Ali Neffati, the first African participant of the Tour de France, was born on 22th January 1895 in Tunis.
Neffati started his career with being a track cyclist in Tunisia. His talent was discovered by Henri Desgrange, thus he got an invitation to the Tour de France in 1913. He also rode the next year’s edition, but haven’t finished any of them. In 1914 he had to abandon the race due to a crash with a car from the organization.
After the WW1 he returned to racing, later started to work as a driver for the newspaper l’Auto.
Ali Neffati died on th19 April 1974 in Paris.
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