31 Facts About Cyrille Guimard

1.

Cyrille Guimard was born on 20 January 1947 and is a French former professional road racing cyclist who became a directeur sportif and television commentator.

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2.

Cyrille Guimard has been described by cycling journalist William Fotheringham as the greatest directeur sportif in the history of the Tour.

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3.

Cyrille Guimard was national champion in all three forms: road in 1967 as an amateur, track sprint in 1970 and cyclo-cross in 1976.

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4.

Cyrille Guimard was then president of the riders' union and the resentment which that created was why he was not named champion, he claimed.

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5.

Cyrille Guimard was a sprinter who won nearly 100 races in eight seasons.

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6.

Cyrille Guimard had a very strong performance in the 1971 Vuelta a Espana where he won two stages, the points, sprints and combination competitions while finishing just outside the top 10 in the overall classification.

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7.

Cyrille Guimard won stages of the Tour de France in 1970,1972,1973 and 1974 – four of them in 1972 – although he finished the race only twice.

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8.

Cyrille Guimard came 62nd in 1970 and seventh in 1971, the only year in which he didn't win a stage.

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9.

Cyrille Guimard wore the Green jersey of leader of the points competition in 1972 and won that year's combativity award.

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10.

Cyrille Guimard's most striking Tour de France was in 1972, when he wore the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification and matched Eddy Merckx in the mountains.

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11.

Cyrille Guimard was in second place and leading the points competition two days from the finish in Paris when he was forced to withdraw.

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12.

Cyrille Guimard produced no evidence of medical training at his trial.

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13.

In 1973, Cyrille Guimard was caught in a drugs test at the end of the stage from Avignon to Montpellier.

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14.

Cyrille Guimard became a directeur sportif with the Gitane team, which included Bernard Hinault and Lucien Van Impe.

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15.

Hinault was considering leaving the team but Cyrille Guimard, who had ridden in the peloton with Hinault, convinced him to stay.

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16.

Cyrille Guimard ran Gitane-Campagnolo, Renault-Elf-Gitane, Systeme U-Gitane, Super U, Castorama, and Cofidis; riders under his direction included Van Impe, Hinault, Laurent Fignon, Greg LeMond, Charly Mottet and Marc Madiot.

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17.

Cyrille Guimard was one of the best directeurs sportifs that I ever met.

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18.

Cyrille Guimard always knew when to go after a break or to let it go.

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19.

Cyrille Guimard ignored the urgings of team assistants to go on the attack and said that if Guimard wanted him to ride differently then he was to say so himself.

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20.

Cyrille Guimard drove up alongside Van Impe and shouted that he'd run him off the road with his car if Van Impe didn't attack.

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21.

Cyrille Guimard had the previous year taken on a young American, Greg LeMond, whom he knew from his win in the world junior championship in 1979 and whose career he had followed.

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22.

Cyrille Guimard took riders to the Equipe Renault Elf Formula One team's wind tunnel to perfect their positioning on the bike and maximise their aerodynamic efficiency.

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23.

Cyrille Guimard was left without a team when Castorama dropped out of the sport at the end of 1995.

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24.

Cyrille Guimard helped form the Cofidis team but left after a court case in 1997 in which he was accused of false accounting and of obtaining credit by false pretences.

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25.

Cyrille Guimard had been one of the founding directors of Siclor, a company set up in 1996 with 2.

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26.

In 2003, Cyrille Guimard became advisor and technical director of the French amateur cycling team Velo Club Roubaix where he worked with the amateur Andy Schleck.

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27.

In June 2017, Cyrille Guimard was announced as the coach of the French national team.

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28.

Cyrille Guimard was president of the professional riders' body, the Union Nationale des Coureurs Professionels, when he was 23.

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29.

Cyrille Guimard failed to win election in 2009 as president of the Federation Francaise de Cyclisme, the body representing France at the Union Cycliste Internationale.

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30.

Cyrille Guimard's campaign accused the federation's management of being clannish, eliminating those who did not please it and coopting those who did.

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31.

Cyrille Guimard served as a member of the French Cycling Federation's executive for four years and as a member of its federal council for two years, but resigned from the latter body in December 2014 due to the Federation's failure to consult him on sporting matters.

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