Maurice De Waele

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Maurice de Waele (1929)

Maurice De Waele (also Maurice Dewaele ; born December 27, 1896 in Lovendegem , † February 14, 1952 in Maldegem ) was a Belgian cyclist and winner of the Tour de France 1929 .

The sporting career of Maurice De Waele, nicknamed le Métronome because of his constant and reliable driving style , began after the First World War . First he drove as an individual professional without a contract until he became a member of the Wonder team in 1923 . From 1927 he drove for the Alcyon team , which dominated the Tour de France in those years . In 1927 De Waele finished second behind his teammate, Nicolas Frantz from Luxembourg , about one hour behind Frantz. In 1928 he was third, one hour behind Frantz.

In 1929 De Waele started the tour for the third time. The power of the manufacturers was so great at the time that the organizer of the tour, Henri Desgrange , had to “helplessly” watch “how the racing regulations were violated in every imaginable way”: “The irregularities reached their climax when the yellow jersey was worn , Maurice Dewaele, [...], fell ill in Grenoble and was dragged across the Alps by the other racing drivers of his brand. "Desgrange commented on this after De Waele's victory with the sentence:" The tour was won by a corpse. " As a result of this development, from 1930 onwards only national teams were allowed to take part in the tour, in order to break the power of the bicycle manufacturers. At his fourth tour start in 1931 De Waele finished fifth.

After finishing his cycling career in 1931, De Waele opened a bicycle wholesaler in Maldegem, where he died in 1952 at the age of 55.

In his hometown of Maldegem, the Maurice De Waele sports park is named after him. A bronze relief is attached to the memory of the house where he was born in Lovendegem . It was inaugurated in 2004 in the presence of the last Belgian Tour winner, Lucien Van Impe . He is also honored in Belgium as the only Meetjeslander , a region between Brussels and Ghent, to win the tour. In contrast to many other tour winners, he remained relatively unknown, which is supposed to be due to the fact that no anecdotes are known about him: “Hij was he, deed zijn ding en verder niks.” (“He was there, did his thing and then nothing.")

Placements

Classifications in the Tour de France:

  • 1927 : 2nd place (2 stage wins)
  • 1928 : 3rd place (2 stage wins)
  • 1929 : 1st place (1 stage win)
  • 1931 : 5th place

Web links

Commons : Maurice De Waele  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacobs / Mahau / Van den Bremt / Pirotte: Velo Gotha . Presses de Belgique, 1984, pp. 154 .
  2. ↑ Benjo Maso: The Sweat of the Gods. The history of cycling . Covadonga Verlag , Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-936973-60-0 , p. 88 .
  3. ^ Jean-Pascal Brisson: Les 100 plus grands cyclistes de l'histoire. Lulu.com, p. 43 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Detail sportdomein. In: bloso.be. Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Bidprentje Maurice De Waele. In: erfgoedbankmeetjesland.be. Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME De Waele, Maurice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dewaele, Maurice
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Lovendegem
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1952
Place of death Maldegem