Raymond Poulidor

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Medal record
Raymond Poulidor
Competitor for  France
Road bicycle racing
World Championships
Silver	1974 Montréal	Elite Men's Road Race
Bronze	1961 Bern	Elite Men's Road Race
Bronze	1964 Sallanches	Elite Men's Road Race
Bronze	1966 Nürburgring	Elite Men's Road Race

Raymond Poulidor, nicknamed Poupou (born 15 April 1936 at Masbaraud-Mérignat in the Creuse département of France), is a former professional bicycle racer. He was known as the eternal second, because he finished the Tour de France in second place three times, and in third place five times (including his final Tour at the age of 40). Despite his consistency, he never wore the Yellow Jersey in 14 Tours, of which he completed 12.

His career, despite being distinguished, coincided with two great riders - Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx. This underdog position may have been the reason Poulidor was a favourite of the public.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Early career 3 The Anquetil years 4 Anquetil-Poulidor: the social significance 5 Poupou, the nickname 6 Poulidor: the first drugs test 7 The Merckx years 8 Poulidor and Dr Mabuse 9 Teams 10 Retirement 11 Race record 11.1 Tour de France results 11.2 Tour de France stages 11.3 Tour of Spain results 11.4 Tour of Spain stages 12 References

[edit] Early life

Raymond Poulidor was the son of Martial and Maria Poulidor, small farmers outside the hamlet of Masbaraud-Mérignat, where the Creuse region east of Limoges meets the département of Haute-Vienne. He was born in the same year that his eventual directeur sportif, Antonin Magne, became world road race champion. Poulidor began working on the farm where, he remembered, "the soil was poor and we had to work hard; farming incomes were poor."^[1] The need for working hands on the farm meant he left school at 14 even though he wanted to continue his studies. Local entertainment went little further than village fairs, with coconut shies, sack-races, competitions for bottles of home-made jam... and inter-village cycle races.

My brothers, who were two and three years older than me, used to take part in these races. I would go by bike to watch. Sometimes I would ride home with the winner of the race, his winner's wreath on the bag on his back. In my head, it was me; the winner. I also wanted to race. I also wanted to bring bouquets home with me. That's what drove me. As soon as I was old enough, to the great disapproval of my mother, I went in for races. She was afraid of crashes. So when they happened, I never mentioned them. Unfortunately she found out when she found my bed sheets stained with blood.^[1]

Poulidor rode on a bike given to him by André Marquet, who ran a cycle shop in nearby Sauviat-le-Vierge. Marquet took Poulidor to his first races by motorcycle.

Success on a local level came quickly and Poulidor added the money he won - which he said could be considerable at the time because the crowd put up prizes all through the race - to the family's income. He acquired his first racing licence when joined La Pédale Marchoise at La Forêt-Montboucher when he was 17. He came seventh in his first race, at St-Mareil. He wanted to ride the local round of a national youth competition called the Premier Pas [First Step] Dunlop. It fell in the middle of harvest, however, and Poulidor could train only at night after 15 hours in the fields. He raced for three years as an amateur, once beating Louison Bobet.

It was only when Poulidor was taken into the army for compulsory national service in 1955 that he first travelled in a train. Pierre Chany, a French reporter who followed 49 Tours de France, drew the comparison with Poulidor's eventual rival, Jacques Anquetil: by the time Poulidor first stepped into a train, Anquetil had already been to Helsinki, ridden the Olympic Games, won a medal for France, turned professional and won the Grand Prix des Nations. Yet there was less than two years between them.^[2]

The army sent Poulidor to the war then going on in Algeria, where he worked as a driver and put on 12kg through lack of exercise. In 1960 he dedicated himself to cycling again and lost the weight in a month.^[1]. He won his first race after army service by six minutes. When he then came second in the GP de Peyrat-le-Château and won 80,000 old francs, he calculated that he had won more in one race than he would have earned in six years on the farm.

"I had never seen as much money all in one pile," he was quoted as saying in the magazine Vélo.

His farming background went before him and whenever he won a prize, other riders would laugh: "Hey, Pouli [his original nickname] can buy himself another cow!" Poulidor referred to his background throughout his career, once remarking: "No race, however difficult, goes on as long as a harvest."

[edit] Early career

Poulidor was discovered in 1959 by another French rider, Bernard Gauthier, who said in the Belgian publication Coups de Pédales:

It was me who brought Poulidor to Mercier where, like Desbats and me, he spent all his career. In a criterium, I saw this unknown who was riding all around us. I saw him again in the Bol d'Or and I spoke to him. He said he hadn't yet got a team but that he was in talks. When I got home, I spoke straight away to Antonin Magne, who asked me: "You're sure that he rides well?" I said I was and he contacted him and took him on.

Poulidor said it happened at Peyrat-le-Château, near St Léonard-de-Noblat. Gauthier had just won his fourth Bordeaux-Paris, but "that day, I lapped him, I took four laps out of him, even though it was a very difficult circuit. He was very impressed." ^[3]

Magne offered Poulidor 25,000 old francs a month. Poulidor asked for 30,000. Magne countered that that was more than he paid Gauthier and Louis Privat and refused. Later, aware that he had a rival for Anquetil, he conceded.^[4]

Gauthier's confidence was justified when in 1961 Poulidor won Milan-Sanremo in his second season as a professional. He started the race stung by Press criticism of his tactical sense; he had attacked but been caught by the bunch five kilometres from the finish of the Grand Prix de Nice. Poulidor got off to a bad start in Milan-Sanremo when he punctured before halfway and lost two minutes. Magne insisted that he chase back to the race, which he did, catching up in time to ride the Capo Verde hill with 20km to go. He recovered fast enough to counter an attack by Jean-Claude Annaert, catching him with the Dutchman Ab Geldermans, who had won the previous year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Poulidor attacked and dropped Annaert, then left Geldermans. He had a lead of 20 seconds at the summit. He stayed clear alone to win by three seconds from Rik van Looy of Belgium.

[edit] The Anquetil years

Poulidor's rivalry with Anquetil is a legend in cycling. While a good climber, Poulidor had a hard time matching Anquetil in the individual time trial, often having victory snatched from him by losing time in time-trial stages of the Tour de France.

Poulidor's riding style was aggressive and attacking, whereas Anquetil preferred to control the race in the mountains and win time in the time-trials. Poulidor became the darling of the French public, to the ire of Anquetil. Poulidor's mid-France upbringing and his slow Limousin speech also contrasted with Anquetil's northern background and sharper accent. Poulidor's face was deeply tanned and furrowed; Anquetil had high cheekbones, a smoother face and brushed-up blond hair.

Poulidor's best chance of defeating Anquetil in the Tour was in 1964, in the finish on the Puy de Dôme. Anquetil rode beside Poulidor but both were so exhausted that only in the last few hundred metres could Poulidor take nearly enough time to threaten Anquetil's yellow jersey.^[5] The Tour organiser, Jacques Goddet, was behind the pair as they turned off the main road and climbed through what police estimated as half a million spectators. Goddet recalled:

The two, at the extreme of their rivalry, climbing the road wrapped like a ribbon round the majestic volcano, terribly steep, in parallel action... I've always been convinced that in these moments that supreme player of poker, the Norman [Anquetil], used his craftiness and his fearless bluffing to win his fifth Tour. Because, to me, it was clear that Anquetil was at the very limit of his strength and that had Poulidor attacked him repeatedly and suddenly then he would have cracked... Although his advisers claim that his error in maintaining steady pressure rather than attacking was the result of using slightly too big a gear, which stopped his jumping away, I still think that it was in his head that Pou-Pou should have changed gears.^[6]

Anquetil rode on the inside by the mountain wall while Poulidor took the outer edge by the precipice. They could sometimes feel the other's hot gasps on their bare arms. At the end, Anquetil cracked, after a battle of wills and legs so intense that at times they banged elbows. Poulidor says he was so tired that he has no memory of the two touching, although a photograph^[7] shows that they did.^[5] Of Anquetil, the veteran French reporter Pierre Chany wrote: "His face, until then purple, lost all its colour; the sweat ran down in drops through the creases of his cheeks." Anquetil was only semiconscious, he said. Anquetil's manager, Raphaël Géminiani, said:

Anquetil's head was a computer. It started working: in 500 metres, Poulidor wouldn't get his 56 seconds. I'll never forget what happened when Jacques crossed the line. Close to fainting, he collapsed on the front of my car. With barely any breath left, exhausted, but 200 per cent lucid, he asked me: 'How much?' I told him 14 seconds. 'That's one more than I need. I've got 13 in hand', he said.

In my opinion Poulidor was demoralised by Anquetil's resistance, his mental strength. There were three times when he could have dropped Anquetil. First, at the bottom of the climb. Then when Julio Jimenez attacked [and left the two Frenchmen, accompanied by the rival climber Federico Bahamontes]. Finally in the last kilometre. The nearer the summit came, the more Jacques was suffering. In the last few hundred metres, he was losing time. At the top of the Puy it's 13 per cent. Poulidor should have attacked: he didn't. Poulidor didn't attack in the last 500 metres - it was Jacques who got dropped, and that's not the same thing.

Poulidor recalled, 40 years later:

Anquetil didn't bluff me. The truth is that we were both cooked. The only error I made was to forget to ride the hill in advance, by contrast to Lance Armstrong, by example, who leaves nothing to chance. Me, I set off to win the stage and the one-minute bonus. Even with Jacques on my wheel I would have taken the yellow jersery, but I wasn't able to follow Jimenez and Bahamontes.^[5] Poulidor may not have managed to slay his dragon, in fact so bloodied was he by his battle that he never did win the Tour, but he did manage to wound his rival, and in so doing brought down the curtain on the rule of the first five-times winner - the first great super-champion of the Tour de France.^[8].

It was often said that Anquetil preferred to see Poulidor lose than to win a race himself. The two were paired for a two-man time-trial in 1965; instead of riding for victory, Anquetil feigned exhaustion and cost both the victory, which he admitted later. Poulidor said the two had to bear each other's presence in the round-the-houses races that then made up most of riders' incomes after the Tour. He said:

For a long time, I detested him. In the criteriums [the round-the houses races] we were obliged to get on but we never ate at the same table. It was often Jeanine [Anquetil's wife] who acted as an intermediary. But later we got on. When he died, I had the feeling that I had lost a friend.^[9]

He said he thought of Anquetil "not every day but almost."

Poulidor recalls Anquetil's last words to him on his deathbed: "He said to me that the cancer was so agonisingly painful it was like racing up the Puy de Dôme all day, every hour of the day. He then said, I will never forget it, 'My friend, you will come second to me once again.'"

[edit] Anquetil-Poulidor: the social significance

Anquetil unfailingly beat Poulidor in the Tour de France and yet Poulidor remained the more popular. "The more unlucky I was, the more the public liked me and the more money I earned," he said.^[5]

Divisions between fans became marked, which two sociologists studying the impact of the Tour on French society say became emblematic of France old and new.

The extent of those divisions is shown in a story told by Pierre Chany:

The Tour de France has the major fault of dividing the country, right down to the smallest hamlet, even families, into two rival camps. I know a man who grabbed his wife and held her on the grill of a heated stove, seated and with her skirts held up, for favouring Jacques Anquetil when he preferred Raymond Poulidor. The following year, the woman became a Poulidor-iste. But it was too late. The husband had switched his allegiance to Gimondi. The last I heard they were digging in their heels and the neighbours were complaining.^[10][11]

While Chany's story may be apocryphal, Poulidor himself says he knows of couples who divorced and of fights that started in bars when fans debated whether he or Anquetil was the better.^[9]

Jean-Luc Boeuf and Yves Léonard, in their study, wrote:

Those who recognised themselves in Jacques Anquetil liked his priority of style and elegance in the way he rode. Behind this fluidity and the appearance of ease was the image of France winning and those who took risks identified with him. Humble people saw themselves in Raymond Poulidor, whose face - lined with effort - represented the life they led on land they worked without rest or respite. His declarations, full of good sense, delighted the crowds: a race, even a difficult one, lasts less time than a day bringing in the harvest. A big part of the public therefore finished by identifying with the one who symbolised bad luck and the eternal position of runner-up, an image that was far from true for Poulidor, whose record was particularly rich. ^[12] Even today, the expression of the eternal second and of a Poulidor Complex is associated with a hard life, as an article by Jacques Marseille showed in Le Figaro when it was headlined "This country is suffering from a Poulidor Complex".^[13][14]

Poulidor himself says that people would no longer talk of him had he won the Tour. As it is, "...they discover a new Poulidor every day, a Poulidor of sport, of politics. François Mitterand became the Poulidor of politics when he was beaten in the second round of the Presidential elections in 1965. My name has passed into the everyday language. It's my greatest victory."^[5]

Research showed that more than 4,000 newspaper articles appeared about him in France in just 1974 and that no other rider "had ever incited so many sociological investigations, so many university theses, seeking to find the cause of his prodigious popularity. ^[15]

[edit] Poupou, the nickname

Poulidor's original nickname was Pouli. It was Émile Besson^[16] of the daily newspaper L'Humanité who first wrote of Poupou. The name was taken up throughout France, leading to headlines such as "Poupoularité" in L'Équipe. A poupée is a doll and the nickname hints at that and follows the French tradition of repeating the first syllable of a word in childspeak. Poulidor has never liked the name but accepts it.

[edit] Poulidor: the first drugs test

Raymond Poulidor was the first rider to be tested for drugs in the Tour de France.^[9] Testers arrived at the Tour for the first time in 1964, in Bordeaux, although only after word had spread and many riders had left their hotels. The first competitor they found was Poulidor. He said:

"I was strolling down the corridor in ordinary clothes when I came across two guys in plain clothes. They showed me their cards and said to me: 'You're riding the Tour?'

"I said: 'Yes'.

'You're a rider?'

"I said: 'Yes'.

'OK, come with us.'

"I swear it happened just like that. They made me go into a room, I pissed into some bottles and they closed them without sealing them. Then they took my name, my date of birth, without asking for anything to check my identity. I could have been anyone, and they could have done anything they liked with the bottles."^[9]

A few other riders were found, including Rik van Looy, and some obliged and others refused. Next morning, the race left the city on the way to the Pyrenees and stopped in the suburb of Gradignan, in the university area of La House. The riders climbed off and began walking, shouting protests in general and in particular abuse at the race doctor, Pierre Dumas, whom some demanded should also take a test to see if he'd been drinking wine or taking aspirin to make his own job easier. Riders also criticised Poulidor for accepting to be tested. He dismissed their protests and stayed at the back of the strike. Other prominent riders, including Jacques Anquetil, were at the front. Poulidor said his indifference to the controls and the strike harmed his relations with fellow riders. "After that, they did me no favours in the peloton," he said.^[5]

[edit] The Merckx years

The end of the Anquetil era presented opportunities for Poulidor to finally win the Tour de France. This was not to be due to injuries in 1967 and 1968, and the arrival of Eddy Merckx in 1969. Poulidor was no match for Merckx, although he offered much resistance.

In the 1973 Tour Poulidor almost lost his life on the descent from the Col de Portet d'Aspet when he plunged into a ravine, taking a serious blow to the head and crawling out with the help of the race director, Jacques Goddet.

[edit] Poulidor and Dr Mabuse

Antonin Magne remained manager of Poulidor's Mercier team until 1970, when he was replaced by another former rider, Louis Caput. Caput brought with him as deputy directeur sportif a man who described himself as a homeopath, Bernard Sainz. Sainz is known in cycling as Dr Mabuse, after a pulp-fiction character created by Norbert Jacques. Mabuse is a criminal mastermind who becomes rich through hypnotic powers. He plots to take over the world but is foiled by the police. From his cell he masterminds criminal plots by writing endless gibberish. Sainz recognises the nickname and used it in the name of his autobiography. ^[17]

He is a former velodrome rider of national level who stopped racing after a fall and became involved in horse racing, where he was twice convicted of maltreating horses. It was in horse-racing, where he turned unremarkable animals into champions, that he acquired his nickname. He has been repeatedly investigated by police and has been convicted of illegally practising medicine.

Louis Caput approached Edmond Mercier, the bicycle-maker behind Poulidor's team, and asked to bring Sainz into the team management. Mercier agreed, said Sainz, because he was already treating Mercier for his own health problems. Mercier had also brought in the insurance company, GAN, as main sponsor. GAN, said Sainz, demanded that Poulidor be in the team photo even if all he did was train with the team at the start of the season. In 1971 Poulidor had decided against riding any more.

Sainz said:

Roger Piel, his business manager, asked him to ride a last season, a farewell tour. He declined the proposition, gently as was his habit, but firmly, believing that he had already ridden one season too many. The season was over. That was when Louis Caput asked me to intervene. He couldn't stand the idea that such a monument of cycling could leave the sport by the back door. Poulidor agreed to meet me, although insisting that his decision to stop was irrevocable. In the style of a true Limousin, Poupou was reserved and careful, even defiant, but very quickly I sensed that he was attentive to what I was suggesting. I took his pulse for a long time as is the tradition in acupuncture, I examined the iris of his eyes according to the principles of iridology, and the soles of his feet according to the principles of reflexology. ^[18]

Sainz continued:

From the moment he started training again at home, in the Limousin, he rediscovered lost sensations... He called me three times a week. When he got to the traditional training camp on the Côte d'Azur, far from still believing as he had three months earlier that his career was over, he insisted on riding the races that opened the new season. I was obliged to intervene, to dissuade him, and then in face of his determination, to persuade him not to finish them. ^[19]

The tactic, Sainz said, was bluff, to increase his motivation. In Paris-Nice, the first important stage race of the season, Poulidor was 22 seconds behind Eddy Merckx on the morning of the last day. Poulidor attacked from the start, setting a speed record on the col de la Turbie that stood for more than 10 years and won Paris-Nice by two seconds. Next year he won Paris-Nice again and also the Dauphiné Libéré.

[edit] Teams

Poulidor stayed with the same sponsor, Cycles Mercier, throughout his career. With changes of secondary and primary sponsor, he raced in the colours of Mercier-BP (1960-1967), Fagor-Mercier (1970-1971), Gan-Mercier (1972-1976) and Miko-Mercier (1977). BP was a petroleum company, Fagor made kitchen equipment, Gan was an insurance company and Miko made ice cream.

[edit] Retirement

Poulidor has several times accepted that his career was handicapped by a lack of ambition and by the psychological domination of Jacques Anquetil. Poulidor said in an interview in 1992:

I knew straight away that I was getting places everywhere. I got all the leaders' jerseys but I used to lose them. Tonin [Magne] said to me "Raymond, you're always in a daydream!"

And was that true? Were you distracted?

It was true. I thought what was happening to me was already marvellous enough. I never thought of winning. Never, ever, did I get up in the morning with the idea of winning!^[20]

On 25 January 1973 Poulidor was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. In 2003 the President, Jacques Chirac increased the award.^[21] Poulidor also has a rose named after him, reflecting his love of gardening in general and roses in particular.

He lives with his wife Gisèle in St-Léonard-de-Noblat, east of Limoges, where he makes short trips on his mountain bike. Their daughter, Corinne, is married to the former world cyclo-cross champion, Adri van der Poel. ^[22] Poulidor works in public relations for one of the subsidiary sponsors during the Tour, has bicycles made under his name by the France-Loire company, and has appeared in television commercials aimed at older people.

When asked about his longevity compared to fellow cyclists, Poulidor said he took things in moderation and did not overstretch himself.

Poulidor has written several biographies, the first of which was Gloire sans le Maillot Jaune, written in 1964. Poulidor Intime was published in May 2007 by Éditions Jacob-Duvernet in France. In 2004 he helped write Poulidor par Raymond Poulidor with the radio reporter Jean-Paul Brouchon. The preface is by Eddy Merckx. Several other books have appeared about him.

[edit] Race record

Super-Prestige 1964

Nice-Seillans 1969 Mont Faron 1961 and 1966 Paris-Nice 1972 and 1973 Milan-Sanremo 1961 Critérium National 1964, 1966, 1968, 1971 and 1972 Montjuich 1965, 1967 and 1968 Semaine Catalane 1971 Flèche Wallonne 1963 Weekend Ardennais 1963 Tour of Spain 1964 Dauphiné Libéré 1966 and 1969 Midi Libre 1973 Bol d'Or 1963 and 1967 National championship 1961 GP des Nations 1963 GP de Lugano 1963 Critérium des As 1972 Étoile des Espoirs 1971 A travers Lausanne 1967

[edit] Tour de France results

• 1962 : 3rd and stage win Aix-les-Bains
• 1963 : 8th and 2nd best climber
• 1964 : 2nd and stage win Luchon
• 1965 : 2nd and stage wins Châteaulin and Mont Ventoux
• 1966 : 3rd and stage win Vals-les-Bains
• 1967 : 9th and stage win Paris
• 1968 : Abandoned 16th stage
• 1969 : 3rd
• 1970 : 7th
• 1972 : 3rd
• 1973 : Abandoned 13th stage
• 1974 : 2nd and stage win Pla-d'Adet
• 1975 : 19th
• 1976 : 3rd

[edit] Tour de France stages

Aix-les-Bains 1962 Luchon 1964 Châteaulin 1965 Mont Ventoux 1965 Vals-les-Bains 1966 Parc des Princes 1967 Pla-d'Adet 1974

[edit] Tour of Spain results

1964 : 1st and one stage win 1965 : 2nd and two stage wins 1967 : 8th and one stage win 1971 : 9th

[edit] Tour of Spain stages

Valladolid 1964 Col de Pajares 1965 San Sebastian 1965 Vitoria 1967

[edit] References

Sporting positions
Preceded by Jacques Anquetil	Winner of the Vuelta a España 1964	Succeeded by Rolf Wolfshohl