TOUR DE WEIRD

The world’s biggest race has a brilliant habit of throwing up some odd scenarios. Chris Marshall-Bell counts down the best eight

- Chris Marshall-Bell

Every time we sit down to watch a stage of the Tour de France, we have a rough idea, based on convention and norms, what will happen. Sometimes, however, a surprise winner rips up the rulebook, and on other occasions the weather decides to disrupt normal protocol. Then there are those memorable years when the Tour just gets plain ol’ weird.

The early decades of the race saw plenty of alcohol and drug misuse within the peloton that has passed into folklore, but this millennium has also had its fair share of bizarre events. With Tour fever in the air, we decided to take a look at the Tour de Weird.

1 DODGY DRINKS

What would you do, as favourite, if a surprising newcomer rocked up, won two stages, appeared in better shape than you, and the public liked them more. Poison them with a spiked drink is what Gustave Garrigou chose to do to poor Paul Duboc in the 1911 Tour. And with riders unable to assist others, while Duboc lay on the road vomiting, his fellow competitors simply rode on by. Thankfully, he recovered well enough to win two more stages and reportedly received a more rapturous applause than eventual winner Garrigou in Paris, who, when the race passed through Duboc’s hometown, was designated a bodyguard and had to wear a disguise.

2 VOIGT TAKES A KID’S BIKE