The 36th Tour de France was held between 20 June and 24 July 1949. The route was divided into 21 stages and included 4808 km. This was the first time the race visited Spain (9th stage). They also took a trip to Belgium and Italy.
The Tour de France in 1949 was one of the peaks of the great rivalry between the two Italian superlegends Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi. Bartali won the Tour already twice (1938 and 1948). Coppi never rode the race before, but he triumphed at the Giro d’Italia that year (it was his third victory after 1940 and 1947)
and wanted to win the Giro-Tour double which never happened in the history of these cycling races before.
Coppi wanted to be the leader of the Italian team, meanwhile, team manager Alfredo Binda had to handle the situation more diplomatic. And Coppi didn’t make the job of his boss easier. On the 5th stage, during an escape with the actual race leader Jacques Marinelli, Coppi crashed. He needed a bike change, but he demanded his own spare bike. Bartali stayed with him till Binda arrived with the bike. When they continued to ride, Coppi was getting slower due to hunger and exhaustion and Binda allowed Bartali to ride away from his teammate. Coppi lost 18 minutes that day and was 36 minutes behind Marinelli after the stage.
Binda had definitely his hardest night ever as team manager when he persuaded Coppi not to quit, but to continue the race.
Nevertheless, the youngest Campionissimo was in great form and he showed it on the next few days, like on the 7th stage (a time trial), which he won.
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Meanwhile, as the peloton was heading to the Pyrenees, Marinelli – the oldest still living yellow jersey wearer, by the way – lost his leading position to an Italian, Fiorenzo Magni. He was holding the leading position till the 16th stage.
The program included the big four climbs Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin, Peyresourde on the 11th stage that year. It was won by a previous TDF winner (1947) Jean Robic. Meanwhile, Coppi jumped up to the 9th position in the GC. He was 14 min 46 sec behind race leader Magni and only a minute and a half behind Bartali (8th in the GC).
The real showdown happened on the two Alpin days.
On the stage 16th (including Allos, Vars, Izoard) Coppi and Bartali escaped. Only Robic could follow them from a modest distance. Bartali had a puncture on the Isoard and Coppi waited for him. But it was no danger to their leading position, they had an advantage of several minutes.
This was Bartali’s 35th birthday, and Coppi felt so confident, he didn’t fight with him for the stage win. Bartali gained also the yellow jersey. Coppi was second in the GC. Only Marinelli and Magni were within 2 minutes.
Stage 17 (including Montgenevre, Mont Cenis, Iseran, Petit St. Bernard) finished in Aosta, Italy. The two superstars went away together again. With 40 km to go, Bartali crashed, fell off his bike and Binda told Coppi to ride alone. He won the stage after an epic solo ride five minutes ahead of Bartali. A smaller chasing group led by Robic came another five minutes later. Now Coppi wore the yellow and had an advantage of almost 4 minutes ahead of Bartali in the GC.
During the stage, the Italian tifosi (nomen est omen) went mad, insulted the French riders, especially Robic who made some over-confident statements about how he could defeat the two Italian riders
(well, Robic was a complicated man either).
Even the journalists stayed at night rather in Switzerland (where they had proper telephone connection to send their reports).
Coppi also won the 20th stage, a 137 km long (yes, 137 km) time trial and became the first rider in the cycling history who won the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year.
TOp10 of the race
Fausto Coppi 149hr 40min 49sec
Gino Bartali 10min 55sec
Jacques Marinelli 25min 13sec
Jean Robic 34min 28sec
Marcel Dupont 38min 59sec
Fiorenzo Magni 42min 10sec
Stan Ockers 44min 35sec
Jean Goldschmit 47min 24sec
Jean-Apôtre “Apo” Lazaridès 52min 28sec
Pierre Cogan 1hr 8min 55sec
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