Maurice-Francois Garin was an Italian then French road bicycle racer best known for winning the inaugural Tour de France in 1903, and for being stripped of his title in the second Tour in 1904 along with eight others, for cheating.
29 Facts About Maurice Garin
2.
The name Garin was the most common in the native village of Maurice, called "Chez-les-Garin", belonging to five of the seven families.
3.
Maurice Garin moved to Charleroi in Belgium but by 1889 he was back in France, at Maubeuge.
4.
Maurice Garin moved to Lens, Pas-de-Calais in 1902 and lived there the rest of his life.
5.
Maurice Garin bought his first bicycle for 405 francs, twice what a forge worker would earn in a week of 12-hour days, in 1889.
6.
Maurice Garin finished fifth despite suffering from the sun and decided to ride more.
7.
Spotting a soigneur waiting with a spare bike for a rival, Maurice Garin rested his own against the wall of a bridge, grabbed the soigneur's spare bike and rode off.
8.
Maurice Garin arrived to find it was only for professionals.
9.
Maurice Garin fell off twice but finished ahead of the racers.
10.
Maurice Garin would have come second had he not been knocked over by a crash between two tandems, one of them ridden by his pacers.
11.
Maurice Garin "finished exhausted and Dr Butrille was obliged to attend the man who had been run over by two machines," said the race historian, Pascal Sergent.
12.
Maurice Garin was first, followed by the mud-soaked figure of Cordang.
13.
Somehow Maurice Garin held on to his lead of two metres, two little metres for a legendary victory.
14.
Maurice Garin finished 19h 11m better than Charles Terront ten years earlier.
15.
Until 2004, it was said that Maurice Garin had taken French nationality when he was 21, in 1892 but in 2004, the reporter Franco Cuaz found the naturalizing act and Maurice Garin took French nationality 21 December 1901.
16.
Maurice Garin won 3,000 francs for finishing first in 94h 33m 14s, or 6,125 francs in all with his other prizes.
17.
Maurice Garin was incontestably the strongest rider of the period, so he was first choice.
18.
Maurice Garin won the 1904 Tour de France, by a small margin over Lucien Pothier, but was stripped of the title which was awarded to Henri Cornet.
19.
Maurice Garin is thrown to the ground, beaten like plaster.
20.
In December 1904 Maurice Garin was stripped of his title and banned for two years.
21.
Maurice Garin retired from cycling and ran his garage in Lens until his death.
22.
Maurice Garin was far from an adulated hero, even less a rich champion, and I don't remember any special celebration in his honour.
23.
Maurice Garin returned just once to his birthplace, in 1949, to see the Tour pass through.
24.
Maurice Garin began a professional team under his name after the second world war.
25.
Maurice Garin is buried in a family grave with his wife Desiree.
26.
In 1933 the Stade Velodrome Maurice Garin was built in Lens, and named in his honour.
27.
In 1938 Maurice Garin was awarded the gold medal of Physical Education by the Minister of Sport for France, Leo Lagrange.
28.
Maurice Garin is remembered as a short, determined man, even authoritarian.
29.
Maurice Garin regularly ended up at the town's police station, from where he was escorted back home.