Jean Alavoine on the Col d’Aspin (Tour de France 1922)

Jean Alavoine (1888-1943)  had a very good Tour de France in 1922. He won three stages, two of them in the Pyrenees and thanks to his great performance, he was wearing the yellow jersey for five days.

Col d'Aspin was part of the program of the 6th stage alongside with Aubisque and Peyresourde, as usual. (Originally, also Tourmalet was included, as usual, but because of bad weather conditions the organizers decided to skip the mighty ascent.)

Before the stage, Eugéne Christophe, the most unlucky cyclist ever, led the general classification. (With his 37 years and 164 days, he is still record holder of being the oldest cyclist ever to led the general classification at the Tour de France)

Guess what, Christophe had bad luck again. He still managed to remain in the led after stage 6, although he lost more than a half hour to stage winner Alavoine. But in the 7th stage he broke his fork (that seems like a curse in his career) and lost even more time. Also, Philippe Thys, 3-time Tour de France winner (1913, 1914, 1920) had technical problems, he lost significant time in the Pyrenees too. After the 7th stage Alavoine was the man in the yellow.

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But Alavoine could not avoid back luck either. In the 11th stage, his chain broke several times. After the 12th stage the race had a new leader, Hector Heusghem, who was penalized 1 hour for changing his bike after crashing in the next stage. So, the race had a new leader again: Firmin Lambot, who became the winner of Tour de France 1922. (This was Lambot’s second overall victory after 1919. )

Jean Alavoine finished the race 2nd, this was his best result ever.

By the way, he has a very prominent position on the list of the most Tour de France stage triumphs with his 17 victories.