Six Days of the Route
Albert Lejune, owner of two newspapers Le Petit Journal based in Paris, and Le Petit Niçois based in Nice, created Les Six Jours de la Route (Since I don’t speak French I think this means, “six days of the route” or “which way to the royale with cheese”) in 1933 to establish a link between the two newspapers. For him it was about showing the charm of La Cote d’Azur to his readers with the help of a cycling race on an innovative route. For six days at the end of the winter season, the event went through the Valley of the Rhone; avoiding carefully the Alps and its difficulties, sparingly using the hilly hinterland of Nice, to be finally used as a favourable training ground for the spring Classics. The jersey of the leader was azure and gold in colour, evoking the blue of the Mediterranee and the golden sun in Nice.
Not organized between 1940 and 1946, the event was reborn again in 1946 with the encouragement of the newspaper Ce Soir, which only managed to try the experience once.
Jean Medecin, the mayor of Nice requested that the race was to be organized by the weekly newspaper Route et Piste in which the editer Jean Leulliot was to be named as race director. The event then went under the name of Paris-Côte d’Azur, with the publication of the newspaper L’Aurore, as the main partner, using the white jersey designating the leader. Under the impetus of Jean Leulliot, Paris-Nice slowly lost its status as a training ground to become a real event.
The history of racing reminds us of the famous duel between Anquetil-Poulidor. In 1972 Jacques Anquetil became director of the race and saw with his own eyes the victory of Raymond Poulidor at the age of 36 with the uncompromising Eddy Merckx coming in second. He also witnessed the seven consecutive victories of Laurent Jalabert, the last French winner. His finest view was of Bobby Julich winning the race in 2005 and Floyd Landis winning in 2006. Ok, maybe not so much Floyd, but Bobby was a great event.
Figures on Paris-Nice
7 overall victories for Sean Kelly (1982-1988)
12 riders won Paris-Nice several times
14 French riders won Paris-Nice
11 nations are at the palmares of Paris-Nice
21 years old, it was the age of the youngest rider to win Paris-Nice (Vietto in 1935)
9’39 is the biggest gap between the first and second riders at final overall classification (1939, final victory for Archambaud)
3” is the tiniest gap between the winner and the second at the final overall classification (2008, victory for Rebellin ahead of Nocentini)
1,955 kilometres for the longest edition (1959)
850 kilometres for the shortest edition (1973)
136 is the biggest number of riders to complete Paris-Nice (2001)
19 is the tiniest number of riders to complete Paris-Nice (1939)
57 it is the number of leader jerseys for Eddy Merckx on Paris-Nice
10, is the number of riders who wore the leader jersey from the first till the last stage
6 is the highest number of stage victories for one rider of a single edition Paris-Nice (Maertens, 1976)
21 is the number of stages won by Eddy Merckx
312 kilometres is the distance of the longest stage on Paris-Nice (Paris-Dijon, 1933)
19 kilometres is the distance of the shortest on line stage on Paris-Nice (Tournon-Valence, 1973)
67 is the highest number of riders to retire on one stage (1939)
1””, is the smallest gap between the winner and the second on a Prologue (1991, Thierry Marie won ahead of Tony Rominger)
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