1954 UCI Road World Championships

Professional world champion Louison Bobet from France (here 1951)

The 1954 UCI Road World Championships took place on August 21 and 22 at the Klingenring in Solingen . This means that nine years after the end of the Second World War and four years after the Federation of German Cyclists was resumed into the Union Cycliste Internationale , cycling world championships were held again in Germany. The last time a cycling world championship was held on German soil in Leipzig in 1934 .

Racing action

The world championships for professional drivers and amateurs were held on the 15-kilometer blade ring. The route around Solingen, with its steep inclines and difficult descents, placed high demands on the drivers. Adverse weather conditions bothered drivers and spectators.

In the professional race, 71 drivers started, who had to cope with 16 laps or 240 kilometers in continuous rain and cold. The Italian defending champion Fausto Coppi was in a leading group until lap 15, but then fell back due to a fall. The Tour de France winner of 1954 Louison Bobet of France and the Swiss Fritz Schär managed to break away from the group and receive down alone the goal. Bobet had a defect at the beginning of the last lap, but caught up with Schär again and took another 15 seconds from him at the finish. After his compatriot Georges Speicher, 29-year-old Bobet was the second driver to win the Tour de France and the Road World Championships in one year. Bobet needed an average speed of 32.9 km / h for his World Cup victory. Behind the two front runners, the field of just 20 drivers had been completely torn apart, and the drivers passed the finish line one at a time. Defending champion Coppi was sixth, 3:38 minutes behind. Of eight German drivers, only two were able to finish the race: Franz Reitz and Günther Pankoke rolled hand in hand to the finish line as penultimate and last, almost 24 minutes behind the winner.

125 athletes started among the amateurs, 51 of which finished the 150-kilometer race. With an hourly average of 34.25 km / h, the 22-year-old Belgian Emiel Van Cauter won with over a minute ahead of his pursuers. For the first time, the cycling association from the GDR took part in the world championship. The Leipzig Gustav-Adolf Schur was the best German as sixth. Of the active members of the Association of German Cyclists, Hennes Junkermann took 10th place as the best.

Results

Professionals, August 22nd, 150 miles space athlete country time 1 Louison Bobet  FRA 7:24:36 h 2 Fritz Schär  SUI + 0:12 min 3 Charly Gaul  LUX + 2:12 min 4th Michele Gismondi  ITA + 3:03 min 5 Jacques Anquetil  FRA + 3:03 min 6th Fausto Coppi  ITA + 3:20 min 7th Robert Varnajo  FRA + 7:35 min 8th Jean Forestier  FRA + 11:03 min 9 Fred De Bruyne  BEL 10 Pasquale Fornara  ITA 11 Andrea Carrea  ITA 12 Francisco Alomar  ESP + 11:03 min 13 Francisco Massip  ESP 14th Jean Robic  FRA 15th Hein van Breenen  NED + 16:17 min 16 Jean Zagers  BEL + 17:40 min 17th Roger Decock  BEL + 18:00 min 18th Marcel Huber  SUI + 19:00 min 19th Bernardo Ruiz  ESP + 19:40 min 20th Henk Stevens  NED + 21:10 min 21st Franz Reitz  GER + 23:41 min 22nd Günther Pankoke  GER + 23:41 min

Amateurs, August 21, 150 km space athlete country time 1 Emiel Van Cauter  BEL 4:22:45 h 2 Hans Andresen  THE + 1:20 min 3 Martin van der Borgh  NED + 1:45 min 4th André Le Dissez  FRA + 1:55 min 5 Nicolas Barone  FRA + 2:05 min 6th Gustav-Adolf Schur  GDR + 2:30 min 7th Cleto Maule  ITA 8th Nello Fabbri  ITA 9 Florent van der Weyden  NED 10 Hennes Junkermann  GER 11 Guido bonuses  ITA 12 Michel Vermeulin  FRA 13 Aldo Moser  ITA 14th Louis Proost  BEL + 2:30 min 15th Willy Hutmacher  SUI 16 Miroslaw Malek  TCH 17th Martin Neumann  GER 18th Helge Hansen  THE 19th Gotthard Weber  GER 20th Karel Nesl  TCH 0 ... 28 Horst Tüller  GDR + 2:30 min 39 Günther Debusmann  GER 40 Walter Becker  GER 43 Paul Maue  GER 49 Bernhard Trefflich  GDR

literature

• Helmer Boelsen : The history of the cycling world championship , Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3936973-33-4 , p. 66
• Wolfgang Schoppe / Werner Ruttkus : In the shine and shadow of the rainbow. Self-published, 2005, ISBN 3-00-005315-8

Web links

• Results professionals at www.radsport-seite.de
• Results amateurs at www.museociclismo.it
• Photos and newspaper clippings at www.baxtercycling.de

See also

• 1954 UCI Track World Championships