Lucien Michard

Lucien Michard

Lucien Michard (born November 17, 1903 in Épinay-sur-Seine , † November 3, 1985 in Aubervilliers ) was a French track cyclist who was successful as a sprinter with six world championship titles and one Olympic victory.

Michard's father, a former cyclist, put the young Lucien on his bike at the age of four and promoted his cycling passions for many years. When his son finished school, he encouraged him to focus his future entirely on cycling.

In 1922, Lucien Michard won his first national championship in the track sprint and the sprint classic Grand Prix of Paris among the amateurs. In 1923 he was again national champion and finished the sprint grand prix in second, but won the amateur world championships . In 1924 Michard won the national championship, the Sprint Grand Prix of Paris, the gold medal at the Olympic Games and the world title.

In 1925 Michard joined the professionals . That year he became French champion and third in the cycling world championships, and he also achieved the same rank in 1926. From 1927 Michard was also successful with the professionals: from 1927 to 1930 he was world champion in track sprint four times in a row, national track sprint champion and won several sprints -Grand Prix. From 1931 to 1933 he was vice world champion three times in a row. He also set several records.

At the UCI track world championships in 1931 there was a scandal: In the final run of the sprint between Michard and the Dane Willy Falck Hansen , the Belgian judge Alban Collignon , then president of the Belgian cycling association and later president of the world cycling association Union Cycliste Internationale , decided for Falck Hansen as a winner and declared him world champion. Although both the drivers and himself later realized that this was a wrong judgment, the rules of the time did not allow his decision to be revised. As Collignon was the only target judge, it was decided as a consequence to use several target judges in the future. While Falck Hansen wore the rainbow jersey in the year after the World Cup , Michard drove his races with a globe on his jersey.

Michard won the Grand Prix de l'UVF and the Grand Prix de Paris six times each . His last great success was his sixth victory at the Grand Prix de Paris in 1936. After a strike by racing drivers against poor pay and a subsequent press campaign, Michard resigned.

In Aiguillon , where Michard lived for a long time, a street is named after him.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Verlag der Radwelt (ed.): Sport album of the Rad world. A cycling yearbook . 27th year. Strauss-Verlag, Berlin, p. 73 .
2. ↑ Lucien Michard on lepetitbraquet.free.fr ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
   Pierre Chany: La Fabuleuse Histoire de Cyclisme. Volume 1: Des origines à 1955. Nathan, Paris 1988, ISBN 2-09-286430-1 , p. 401.

Web links

Commons : Lucien Michard  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lucien Michard in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Lucien Michard in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )