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Historic Overview Maurice Dewaele

Rider

Overall Rank177
NameMaurice DEWAELE
Country
  Belgium
Date of birth27-Dec-1896 - Lovendegem (Oost Vlaanderen)
Date of death14-Feb-1952 - Maldegem (Oost Vlaanderen)
ContemporiesView Contemporary Ranking

Biography

Maurice Dewaele

Maurice De Waele (pronounced [mʌuˈriz ˈʋaːlə]; 27 December 1896 – 14 February 1952) was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer.

De Waele placed second in the 1927 Tour, an hour and fifty eight minutes behind Nicolas Frantz, and third in 1928, again won by Frantz. However, he is most famous for winning the 1929 Tour de France. He led the Tour until stage seven when two punctures on the way to Bordeaux cost him the yellow jersey to no less than three other riders on the same time in the general classification, Frantz, Andre Leducq and Victor Fontan. Fontan was the sole leader of the race when a broken bike led to his retirement, leaving De Waele in the lead, seventy five seconds ahead of Frantz. However, punctures to De Waele gave the lead to his nearest rival until he too suffered the same problem. With Frantz out of the running for the title, sickness in Grenoble nearly cost him too but with help from his teammates, he was led to victory.

After winning the 1929 Tour, the organiser, Henri Desgrange despaired so much of the trickery that he thought had let such a minor rider succeed that he abandoned commercially sponsored teams and ran the Tour for national teams for two decades. Desgrange had until then insisted that while riders could compete in the name of their sponsors, cooperation or tactics between those riders was not allowed. They were to consider everyone their rival and ride against them whether they had the same sponsor or not.

De Waele was sponsored by the French bicycle company, Alcyon, whose ability to employ many of the leading riders gave it a dominant place in the sport. Clashes between Alcyon and Desgrange were frequent and came to a head when De Waele won the Tour with the illegal help of other Alcyon riders even though he was ill.

"My Tour has been won by a corpse," Desgrange complained and from the following year denied entries to commercial teams and accepted national teams instead.

De Waele finished 5th in 1931. Other notable wins include the 1928 and 1929 Tour of the Basque Country.

source - Wikipedia

Badges

2 5 16 4 2 3 20

Major Victories

Tour de France 1929
Vuelta al Pais Vasco 1928, 1929
Tour de Belgique 1931
Paris - Menin 1926, 1927
Bruxelles - Luxembourg - Mondorf 1922
Circuit de Belgique 1930
Circuit du Midi 1926
Tour de France - stages 1927 (2), 1928 (2), 1929 (1)
Vuelta al Pais Vasco - stages 1928 (1), 1929 (1)
Tour de Belgique - stages 1924 (1), 1929 (1), 1931 (1)
Paris - Saint-Etienne - stages 1926 (1)
More results

Seasons

Maurice Dewaele - Scores by Season

Year Team Score Rank
1. 1921 Individual 38 321
2. 1922 Individual 151 133
3. 1923 Wonder - Dunlop 857 29
4. 1924 Wonder - Cycles Russell 814 30
5. 1925 Wonder 781 34
6. 1926 Ravat - Wonder - Dunlop 660 47
7. 1927 Wonder 2017 5
8. 1928 Alcyon - Dunlop 2923 2
9. 1929 Alcyon - Dunlop 3234 1
10. 1930 Alcyon - Dunlop 533 69
11. 1931 M. Dewaele 1996 11
12. 1935 Individual 0 1241
Overall: 14004 177