19 July 1977 Lucien Van Impe ‘s crash on Alpe d’Huez

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One of the oddest images from the history of Tour de France pictures Lucien Van Impe after the crash with a motobike on Alpe d'Huez on 19th July 1977.

The Belgian cyclist won the Tour de France in 1976, and had a chance to repeat his success in the subsequent year.

Before the 17th stage of the race (Chamonix-Alpe d'Huez, 184,5 km) he had the third position in the general classification, 33 second behind Bernard Thévénet, the man in yellow.

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The stage started for Van Impe quite well, especially, after he had an attack on Col du Glandon. Unfortunatelly, on the road up to Alpe d'Huez he collided with a car. He didn't injured seriously,  but lost time while waiting for the team car to repare his bike. Meanwhile, not only stage winner Hennie Kuiper, but also Thévénet rode away.

Lucien Van Impe finished third on the stage, but more importantly, after the end of the day, he was almost 2 minutes behind Thévénet.

Bernard Thévénet won the Tour de France in 1977, Lucien Van Impe finished third. (But he won the KOM for the 4th time.)

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  1. and no one should ever win, because we don’t want a peloton where only one rider is so overwhelmingly dominant, do we? [↩]