- Maurice De Waele
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Maurice De Waele Personal information Full name Maurice De Waele Born 27 December 1896
Belgium
Died 14 February 1952 (aged 55) Team information Discipline Road Role Rider Major wins 1929 Tour de France Infobox last updated on
24 May 2008Maurice De Waele (27 December 1896 Lovendegem – 14 February 1952 Maldegem) was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer.
De Waele placed 2nd in the 1927 Tour, an hour and fifty eight minutes Nicolas Frantz and 3rd in 1928, again won by Frantz. However, he is most famous for winning the 1929 Tour de France. He led the Tour until stage seven when two punctures on the way to Bordeaux cost him the yellow jersey to no less than three other rides on the same time in the general classification, Frantz, Andre Leducq and Victor Fontan. Fontan was the sole leader of the race when a broken bike led to his retirement, leaving De Waele in the lead, seventy five seconds ahead of Frantz. However, punctures to De Waele gave the lead to his nearest rival until he too suffered the same problem. With Frantz out of the running for the title, sickness in Grenoble nearly cost him too but with help from his teammates, he was led to victory.
After winning the 1929 Tour, the organiser, Henri Desgrange despaired so much of the trickery that he thought had let such a minor rider succeed that he abandoned commercially sponsored teams and ran the Tour for national teams for two decades. Desgrange had until then insisted that while riders could compete in the name of their sponsors, cooperation or tactics between those riders was not allowed. They were to consider everyone their rival and ride against them whether they had the same sponsor or not.
De Waele was sponsored by the French bicycle company, Alcyon, whose ability to employ many of the leading riders gave it a dominant place in the sport. Clashes between Alcyon and Desgrange were frequent and came to a head when De Waele won the Tour with the illegal help of other Alcyon riders even though he was ill.
"My Tour has been won by a corpse," Desgrange complained and from the following year denied entries to commercial teams and accepted national teams instead.
De Waele finished 5th in 1931. Other notable wins include the 1928 and 1929 Vuelta al País Vasco.
Major achievements
- 1927 – Labor-Dunlop
- Tour de France
- 1928 – Alcyon-Dunlop
- Tour de France
- 3rd overall, @ + 56' 16"
- 1st, Stage 8 (Bordeaux - Hendaye), 225km
- 1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 271km
- 1st overall, Vuelta al País Vasco
- 1929 – Belgium
- Tour de France
- 1st overall, Vuelta al País Vasco
- 1931 – Belgium
- 1st overall, Tour of Belgium
Grand Tour results timeline
1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 Giro DNE DNE DNE DNE DNE Stages won — — — — — Tour 2 3 1 DNE 5 Stages won 2 2 1 — 0 Vuelta N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Stages won Legend 1 Winner 2–3 Top three-finish 4–10 Top ten-finish 11– Other finish DNE Did Not Enter DNF-x Did Not Finish (retired on stage x) DSQ Disqualified N/A Race/classification not held NR Not Ranked in this classification Categories:- Belgian cyclists
- Tour de France winners
- Belgian Tour de France stage winners
- 1896 births
- 1952 deaths
- People from East Flanders
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