1956 Tour de France winner Roger Walkowiak has died near Vichy at the age of 89, his family announced on Tuesday. The Frenchman was the oldest living Tour champion following the death of Ferdi Kubler in December.
Walkowiak’s Tour victory was among the most surprising in the history of the race and the expression ‘un Tour à la Walko’ would pass into the popular lexicon in France to suggest an unexpected or even undeserved win, though it is usually overlooked that the 1956 Tour was the fastest to that point, at an average speed in excess of 36kph.
At the time the Tour was disputed by national teams, and Walkowiak upset the established hierarchy by winning the race while competing for the lowly Nord-Est Centre regional selection. He first took possession of the yellow jersey after stage 7 to Angers, when he was in a break of 31 riders that finished some 18 minutes clear of the peloton.
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Walkowiak conceded the maillot jaune in the middle portion of the race, but regained the overall lead on the tough Alpine leg from Turin to Grenoble in the final week and held it all the way to Paris, beating Gilbert Bauvin of the French national team by 1:25. Future Tour winners Federico Bahamontes and Charly Gaul placed 4th and 13th, respectively.
Although Walkowiak was applauded at the finish in the Parc des Princes, the reaction to his victory elsewhere was muted, with many highlighting the divisions in the French national team and Bauvin’s crash in the Pyrenees as explanations for the upset triumph. The journalist Albert Baker d’Isy complained that “it’s clear that a winner of the Tour who didn’t win a single stage lacks a bit of panache,” though Tour director Jacques Goddet was vocal in his praise of the unexpected winner.
The son of a Polish immigrant from Lublin, Walkowiak grew up in Montlucon and started racing after World War II, later explaining that he turned professional in 1951 because he couldn’t find a job after training as a metalworker.
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