Honore Barthelemy

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Honoré Barthélemy was a French road bicycle racer who took part and finished fifth overall and won four stages in the 1919 Tour de France. He was born in Paris, France, on Sep 25 1890 and died there on May 17 1964.

In 1920, says the Yellow Jersey Guide to the Tour de France, he crashed on the stage to Aix-en-Provence and only only slowly got back on his bike, dazed and bloody. He couldn't bend his back and had to turn his handlebars upside down to be able to continue. As his dizziness lessened, he realised that what he thought was concussion was blindness. A flint had gone into an eye.

Despite that, he finished not only that day but the Tour, coming eighth despite half-blindness, a shoulder broken and a wrist dislocated. He was carried in triumph at the finish. Nor did he stop racing when he was fitted with a glass eye. Dusty roads made it uncomfortable and he often took it out. The socket would then become infected and he'd plug it with cotton.

'It makes no difference to my sight but it's more comfortable,' he said. The glass eye often fell out and in 1924 he had to get down on his knees on the finish line to see where it had gone. He grumbled that spent more on replacement eyes than he earned in prizes.

At the 1921 Tour de France, he finished third overall and won stage 12.