Passage I

Revenge and the Tour de France

Every July, bicyclists competing in the Tour de France speed more than 2,100 miles through the French countryside. They climb torturous mountain roads and rush downhill at speeds exceeding seventy miles per hour. Although testing strength, skill, and endurance, was part of the original plan for the Tour, the main motive behind creating the race was a grudge.

In 1899, the editor of France’s more large sports newspaper, Le Vélo, had wrote an article criticizing the wealthy industrialist Albert de Dion. De Dion, who had been an advertiser in Le Vélo, retaliated by starting his own sports newspaper, L’Auto. He aimed to outsell Le Vélo and put it out of business; therefore, L’Auto didn’t sell.

At the time, sports newspapers sponsored their own bicycle races and reported on them to boost sales. In this tradition, de Dion’s editor proposed that L’Auto stage its own race. To make it distinctive, the race would be more difficult and longer than any before. It would be a challenging race that started in Paris—a tour of France. The hope was that people would buy the paper each day to follow the action.

Leading up to the first Tour, L’Auto offered: 20,000 francs in prize money. The winner would get 3,000 francs; the rest of the money would be shared among the other top finishers. Soon sixty cyclists had signed up.

The first inaugural Tour started on July 1, 1903. It took eighteen days and covered 1,508 miles, starting and ending in Paris. Of the sixty cyclists, only twenty-one completed the course. (12) For the race’s end, thousands of spectators lined the streets of Paris to watch Maurice Garin cross the finish line first.

L’Auto rushed out a special edition to cover the race’s finish, because it sold over 130,000 copies. The popularity of the Tour de France ensured the success of L’Auto and fabricated the demise of Le Vélo, which had gone out of business by 1904. De Dion had his revenge, and a world-famous race was born.