The first individual time trial at Tour de France

It's a well known fact, that many of the big road cycling races were created for marketing reasons: sport newspapers were selling better by including reports about cycling events. But it's a lesser known story, that even the format of the individual time trial at the Tour de France based on the rivalry between two newspapers.

The daily sport newspaper L'Auto, organizing the Tour de France since the beginning, was a morning paper. Meanwhile the Paris-Soir, as its name proves, was published in the evening. The organizers of the Tour de France were very careful about that the stages usually finished late enough to be impossible for the rival newspaper to publish their content related to the  latest results first.

But Paris-Soir has created the event "Grand Prix des Nations" in 1932. It was  a competition for individual time trialists. After the first year with limited success, the race was a hit in 1933. Especially, the French riders rode it very well. This made Henri Desgrange think about a possible use of the format also at the Tour de France.

Tour de France 1934 included 23 stages, the 21st one was split into two (A and B) parts. The latter was  the first individual time trial of Tour de France. It was a 90 km long route between La Roche sur Yon and Nantes.

The winner of the (half) stage was Antonin Magne,  who was leading the general classification before the day already. At the end, he won the Tour de France that year. It was his second overall victory after 1931.