Philippe Thys
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Philippe Thijs |
| Nickname | Le basset (The Basset Hound) |
| Born |
8 October 1889 Anderlecht, Belgium |
| Died | 16 January 1971 (aged 81) |
| Team information | |
| Discipline | Road |
| Role | Rider |
| Major wins | |
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Philippe Thys (pronounced: [fi.lip tis]; Dutch: Philippe Thijs; 8 October 1889 – 16 January 1971) was a Belgian cyclist and three times winner of the Tour de France.
In 1910, Thys won Belgium's first national cyclo-cross championship. The following year he won the Circuit Français Peugeot, followed by stage races from Paris to Toulouse and Paris to Turin. He turned professional to ride the Tour de France.
Thys won the Tour in 1913 despite breaking his bicycle fork and finding a bicycle shop to mend it. The repair cost him a 10-minute penalty but he won by just under nine minutes. Thys took the stage and the race lead when Eugène Christophe broke his fork on the way to Luchon. Marcel Buysse overtook him in the results the following day. Another broken fork on the way to Nice gave Thys the lead again but drama continued when he fell on the penultimate stage from Longwy to Dunkirk. Despite being knocked out and being penalised for help from teammates to repair his bike, he won 8 minutes and 37 seconds ahead of Gustave Garrigou, with Buysse third.
In 1914, he took his first stage victory, to Le Havre, holding the race from start to finish despite a 30-minute penalty for an unauthorised wheel change on the penultimate stage. His victory looked uncertain, his lead cut to less than two minutes ahead of Henri Pélissier. Ironically, on the final stage from Dunkirk to Paris, the Frenchman's supporters along the route who were expecting victory over the Belgian were the reason he was prevented from launching a breakaway. He won the stage but Thys finished on his wheel to win the Tour.
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