Jean Robic

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Jean Robic
Personal information
Full nameJean Robic
Team information
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Major wins
1947 Tour de France

Jean Robic (born June 10 1921 in Condé-les-Vouziers (Champagne-Ardenne[1]) – died Claye-Souilly, October 6 1980 ) was a French road racing cyclist, who won the 1947 Tour de France. Robic was a professional cyclist from 1943 to 1961.

Origins

Robic has always been described as a Breton but he was born in the Ardennes region of France, where his father had found work as a carpenter[2]. "I was born in the Ardennes by mistake," Robic always insisted[3], his father having lived in Brittany before he moved. His father was a racing cyclist and passed the interest to his son.[4] Robic moved to Brittany when he was seven and lived at Radenac. His childhood home is in a street named after him.

Robic moved to Paris In February 1940 and became a cycle mechanic for the Sausin company.[5] He started racing but made a poor impression on journalists. René de Latour of Sporting Cyclist wrote:

If anybody had told you or me in 1939 that this skinny kid of 17, with ears large enough to be of help with a back wind blowing - if we had been told that here was a future winner of the Tour de France, we would just have laughed. When his name first became known to journalists, he quickly became known as le farfadet de la lande bretonne - the hobgoblin of the Britanny moor. His arrival in the Paris area was not sensational. Robic won a few races out in the villages but this did not mean much. We had hundreds of boys like him in France.[6]

Early career

War in 1939 and then the German invasion of 1940 made cycle-racing possible but difficult in France. Robic rode cyclo-cross races and as many of the big road races that were still run. He turned professional in 1943.[7] The following year he fell in Paris-Roubaix and finished the race with a broken skull.[8] It was then that he started wearing the leather crash helmet for which he became known.[9] The helmet won him the nickname of tête de cuir, or leather-head; his short stature also brought him the nickname "Biquet", or "kid goat".[10]

Tour de France

The Tour de France restarted after the war and Robic - still largely unknown - was selected for the regional team from north-west France, which meant largely from Brittany[11]. "He was hardly interviewed by journalists; his retirement on the first day would not have earned him more than a line in small type at the bottom of an obscure page of the papers," said de Latour[12]

Robic, recently married, told his wife Raymonde he would bring her the Tour's yellow jersey as a wedding present.[13][14]

The first stage, from Paris to Lille was won by Ferdi Kübler of Switzerland. Robic came ninth at 2m 9s. Robic won the stage on the fourth day, from Luxembourg to Strasbourg, then rode well through the Alps. René de Latour said:

And yet the journalists - I among them - still didn't think Robic a Tour winner. We thought so more than ever when, the next day, the route included the great Galibier, and Robic was out of the picture, with the Franco-Italian Camellini unapproachable up there in the snows. It seemed that Robic could not ride well two days running - and consistency is the biggest quality needed in the Tour.[15]

The Tour then had easy stages along the Mediterranean where he could recover before riding still more strongly in the Pyrenees, leading the race over the Aubisque, Tourmalet and Peyresourde on the day from Luchon to Pau. The time he gained moved him to fifth place, and the 139km time trial to third.

It was on the last day, from Caen, that he secured the race.[16] The leader was Pierre Brambilla and tradition had it that the race leader was left unchallenged to win the Tour when it reached Paris. Robic, however, attacked at half-distance on the two-kilometre hill to the village of Bonsecours, outside Rouen. Another Frenchman, Edouard Fachleitner, went with him. So too did Brambilla, only to become sick from the effort.[17] The main field was uncertain what to do and unfavourable to Brambilla so soon after the war because he was riding for a team of Italians living in France[18]. It left the chase until too late. René de Latour wrote:

Robic had nothing to lose but his third place - end everything to gain. He jumped away as if his life depended on it. Luckily I had swapped from my car to the pillion of a motor-bike, and watched from close quarters every moment of the drama. When Robic opened a gap of a few lengths, Brambilla made a terrific effort to get back, and it seemed that was that. Then, from the bunch behind, that great rider, Fachleitner, sprinted past them both. Robic bounded on his wheel; Brambilla failed -and lost the Tour.[19]

A group of riders were ahead of Robic and Fachleitner. They had lost too much time during the month that the Tour had lasted to challenge for race victory and so Léo Veron of the French national team told Lucien Teisseire to drop back and help Fachleitner. The three joined up 100km from the finish and Fachleitner attacked several times. Robic countered him each time and then Teisseire took over. Robic took no notice because Teisseire was no danger.[20] It was then, Fachleitner said, that Robic told him:

'Ride with me. You'll come second but I'll give you 100,000 francs [21]' That seemed straightforward (C'était honnête]. So I rode. In my head I was thinking: 'If he cracks or if he crashes, it'll be me who wins the Tour...' But he didn't crack and he didn't crash. He paid the 100,000 francs, not to me but to the French national team [for which Fachleitner was riding], which was the rule. Which brought me another outburst from René Vietto. 'You poor fool [fada],' he said to me, 'you should have asked for a lot more! What's this going to be worth once we've shared it between us?' Right up until his death, he kept saying to me 'You didn't ask enough.'[22]

Robic, who until then had never led the race, reached the finish at the Parc des Princes 13 minutes ahead of Brambilla.[23] The stage was so fast that it finished an hour ahead of schedule.[24] Legend has it that Brambilla buried his bike in his garden in disgust. More certain is that Robic gave his only yellow jersey to the St-Anne d'Auray basilica, where it still is, in thanks to Anne, patron saint of Bretons.

The twist to Robic's victory is that he wasn't the fastest rider in the race. Fachleitner had taken 3m 32s less to complete the Tour[25]. It was the time bonuses that Robic picked up in the Pyrenees that made the difference.

Other successess

Robic also won Rome-Naples-Rome in 1950, the world cyclo-cross championship in 1949[26][27], and the Tour de Haute-Savoie and Polymultipliée in 1952.

Personality and appearance

Robic was one of the shortest riders; 1m 61 in 1947 and 1m 59 in 1959. He weighed 60kg.[28] He rode a 19-inch frame but with 172mm cranks when the norm was 170mm. Robic was often bitter with the world. Pierre Chany said:

He had a face that was speckled like a bitter apple, large ears and a little nervous and muscular body. At the same time proud and stubborn, he detested all those whom nature had made better proportioned and those whom nature had given what he considered a more handsome body. He hated Louison Bobet, accusing of him of being a false Breton because he was born in Ille-et-Vilaine![29]

Another writer said:

He was five-foot nothing [and] so light in weight that he ballasted his water bottles with lead to increase his momentum on the downhills. Tiny guy, blond curls crimped under a string-of-sausages helmet, gnarled face and Mr Punch hooked chin and nose... He wore a ring inscribed kenbeo kenmaro, 'to life, to death' in Breton.[30]

Robic won few friends with his bad language[31] and easy temper. He was at war with everyone, said the journalist Jacques Augendre.[32] In 1959, Robic finished the Tour de France stage to Chalon-sur-Saône outside the time limit. The stage was won by the British rider, Brian Robinson, with an unusually large lead of 20 minutes. Other riders were required to finish the day within a set percentage of the winner's time and Robic didn't make it. Normally the judges would make an exception for a former winner but Robic's personality is said to have gone against him and he was put out of the race.

He was astute at exploiting rules. He filled his drinking bottles with lead when his lightness led to his descending mountains slower than he wanted. When the organisers forbade filling bottles with solids, he filled his with mercury instead.[33] He bragged of his talent, once dismissing Gino Bartali and saying of the other leading Italian that he had " aFausto Coppi in each leg."[34]

A fellow professional, André Mahé, said in Procycling in 2007 that Robic's personality and self-importance was such that he would stand in the doorway of a restaurant until all the diners had noticed him and then announce: "Oui! C'est moi - Robic!"

Doping

There were no doping rules in Robic's era. The historian and television commentator, Jean-Paul Ollivier, wrote of the 1950 Tour de France in which he said Robic was deeply depressed, weeping abundantly.

He thought the Tour was lost. He had a cold and went to bed shivering with a fever. The next day, the boss of the hotel, unaccustomed to the timetable of the Tour de France, forgot to get up. The riders had to prepare their own breakfast in record time. Robic had enteritis. He was weak [rien ne va plus]. Escorted by his team-mates, Robert Bonnaventure and Gino Sciardis, he finished the stage pitifully at St-Étienne and dropped from fourth to seventh place in the standings, 37 minutes behind Ferdi Kübler. Robic was still weak at the start of the time trial from St-Étienne to Lyon. His soigneur, Libaud, gave him an injection of solucamphor to get him going again [pour le remonter][35]

Robic said doping had always existed but that the most he had taken was a bottle of coffee mixed with "calva" - Calvados. [36]

Personal life

In 1943 Robic met Raymonde Cornic, whose father owned the Rendez-vous des Bretons bar near the Gare Montparnasse in Paris.[37] The two married four days before the 1947 Tour. They had a son, Jean-Lou, in 1948, another son, Alain, in 1949 and a daughter, Christine, in 1952.[38] Robic's father was killed in September 1945 by the branch of a tree he was sawing and Robic acquired a house in Petit-Clamart for his mother.[39] Robic and his wife lived in the suburb of Wissous[40] and bought his mother a mercery shop there. His family still live in the region and have attended ceremonies in Robic's memory.

At 40, Robic took over the family bar.

Retirement and death

Robic fell again while in the running to win the Tour de France of 1953. He broke bones in his spine. He rode the Tour again in 1954, 1955 and 1959 without finishing[41]. He rode local races and lived from the start money he was offered. He also went back to cyclo-cross, riding throughout the winter.[42] Robic rode his last race in 1967, in the Puteaux suburb of Paris. Jock Wadley wrote:

Puteaux was where Robic had scored an important cyclo-cross win at the beginning of his main career. Robic's popularity has always been enormous. At his farewell, he was given a great reception. On the course was a very steep hill, which had to be covered 20 times. Robic, at 40, could have been dropped and nobody would have accused him of not trying. But he hung on with a grimace to show how he could suffer to finish his career en beauté. As he crossed the line, he was surrounded by riders less than half his age.[43]

He was congratulated at the finish by his old enemy, Louison Bobet.[44]

Robic found it hard to fit into ordinary life when his career ended. He ran the family café but it failed, as did his marriage. From then on he became depressed.[45] For a long time he went without work. At others, he tried stunts such as being the referee of professional wrestling bouts, where his shortness encouraged wrestlers to throw him out of the ring. He also sat on a bicycle in the publicity procession of the Tour de France. He became depressed and wandered the streets, asking for work, until his friend, Eugène Letendre, took him into his business[46].

He died in a car accident near Claye-Souilly on his way home from a party at Germiny-Lévèque in which Joop Zoetemelk was celebrating his own win in the Tour.[47] Robic's monument on the hill outside Rouen where he won the Tour shows him in his leather helmet.[48] He is buried in the cemetery at Wissous[49] [50]

A room in the town hall in Radenac is a museum in his memory.[51]

Teams

  • 1943: Génial Lucifer (France)
  • 1944: Génial Lucifer (France)
  • 1945: Génial Lucifer (France)
  • 1946: Génial Lucifer - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1947: Génial Lucifer - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1948: Génial Lucifer - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1949: Génial Lucifer - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1950: Thomann - Riva sport (Unknown)
  • 1951: Automoto - Dunlop (France)
  • 1952: Colomb - Dunlop (France)
  • 1953: Terrot - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1954: Terrot - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1955: Gitane - Hutchinson (France)
  • 1956: Essor - Leroux (France)
  • 1957: Essor - Leroux (France)
  • 1958: Margnat - Coupry (France)
  • 1959: Margnat - Coupry (France)
  • 1960: Rochet - Margnat (France)
  • 1961: Margnat - Rochet - Dunlop (France)

Palmarès

Jean Robic
Medal record
Representing  France
Cyclo-cross
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 1950 Paris Elite Men's Race
1945
 France national cyclo-cross championship
1947
Critérium International de cyclo-cross
Tour de France:
Winner stages 4, 7 and 15
Winner overall classification
1948
A Travers Lausanne
1949
Tour de France:
Winner stage 11
4th place overall classification
1950
Template:FlagiconUCI World Championship cyclo-cross
Roma-Napoli-Roma
1952
Bol d'or des Monédières Chaumeil
Polymultipliée
Etten-Leur
Tour de France:
Winner stage 15
5th place overall classification
1953
Tour de France:
Winner stage 11

References

  1. ^ L'Équipe, 9 July 2003
  2. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  3. ^ L'Équipe, 9 July 2003
  4. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  5. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  6. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  7. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  8. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  9. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  10. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, December 1966
  11. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  12. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  13. ^ http://www.radiofrance.fr/reportage/dossiers/tour_2003/histoire/legende.php
  14. ^ Fife, Graeme (1999), Tour de France, Mainstream, UK, p107
  15. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  16. ^ Rey, Jean-Paul (2000), 100 Rois de la Petite Reine, Solar, France
  17. ^ Clifford, Peter, The Tour de France, UK
  18. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  19. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  20. ^ Chany, Pierre (1988) La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, Nathan, France, p356
  21. ^ Old francs, worth 1,000 revalued francs
  22. ^ Vélo, France, July 2007
  23. ^ L'Équipe, France, 19 July 2008
  24. ^ http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/dossiers/dos_cyclismag_robic_credo.php
  25. ^ http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/dossiers/dos_cyclismag_robic_credo.php
  26. ^ www.bloc.com/article/sport/nature/le-cyclo-cross-une-course-dans-un-milieu-naturel-20080424.html
  27. ^ http://encyclopedie.snyke.com/articles/cyclo_cross.html
  28. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  29. ^ Chany, Pierre (1988) La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, Nathan, France, p357
  30. ^ Fife, Graeme (1999), Tour de France, Mainstream, UK, p105
  31. ^ Augendre, Jacques, Des Complicités Terribles, L'Équipe, France, 16 July 2001
  32. ^ Des Complicités Terribles, L'Équipe, France, 16 July 2001
  33. ^ Augendre, Jacques, Des Complicités Terribles, L'Équipe, France, 16 July 2001
  34. ^ Augendre, Jacques, Des Complicités Terribles, L'Équipe, France, 16 July 2001
  35. ^ Olliivier, Jean-Paul (1992), Celui qui souffrait contre le vent, Aurore, France, p224, cited http://books.google.fr/books?id=RjAInSNJkbYC&pg=RA1-PA204&lpg=RA1-PA204&dq=cyclo-cross+%22jean+robic%22&source=bl&ots=1f_MR07dHB&sig=UyCtPxYR_Q_rDu0wLGhCZzdrVQ8&hl=fr&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PRA1-PA204,M1
  36. ^ http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=fulltext&full=jean+robic&cs_page=1&cs_order=0&num_notice=10&total_notices=33
  37. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  38. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  39. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  40. ^ Just west of Orly airport, Paris
  41. ^ http://www.letour.com/HISTO/TDF/riders/fr/3011.html
  42. ^ http://www.memoire-du-cyclisme.net/dossiers/dos_buc_1947.php
  43. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  44. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, January 1968
  45. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  46. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  47. ^ Rey, Jean-Paul (2000), 100 Rois de la Petite Reine, Solar, France
  48. ^ http://davesbikeblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/jean-robic-little-giant.html
  49. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329
  50. ^ It is pictured at http://www.siteducyclisme.net/monumentenb.php?coureurid=4542
  51. ^ Http://www.cyclo-tourisme.com/dossiers/dossiers.php?id_dossier=329

Template:Persondata

Sporting positions
Preceded by Winner of the Tour de France
1947 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
N/A
 World cyclo-cross champion
1950 		Succeeded by
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