Antonin Magne

Antonin Magne

Personal information
Full name	Antonin Magne
Born	(1904-01-15)15 January 1904 Ytrac, France
Died	8 September 1983(1983-09-08) (aged 79) Arcachon, France
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France General Classification (1931, 1934) 10 stages One-day races and Classics Road Race World Championships (1936) Grand Prix des Nations (1934, 1935, 1936)
Medal record Competitor for  France Road bicycle racing World Championships Gold 1936 Bern Elite Men's Road Race Silver 1933 Montlhéry Elite Men's Road Race
Infobox last updated on 24 May 2008

Antonin Magne (pronounced: [ɑ̃.tɔ.nɛ̃ maɲ]; 15 February 1904 – 8 September 1983) was a French cyclist who won the Tour de France in 1931 and 1934. He raced as a professional from 1927 to 1939 and then became a team manager. The French rider and then journalist, Jean Bobet, described him in Sporting Cyclist as "a most uninterviewable character" and "a man who withdraws into a shell as soon as he meets a journalist." His taciturn character earned him the nickname of The Monk when he was racing.

Professional cycling career

Magne was part of the Alleluia Team which, with Pierre Magne, Julien Moineau, Marius Gallotini, Arsène Alancourt, and André Cauet, won the 1927 GP Wolber, considered the unofficial world road race championship.

Magne first rode the Tour in 1927, alongside André Leducq in the France team. His two victories in the Tour had a dramatic quality because of the crashes, falls, bad luck and competition that he faced. He crashed in 1931 and was repeatedly attacked by the Italian Pesanti and the Belgian, Jef Demuysere. He finished the race so exhausted that he didn't start again next year. In 1934 he won again with the help of René Vietto, Georges Speicher and Roger Lapébie. Magne was the first rider to win a time trial in the Tour de France, over 80 km from La Roche-sur-Yon to Nantes in 1934.

In 1936 he came second in the Tour and then won the world championship on the road.

He won the Grand Prix des Nations, the unofficial world championship of the individual time trial, in 1934, 1935 and 1936.

1934 Tour de France

Magne led from the second day and his team won 19 of the 23 stages. His hopes looked over when he broke a wheel on the descent from l'Hospitalet to Ax-les-Thermes in the Pyrenees. He was rescued by the youngest rider in his team, René Vietto, who handed him his own wheel despite being in third place himself. Next day Magne again had trouble. Vietto was just ahead of him on the Col de Portet d'Aspet, turned and saw his leader waving a wheel and rode back down the hill to hand him his own. Vietto wept by the roadside as he waited for another wheel. Magne won the Tour and France dominated it but Vietto, who finished fifth, was the hero.

Post-racing career

Upon retirement, Magne became a directeur sportif for several successful riders, such as Louison Bobet and Raymond Poulidor in the Mercier team. He is credited with being a mentor to the great riders of the era, and is considered to be one of the best directeurs sportif in the sport. He never referred to his riders by the informal "tu" but always as "vous"; riders addressed him a "Monsieur Magne". Louis Caput replaced Antonin Magne as manager of Fagor-Mercier in 1970.

Magne lived for much of his life at Livry-Gargan, in the département of Seine-Saint-Denis near Paris. In 2004, the Tour de France honoured the centenary of his birth with a stage finish there. Magne was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1962.

Major results

Grand Tour results timeline

External links

• Antonin Magne profile at Cycling Archives
• Official Tour de France results for Antonin Magne

UCI Road World Champions – Men's road race 1927 Binda 1928 Ronsse 1929 Ronsse 1930 Binda 1931 Guerra 1932 Binda 1933 Speicher 1934 Kaers 1935 Aerts 1936 Magne 1937 Meulenberg 1938 Kint 1946 Knecht 1947 Middelkamp 1948 Schotte 1949 Van Steenbergen 1950 Schotte 1951 Kübler 1952 Müller 1953 Coppi 1954 Bobet 1955 Ockers 1956 Van Steenbergen 1957 Van Steenbergen 1958 Baldini 1959 Darrigade 1960 Van Looy 1961 Van Looy 1962 Stablinski 1963 Beheyt 1964 Janssen 1965 Simpson 1966 Altig 1967 E. Merckx 1968 Adorni 1969 Ottenbros 1970 Monseré 1971 E. Merckx 1972 M. Basso 1973 Gimondi 1974 E. Merckx 1975 Kuiper 1976 Maertens 1977 F. Moser 1978 Knetemann 1979 Raas 1980 B. Hinault 1981 Maertens 1982 Saronni 1983 LeMond 1984 Criquielion 1985 Zoetemelk 1986 Argentin 1987 S. Roche 1988 Fondriest 1989 LeMond 1990 Dhaenens 1991 Bugno 1992 Bugno 1993 Armstrong 1994 Leblanc 1995 Olano 1996 Museeuw 1997 Brochard 1998 Camenzind 1999 Freire 2000 Vainšteins 2001 Freire 2002 Cipollini 2003 Astarloa 2004 Freire 2005 Boonen 2006 Bettini 2007 Bettini 2008 Ballan 2009 Evans 2010 Hushovd 2011 Cavendish 2012 Gilbert 2013 Costa 2014 Kwiatkowski