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INTRODUCTION
RIDERS
RACES
EXPLOITS
LINKS
SEARCH
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Prologue (ITT)
Stage 1
Stage 2 (TTT)
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6 (ITT)
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9
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Part 1 - Prologue to PyreneesOf all the managers who assembled at Fontenay-Sous-Bois ready for the start of the 1983 Tour de France, Cyrille Guimard was perhaps feeling more apprehensive than most. Five times a winner of the Tour in his seven years as a manager, the chances of a sixth win nonetheless appeared remote. Four of those wins came from Bernard Hinault, but at that moment Hinault was sidelined with a knee injury sustained in winning the Vuelta. Renault's second star, Lemond, would have been a clear favourite after his strong performances in the Vuelta and the Dauphiné Libéré, but he had ruled himself out on the grounds of his comparative youth. Thus it was Marc Madiot who led a relatively youthful Renault-Gitane team into the Tour, and if between them they picked up a couple of stage wins and placed a man in the top ten, they might have been well pleased. Attention focused instead on the remaining "Anglos" in the race, and particularly on Sem-France Loire and Peugeot. Sem had Sean Kelly, many people's outstanding favourite, backed up by the reliable and hugely experienced Joaquim Agostinho as well as Rooks, Grezet and Boyer, three strong all rounders of great promise. Meanwhile Peugeot fielded Phil Anderson, the one rider not to be overawed by Hinault in 1982, along with the exciting but erratic Stephen Roche, the young Scottish climber Robert Millar and Pascal Simon. Coop-Mercier had the ageing Joop Zoetmelk, Metauromobili Lucien Van Impe fresh from a strong Giro, and Raleigh was backing Peter Winnen. Along with other riders of the class of Criquielion, Bernadeau and Kuiper, not to mention a Colombian Amateur squad of undoubted class but uncertain tactical nous, it promised to be an open and exciting Tour. In a poll of eight of L'Equipe's senior journalists, two went for Zoetmelk and two for Van Impe, with a vote each for Kelly, Grezet, Simon and Winnen - a battle, then, between youth and experience. Making a blinding start in his first Tour was the twenty one year old Belgian Eric Vanderaeden, best known then as a pursuiter, who won the prologue to claim the first yellow jersey ahead of Raleigh's Bert Oosterbosch. The next stage saw the pursuiter more than hold his own as a sprinter, picking up hot spot sprints to consolidate his lead ahead of Kelly, with Fritz Pirard winning the stage and Gilbert Duclos Lasalle donning the first "Maillot a Pois". Stage two was a sixty mile Team Time Trial, judged as was the fashion of the time (and what crazy fashion it was!) by an arcane system of bonuses which saw Coop finish 10'38" to the good of Colombia, yet gain only 3'25" per rider in the overall. Raleigh, meanwhile waited for Winnen who had been dropped and, in finishing fourth, lost their first TTT in five years. In the light of future events, Stage three comes to seem of signal importance. Finishing in Roubaix after the then traditional excursion across the cobbles, it was won by Rudy Matthijs from Kim Andersen, with the rest of the field finishing between 2'09" and 36'32" behind. Whilst Van Impe lost around four minutes, Millar was dropped after five miles and lost nearly seventeen minutes. The effect of this loss on the structure of the Tour will be seen. The 300km to Le Havre fell to Serge Demierre and the next stage to Dominique Gaigne, with Kelly pulling on the Green Jersey he was destined still to be wearing in Paris. And after a transfer from Le Mans to Chateaubriant, the first individual Time Trial - apart from the Prologue - took place on the road to Nantes. The result was something of an anticlimax: Oosterbosch won from Gorospe and Willems, with only Kelly and Anderson making the top ten from the favourites. Poor Robert Millar lost another seven minutes. After a mass sprint won by Riccardo Magrini, the overall saw Kim Andersen leading from his near namesake Phil Anderson, with Kelly, Zoetmelk, Vanderaeden, Vandenbroucke, Roche, Van der Poel, Pascal Simon and Claude Moreau spread over about 2 ¾ minutes. Of the other favourites, Winnen was already at 5'16", Bernadeau and Arroyo at 5'34", Alban at 7'17", Breu at 8'11" and Van Impe at 9'36". Meanwhile, by dint of strong, if unspectacular riding all round, a certain Laurent Fignon lay 16th, 4'08" and second best young rider. Thus after an innocuous looking first week, a combination of pavé and time trials had spread the favourites over ten minutes, with climbers like Millar and the Colombians mostly already twenty to thirty minutes down. For such men the next day's mountains - starting with the classic trek from Pau to Luchon via Aubisque, Soulor, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde - could not come soon enough. Other Parts:
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