Raymond Poulidor
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Poulidor at the 1966 Tour de France
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| Full name | Raymond Poulidor | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname | Poupou | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born |
15 April 1936 Masbaraud-Mérignat, Limousin, France |
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| Discipline | Road | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1960–1977 | Mercier-BP-Hutchinson | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Major wins | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Raymond Poulidor (born 15 April 1936), nicknamed "Pou-Pou", is a French former professional bicycle racer, who rode for Mercier his entire career.
His career was distinguished, despite coinciding with two great riders - Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx. This underdog position may have been the reason Poulidor was a favourite of the public. He was known as the "The Eternal Second", because he never won the Tour de France despite finishing in second place three times, and in third place five times (including his final Tour at the age of 40). Despite his consistency, he never once wore the yellow jersey in 14 Tours, of which he completed 12. In 2008 Jean-Joseph Sanfourche commissioned a thank Mr. Poulidor lithography, he handed to Raymond Poulidor, in Saint Leonard de Noblat.
Raymond Poulidor was the son of Martial and Maria Poulidor, small farmers outside the hamlet of Masbaraud-Mérignat, where the Creuse region east of Limoges meets the département of Haute-Vienne. He was born in the same year that his eventual directeur sportif, Antonin Magne, became world road race champion. Poulidor began working on the farm where, he remembered, "the soil was poor and we had to work hard; farming incomes were poor." The need for working hands on the farm meant he left school at 14 even though he wanted to continue his studies. Local entertainment went little further than village fairs, with coconut shies, sack-races, competitions for bottles of home-made jam... and inter-village cycle races.
Poulidor rode on a bike given to him by André Marquet, who ran a cycle shop in nearby Sauviat-sur-Vige. Marquet took Poulidor to his first races by motorcycle.
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