Simpson remembered: A black day 40 years ago
On stage 13 of the Tour de France 40 years ago today, July 13, Tom Simpson collapsed and died on Mont Ventoux. It still seems like yesterday.
That was the fifth year I had followed the Tour by bicycle. During those years I had raced in Brittany for a couple of summers. One of the other Brits I trained with was Colin Lewis. He was as rugged a cyclist as I’ve ever met. His training rides were as tough as most races. He could have taken his pick of European teams, but he told me he never wanted to take drugs, so he signed with a small pro team in England.
Colin rode the 1967 Tour for the Great Britain team, of which Tom Simpson was the undisputed leader. Tom was the first non-European to wear the yellow jersey (in 1962). His palmarès also included four one-day classics, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Bordeaux-Paris and the Tour of Lombardy. He became a true legend of the sport when he won the world championship in 1965. His ambition was such that he dearly wanted to win the Tour in ’67, even though he didn’t have the team to support him because of the national-team format (1968 would be the final year that the Tour was contested by national teams).
I first saw Tom when he was racing for the English track team at the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. He took a silver medal in the pursuit. A few years later, I met Tom for the first time in London at the cycle show in Earl’s Court. I was in a line of fans to get his autograph. But being a down-to-earth guy, Tom didn’t just scribble his moniker and go on to the next person. He took time to talk to each of us, asking about our racing and training, and giving some advice. I was impressed.
The next time I saw Tom was in the 1965 Tour, on the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, He had crashed on the previous descent, and his wool Peugeot jersey (there were trade teams that year) was ripped and muddied. It was raining. I ran alongside him shouting my encouragement, and maybe I gave him a little push, too. The following month I was racing in France the day he won his world title in San Sebastian. We followed the final laps by radio (no live TV back then) after our race finished. I was ecstatic when Tom out-sprinted his breakaway companion Rudi Altig to take the rainbow jersey. He was the first (and still only) Brit to win cycling’s most prestigious championship.
Tom broke a leg the following winter while skiing in the Alps, and though he recovered just in time to start the ’66 Tour he wasn’t at his best. So 1967 was going to be his year for the Tour. The season began well when he won Paris-Nice, and in return for the help his young teammate Eddy Merckx gave him there, Tom rode for the Belgian in the spring classics.
Merckx was still too young to ride the Tour, and in the absence of five-time winner Jacques Anquetil — who rode his final Tour in 1966 — the big favorite was Anquetil’s perennial French rival, Raymond Poulidor. Things quickly went sour for Pou-Pou, whose France national teammate Roger Pingeon took the yellow jersey on stage 5. Three days later, Poulidor crashed and had huge mechanical problems on the finishing climb to the Ballon d’Alsace, losing almost 10 minutes, and so ceded the team leadership to Pingeon, the eventual Tour winner.
That stage was won by a third French team rider, defending champion Lucien Aimar, while Tom finished 19 seconds behind Aimar, and more than a minute ahead of Pingeon, to jump up the GC. I saw Colin after the mountaintop finish and he invited me to join the team for dinner in Belfort. I was excited riding the long downhill road to the hotel, where Tom was clearly thrilled with his ride that day. I told the riders, who also included Barry Hoban and Arthur Metcalfe, that I hoped to meet up with them again in Digne-les-Bains after the last alpine stage.
The Alps weren’t kind to Tom, but he was still in the top 10 and said he was going to try to do something over Mont Ventoux in a couple of days’ time. But the Tour was taking its toll on the wiry Englishman. He had clearly lost weight and was almost emaciated. Colin told me that Tom had been having stomach problems.
As they headed to Marseille the next day I pedaled across Provence to the foot of the Ventoux. I stayed at a youth hostel and must have eaten something bad, because I woke up with food poisoning. Making things worse was the stifling, hot weather. It was already in the 90s that morning and headed to the triple digits. So instead of climbing to the Ventoux summit — I planned to watch about 2km from the top — I just rode into Carpentras to be close to a toilet. I would see the riders grabbing their musettes at the day’s second feed zone and watch the stage finish after the race had crossed the Giant of Provence.
When the peloton came through Carpentras after the flatter part of the stage from Marseille, I shouted out to Tom as he grabbed his food bag and then watched him shoot the breeze with his former team manager Raphaël Geminiani, who was driving one of the French team cars. “Gem” was squirting water at riders out of his car window.
As the race headed to the Ventoux, which is clearly visible from Carpentras, I grabbed a little food to soothe my upset stomach and wheeled my bike across town to the finish area. There was no live TV or big screens back then, just occasional updates via Radio Tour. They said that Tom was up in the front group, which then split. Tom was in the second group with Aimar — who would later say that Tom kept on accelerating, trying to bridge back to the leaders.
Then, as the announcer focused on the battle up front between Spanish climber Julio Jimenez, Pingeon, Poulidor and Dutch star Jan Janssen (who would win the stage), there was no more news of Tom. When he didn’t come into the finish with the chasers, I assumed he would arrive with the stragglers. I saw Colin arrive in 56th place, almost 12 minutes back. Still no Tom. Colin said that when he passed a point about 2km from the summit a bunch of fans and race officials were gathered at the roadside, but he didn’t know what had happened to Tom. It was so blazingly hot up on the exposed limestone flanks of the Ventoux that perhaps Tom had fallen victim to heat stroke, which he suffered from as a boy.
I wasn’t a journalist then, so I left Carpentras to ride the first part of the next day’s stage in the still-warm evening. My stomach was feeling a little better, but when I got to the next youth hostel I just had a light meal and went to bed early. I planned to leave before 7 the next morning, which was July 14, Bastille Day.
On reaching the first town, I bought a local newspaper. I thought it strange when I saw a photo of Tom on the front page. Then I read the headline: Meurtre de Simpson … Death of Simpson. That headline remains with me. Tears have just come to my eyes as I write these words on July 13, 2007, exactly 40 years later.
The newspapers said a couple of amphetamine ampoules were found in his back pocket. But that was no surprise. I’d seen empty amphetamine ampoules in the changing rooms after amateur criterium races in Brittany. There were no medical controls in 1967 and no rules against using drugs. That was the way.
Tom Simpson has been condemned for being a “doper.” He suffered the ultimate price for the errors of the time, but he was no more culpable than any other racer of the ’60s.
Tom, who was married with two young daughters, was only 29. His widow, Helen, married Barry Hoban, who was given the July 14, 1967 stage win and went on to win seven other Tour stages over the following eight years.
A couple years after Tom Simpson’s death, following fundraising by the British magazine Cycling Weekly, a memorial stone was erected at the spot where he died. On the day it was unveiled by the Hobans, I rode up the Ventoux to pay my respects to Mr. Tom. I waved to Barry and Helen as they drove by on their way to do the brief ceremony. When I reached the memorial no one else was around. I left my bike at the roadside and slowly walked up a rocky slope to the memorial. It was early evening. A cold breeze blew over the bare mountain. I left relieved that I hadn’t been at this spot when he died. It would have been too hard to take.
Today, July 13, 2007, Simpson’s daughters, now in their 40s, are making a pilgrimage to the Ventoux memorial to honor their dad. He’ll be with them forever.
