min
16.	Pavel Doležel	CSSR	+ 11:59 min
17th	Marian Kegel	Poland	+ 12:30 min
18th	Rainer Marks	GDR	+ 12:46 min
19th	Miloš Hrazdíra	CSSR	+ 13:35 min
20th	Siegfried Huster	GDR	+ 14:31 min
0...
67.	Willy Luginbühl	Switzerland	+ 4:34:53 h

Team ranking
	team	time
01.	Poland	173: 09: 40 h
02.	GDR	+ 5:15 min
03.	Czechoslovakia	+ 20:43 min
04th	Belgium	+ 27:34 min
05.	Soviet Union	+ 29:21 min
06th	Romania	+ 1:00:08 h
07th	Bulgaria	+ 1:04:59 h
08th.	Italy	+ 1:14:35 h
09.	Denmark	+ 1:24:55 h
10.	Hungary	+ 1:59:05 h
11.	Netherlands	+ 3:02:08 h
12.	Great Britain	+ 3:25:54 h
13.	Switzerland	+ 4:05:30 h
	Eliminated: Finland France Cuba Norway Sweden

Most active drivers
	driver	team	Points
01.	Peep Jöffert	USSR	41
02.	Zygmunt Hanusik	Poland	35
03.	Zenon Czechowski	Poland	29
04th	Gainan Saidchushin	USSR	25th
05.	Dieter Mickein	GDR	22nd

Driver profiles

↑ Jiří Zelenka (born January 8, 1946) → cycling pages 47193

literature

Klaus Ullrich. Every time in May . Sportverlag Berlin, 1987, ISBN 3-328-00177-8 . Pp. 278-284
GDR sports newspaper Deutsches Sportecho , issues May 1968
XXI. International Peace Trip 1968. New Germany, Berlin 1968, 34 pages
That was the XXI. Peace ride. New Germany, Berlin 1968, 16 pages

Web links

[Jiří_Zelenka-1] Jiří Zelenka (born January 8, 1946) → cycling pages 47193