EMILE IDÉE: THE LAST HERO OF CYCLING FROM ANOTHER ERA
MOURNING | 31/12/2024 | 08:45 di Marco Pastonesi He was the oldest Tour de France stage winner. He was 104 and a half years old. He died yesterday.Emile Idée was born on a Tour de France day. On July 19, 1920, the twelfth of fifteen stages was run, the Gex-Strasbourg of 354 kilometers. One of the shortest. The record for distance belongs to the fifth stage, Les Sables d'Olonne-Bayonne, 482 kilometers, but there's also the fourteenth, Metz-Dunkirk, of 433. Triumphing - stage and jersey - was Belgian Philippe Thys, a champion on the road, on the track, in cross, wherever there was pedaling to do. That year Thys won his third Tour, the first triple in history, relegating the second to almost an hour behind. Idée becomes a professional in the toughest period: just days before World War II. In April 1940 he wins the Criterium National de la Route, in October 1940 he is fifth at the Grand Prix de l'Auto. In 1941 he participates, but does not finish, A travers Paris. Then he is arrested during another race, accused of crossing the demarcation line, because France is split in two, invaded by the Nazis. Eight days in prison in Fresnes, three weeks in Santé, he saves himself thanks to sport, to cycling, to his reputation as an athlete. To regain popularity, to restore a semblance of normality, the Vichy Government, pro-Nazi, wants to restore the Tour de France. Jacques Goddet, the patron, refuses. The task is entrusted to Jean Leuilliot, a journalist. He succeeds: six stages, but two are divided into two half-stages, total eight, 1515 kilometers, departing from Paris on September 28, arriving in Paris on October 4, with stages in Les Mans, Poitiers, Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand, Saint-Etienne, Lyon and Dijon. Twelve teams, seventy-one riders, including some Italians residing in France or Belgium. No hotels, but seminaries and school dormitories. No restaurants and supplies, but rationing cards. No protected routes and no escorts in front and behind the race, but stops, up to three hours, crossing checkpoints, forcing the group to pedal even in the dark. Idée is invited, he is the French road champion, having imposed himself in Lyon just two weeks earlier, but he refuses. Then he is blackmailed: either the race or the labor camp. So he participates. And excels. Second in the first half-stage of the third stage, in Limoges, he takes the black and white jersey of the leader in the general classification. In Paris, the final victory goes to Belgian François Neuville, Idée will be ninth of the twenty-nine survivors. After the war, life and racing resume. Idée continues to race for Alcyon-Dunlop, in 1947 he wears the jerseys of Perle-Hutchinson and Olmo-Fulgor, from 1948 to 1952 he is with Peugeot-Dunlop. He's not a champion, but almost. He wins the Criterium International twice more (1947 and 1949), the French championship once (1947), is second in Paris-Tours in 1947 (but he claims the victory was stolen) and second in Paris-Roubaix in 1948, wins a stage of Paris-Nice in 1951 and especially a Tour de France stage in 1949, during Fausto Coppi's first Giro-Tour double. I t's the thirteenth stage, Toulouse-Nimes, 289 kilometers in almost eight and a half hours, a breakaway of five, a sprint, with our Giuseppe Ausenda fourth (racing in national teams, he races in the Cadets), the group with the strongest arrives more than four minutes later, and that day Fiorenzo Magni shines in the yellow jersey, Ausenda's captain. Idée also enjoys the right to boast two second places in the Grand Prix des Nations, in 1946 and 1947, behind Coppi. Idée was a sprightly and lucid old man. Cycling until he was 98. On two wheels, the earth was light for him.
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