Roger Walkowiak facts for kids
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Walkowiak in 2008
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Roger Walkowiak | ||
| Nickname | Walko | ||
| Born | 2 March 1927 Montluçon, France |
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| Died | 6 February 2017 (aged 89) Vichy, France |
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| Team information | |||
| Discipline | Road | ||
| Role | Rider | ||
| Rider type | All-rounder | ||
| Major wins | |||
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Roger Walkowiak (born March 2, 1927 – died February 6, 2017) was a French road bicycle racer. He is most famous for winning the 1956 Tour de France. He was a professional cyclist from 1950 to 1960. Roger Walkowiak passed away at the age of 89.
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Roger Walkowiak's Big Win: The 1956 Tour de France
Since 1930, the Tour de France cycling race used national and regional teams. Roger Walkowiak was chosen for the French regional team called Nord-Est-Centre. This team represented the North-east and Centre parts of France. Even though he was from Montluçon in the South-West, he joined this team. He was a last-minute replacement for another rider, Gilbert Bauvin, who moved to France's main team.
How Walkowiak Took the Lead
On the 7th stage of the race, from Lorient to Angers, Walkowiak was part of a group of 31 riders. This group broke away from the main pack and finished the stage over 18 minutes ahead. This big lead was enough to give Walkowiak the yellow jersey. The yellow jersey means he was leading the entire race. At this point, the famous riders in the race did not see Walkowiak as a threat. They thought he was an "insignificant" rider.
Walkowiak lost the yellow jersey on stage 10 to Gerrit Voorting. This took some pressure off him. Later, in the Pyrenees mountains, Jan Adriaensens from Belgium took the lead. Then, on stage 15, Wout Wagtmans from the Netherlands got the jersey. But Walkowiak was still in a good position overall.
Winning the Yellow Jersey Back
During stage 18, a tough mountain stage from Torino to Grenoble, a climbing expert named Charly Gaul from Luxembourg attacked. He had lost a lot of time in the flat stages. Gaul's attack split the group of riders. Wagtmans lost 16 minutes. Walkowiak only lost 8 minutes to Gaul that day. This meant Walkowiak took back the yellow jersey!
For the last four stages, Walkowiak worked hard to keep his lead. He finished the race at the Parc des Princes on July 28. He was just over a minute ahead of Gilbert Bauvin. He won the race at a record speed of 36.268 kilometers per hour.
Public Reaction to His Victory
Walkowiak's win was not very popular with other professional cyclists or the public. Jacques Goddet, the race organizer, wrote that "The applause sounded like a lamentation." People were disappointed that an unknown rider had won, instead of a rising star like Jacques Anquetil. Walkowiak became only the second rider to win the Tour de France without winning any individual stages.
Even though the public was not thrilled, Jacques Goddet always liked Walkowiak's win. He called him an "all-rounder" who used his strength to win and his mind to keep his lead. However, in France, for many years, if you did something "à la Walko," it meant you succeeded by surprise or without much style.
Life After the Tour
The public's reaction made Walkowiak feel sad. He rode the Tour de France the next year, but he did not do well. He raced in the Tour of Spain, the Vuelta Ciclista a España, in 1957 and won one stage. He raced for two more years, then he stopped cycling. He opened a bar in the area where he grew up. But even his customers would tease him about winning the Tour. This made him lose confidence. He eventually went back to working in a car factory in Montluçon, where he had worked when he was younger.
It took many years for Walkowiak to believe that his win was a great achievement. He lived a quiet life in France. But he did eventually talk about the day he became the unknown rider who won the world's biggest cycling race. After another famous cyclist, Ferdi Kübler, died in 2016, Walkowiak was the oldest living Tour de France winner for a short time. After Walkowiak passed away in February 2017, Federico Bahamontes, who won the Tour in 1959, became the oldest living winner.
See also
In Spanish: Roger Walkowiak para niños
