Three riders in yellow jersey in the peloton at once

I really wish there was somewhere a coloured picture of three cyclists wearing yellow jersey at the same time. A unique situation that would deserve a visual representation. But unfortunatelly, there are only few pictures about Tour de France 1929 out there.

Nevertheless, this particular edition of Tour de France was notable also for another reason.

The 23rd Tour de France was held between 30 June and 28 July 1929. It's probably most memorable from the famous quote of Henri Desgrange:

"My race has been won by a corpse."

- because Maurice De Waele, despite being very ill on the last few stages, won the race thanks to the effective teamwork.

Working through the hard days with the help of the teammates would be the most normal thing nowadays, but it contradicted Henri Desgrange's ideas how a cycling race should be won. Hence he decided to invite national teams from the next edition (which tradition has continued until 1961).

But before Maurice De Waele inherited the yellow jersey from Victor Fontan, who had to abandon the race in the 10th stage, there was another unique situation.

After the 7th stage,there were three riders with the same time in the general classification: Nicolas Frantz, André Leducq and Victor Fontan.

Again, nowadays, being provided by so many and different types of data, it wouldn't be a problem to decide who is the actual leader of the race, but in 1929 it was a different world.

Thus the organizers decided to give the yellow jersey to all three riders. It was the only time it happened in the history of Tour de France, and it lasted only a day.

(lead picture random image from the Tour de France 1929)

If you like to read more about Tour de Framce in the 1920s, or about road cycling history generally, pelase look around PelotonTales blog.

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