Jean Stablinski grew up as the son of Polish immigrants in the coal mining area of northern France. Her parents emigrated from Poland to France in 1924 . When his father was killed in an accident at work in 1946 (in a later interview he mentioned that his father had been killed by the Gestapo ), the 14-year-old first started in a galvanizing plant and then as a miner at the Arenberg colliery (French. : fosse Auguste d'Arenberg ) to work in Wallers to secure the family's livelihood. He also earned a racing bike by playing the accordion and began cycling. The mother is said to have not tolerated her son's hobby and once smashed a bicycle handlebar out of anger. At the age of 16, Stablinski was naturalized and drove his first races, at the age of 21 he received his first professional contract.
From 1958 to 1967 he drove in the same teams with his friend Jacques Anquetil , and from 1962 to 1964 with Rudi and Willi Altig .
In 1968, Jean Stablinski proposed to the organizers of Paris-Roubaix that the Arenberg forest should be crossed. In previous years, more and more roads in northern France that had originally been cobblestone had been paved. In order to maintain the character of the race, a new track with remaining pavé sectors had to be found. Stablinski suggested the route through Arenberg because he grew up nearby and knew it because he had driven it every day as a teenager on the way to work at the Arenberg colliery. In 2008 Jean-Marie Leblanc unveiled a memorial stone for Stablinski at the southern entrance to the Arenberg forest. He was a sponsor of the Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix .
Stablinski - usually called Stab for short - was best known for winning the French road racing championship four times as well as being runner-up twice within six years, a series of successes that has not yet been achieved, which earned him the nickname Monsieur France . In his professional career from 1952 to 1968 he celebrated a total of 105 professional victories and was road world champion in 1962 , whereas he could never win the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia . On his last tour in 1968, his drug test was positive for amphetamines and he was banned for a month.
His professional career ended in 1968. After the end of his professional career, he became team manager at the French team Sonolor Lejeune for six years . Lucien Van Impe and Bernard Hinault were among his discoveries . His son is Jacques Stablinski, born in 1956, who also became a professional cyclist, rode for the Equipe Gitane Campagnolo , among others , and was nicknamed Le petit Stab , but was unable to build on his father's successes. Stablinski died on July 22, 2007 after a long and serious illness at the age of 75.