1938 Tour de France
Route of the 1938 Tour de France
Followed counterclockwise, starting in Paris |
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| Race details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dates | 5–31 July | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stages | 21, including five split stages | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Distance | 4,694 km (2,917 mi) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Winning time | 148h 29' 12" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Results | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Winner |
 Gino Bartali (ITA)
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(Italy) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second |
 Félicien Vervaecke (BEL)
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(Belgium) | |
| Third |
 Victor Cosson (FRA)
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(France) | |
|
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| Mountains |
Gino Bartali (ITA)
|
(Italy) | |
| Team | Belgium | ||
The 1938 Tour de France was the 32nd Tour de France, taking place from 5 July to 31 July. It was composed of 21 stages over 4,694 km (2,917 mi).The race was won by Italian cyclist Gino Bartali, who also won the mountains classification.
The bonification system was reduced compared to 1937: the winner of a stage now only received one minute bonification time, added by the margin to the second arriving cyclist, with a maximum of 75 seconds. The cyclists who reached a mountain top that counted towards the mountains classification first, now received only one minute bonification time.
The team trial stages, where the teams departed 15 minutes separately, were removed from the race. They would later return in the 1954 Tour de France, in a different form. Instead, the 1938 Tour de France featured two individual time trials.
In previous years, some cyclists were in teams and other rode individually. In 1937, there had been problems with individual cyclists being accused of helping other cyclists, culminating in the Belgian cyclists leaving the Tour. To avoid these problems, the categories for individual cyclists were removed for the 1938 Tour de France, and the race was contested by national teams. But because there were many French cyclists that did not fit into the national team, there were two extra French teams, the Bleuets and Cadets. The Bleuets was a kind of French "B"-team, while the Cadets consisted of young French promises.
The big cycling nations in 1938, Belgium, Italy, Germany and France, each sent a team of 12 cyclists. Other countries, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands, sent smaller teams of six cyclists each. The French had two extra teams of 12 cyclists, the Cadets and Bleuets.
The three most powerful teams were the Belgian, the French and the Italian national team. The Italian team was led by Bartali, who had been close to winning the Tour de France in 1937 until he crashed. The Italian cycling federation had requested him to skip the 1938 Giro d'Italia so he could focus on the Tour de France.
The teams entering the race were:
Before the Pyrénées, all the favourites remained calm. André Leducq did not lose much time in the first stages, and when he got in a breakaway in the second part of the sixth stage, he took over the lead from Jean Majerus. In the eighth stage, Gino Bartali attacked, and dropped everybody. On the descent of the Col d'Aspin, his wheel collapsed, and Félicien Vervaecke and Ward Vissers overtook him. Bartali came back to finish in third place, but Vervaecke took the lead in the general classification. In that stage, former winner Georges Speicher was caught holding on to a car, and was removed from the race.
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Wikipedia