Charly Gaul.doc

Charly Gaul

Charly Gaul (born Pfaffenthal, Luxembourg, 8 December 1932[1] – died Luxembourg City, 6 December 2005[1]) was a professional cyclist. He was a national cyclo-cross champion, an accomplished time triallist and a better climber. His ability earned him the nickname of The Angel of the Mountains in the 1958 Tour de France, which he won with four stage victories. He also won the Giro d'Italia in 1956 and 1959. Gaul rode best in cold, wet weather. In later life he became a recluse[2] and lost much of his memory.

Early life

Charly Gaul (left) and Federico Bahamontes in front of the memorial to Luxembourg's other Tour winners, François Faber and Nicolas Frantz, in 1998

Charly Gaul - pronounced Gowl[3] - was a fragile-looking man with a sad face and disproportionately short legs. He had "a sad, timid look on his face, marked with an unfathomable melancholy [as though] an evil deity has forced him into a cursed profession amidst powerful, implacable riders," as one writer put it.[4]

Gaul worked in a butcher's shop and as a slaughterman in an abattoir at Bettembourg before turning professional on 3 May 1953[5] for Terrot,[1] at the age of 20.[4] By then he had already won more than 60 races as an amateur[6] having started racing in 1949.[5] They included the Flêche du Sud and the Tour of the 12 Cantons.[7] He won a stage up the climb of Grossglockner during the Tour of Austria when he was 17, setting a stage record. It was his first race outside Luxembourg.[8] The writer Charlie Woods said:

"The Grossglockner is slightly higher than Mont Ventoux and just as formidable. One can imagine the youngster engaging rather sheepishly with such a monster. He knew that he could climb well on ordinary hills, but this was no man's land. At half-distance, however, despite his manager's exhortations to caution, his class told and he found himself alone in the lead. A few moments of giddy pleasure were soon dispatched by the ever-present need to keep the pedals turning; he was, after all, still in no man's land. This show of force was greeted by another, a thunderstorm and the first squalls of rain probably cooled the fever of his labours and brought with it a lighter, freer atmosphere. He had always been at ease in rainfall [and] beginning to pedal now with an edge of fierce affirmation, he perhaps completely forgot himself for a long series of ramps and bends... To such an extent that not only did he win the stage but broke the existing record for the climb.[9]

His first professional race was the Critérium de la Polymultipliée, which he finished eighth.[8] His first professional win was in 1953 in Luxembourg, in the national cyclo-cross championship.[1] He came second the same year in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré stage race. The following year he was second in the Luxembourg road championship (which he won six times), won a stage in the Dauphiné Libéré, and won a bronze medal in the 1954 world championship.

Riding style

Gaul was 1m 73 tall and weighed 64 kg. His lightness was a gift in the mountains, where he won the climbers' competition in the Tour de France of 1955 and 1956.[2] Unusual for a light man, he was also an accomplished time-trialist, in one Tour de France beating the world leader, Jacques Anquetil. Gaul pedalled fast on climbs, rarely changing his pace, infrequently getting out of the saddle.[10] His contemporary, Raphaël Géminiani, said Gaul was "a murderous climber, always the same sustained rhythm, a little machine with a lower gear than the rest, turning his legs at a speed that would break your heart, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock."[4][11] The journalist Pierre About wrote that Gaul had "irresistible sprightliness [allegresse]", that he had "the air of an angel for which nothing is difficult."[12]

The writer Jan Heine said: "Nobody else ever climbed that fast. Gaul dominated the climbs of the late 1950s, spinning up the hills at amazing cadences, his legs a blur while his cherubic face hardly showed the strain of his exceptional performances."[8] Pierre Chany called him "without doubt, one of the three or four best climbers of all time."[10]

Philippe Brunel of the French newspaper, L'Équipe, said: "In the furnace of the 1950s, Gaul seemed to ride not against Bahamontes, Anquetil Adriessens, but against oppressive phantoms, to escape his modest origins, riding the ridges to new horizons, far from the life without surprises which would have been his had he stayed in Luxembourg."[13] Gaul was weakest on flat stages and in the heat. In the 1957 Tour de France he went home after two days, stricken by the temperature in what Pierre Chany called a "crematorium Tour".[11] He was at his best in cold and rain, winning the following year's race after a lone ride through the Alps in a day-long downpour described by the French newspaper, L'Équipe as "diluvian".[2] It was the first time the Tour had been won by a pure climber.[2]

The writer Roger St Pierre said of Gaul in the bad weather of the 1956 Giro d'Italia, in which a stage through the Dolomites ended with the 12 km climb of Monte Bondone:

"Charly averaged just four miles an hour over the final uphill kilometres of that murderous stage and collapsed at the finish, being taken off to the welcome warmth of his hotel, wrapped in a blanket. But he had assured his overall victory by beating his closest challenger on that nightmarish day by many minutes. The rest of the field was spread-eagled over several hours, some even having stopped for warm baths en route!"[14]

Gaul moved from 11th to first place. Jacques Goddet wrote in L'Équipe: "This day surpassed anything seen before in terms of pain, suffering and difficulty."[4]

Gaul was a variable rider who could delight and disappoint, almost at random.[7] He was talented in stage races but unremarkable in one-day events.[7]

Tour de France

Early years

Gaul rode his first Tour de France in 1953, but abandoned on the sixth stage.[6] He also started the 1954 Tour but again abandoned before the finish. He came to the 1955 Tour after winning the mountainous Tour de Sud Ouest and finishing third in the Tour of Luxembourg. He conceded a lot of time on the opening flat stages, not helped by being in a weak team.[6] His fight back started in the Alps, where the first stage was from Thonon-les-Bains to Briançon. He attacked and dropped the Dutch climber, Jan Nolten. Crossing the col du Télégraphe he had five minutes on his chasers; by the top of the Galibier he had 14m 47s. By the finish he had moved from 37th to third. He was on his way to winning the next day as well when he crashed descending in the rain. He attacked again when the race reached the Pyrenees, winning stage 17 from (Toulouse to Saint-Gaudens) ahead of the eventual overall winner, Louison Bobet. He won the mountains competition and finished third in Paris.

After a hard-fought victory in the 1956 Giro d'Italia (in which he took three stages - including an eight-minute victory in the Dolomites stage from Meran to Monte Bondone, near Trento),[15] Gaul was almost half an hour down after six days' racing in the 1956 Tour de France, but he was confident he could close the gap in the mountains. He won the mountains prize again, and two more stages - a mountain individual time trial on stage three and stage 18 to Grenoble. But his efforts did little good; he finished 13th.

Gaul started the 1957 Tour, but abandoned after two days with no stage wins.

1958

Gaul returned to the Tour in 1958. Third in that year's Giro, he started dominantly and won four stages, three of them time trials, including the ascent of Mont Ventoux. His time of 1h 2m 9s from the Bédoin side, which in those days was cobbled in the first kilometres and poorly surfaced to the summit, stood as a record until Jonathan Vaughters beat it 31 years later in the Dauphiné Libéré.[n 1]

On the last day in the Alps, his manager, Jo Goldschmidt[n 2] looked at the rain falling and woke Gaul with the words: "Come on soldier... This is your day." Gaul woke delighted at the cold rain and angry at the memory of how he had been denied the Giro the previous year, when he was attacked as he stopped by the roadside (see below). A lot of riders took advantage of his halt but he most blamed Bobet, a man as refined and diffident as Gaul was coarse and brusque.

His feelings for Bobet had turned to "flaming hatred," said the historian Bill McGann.[16] He sought out his tormentor before the stage started. The impact was all the greater because the two had barely spoken to each other since the Giro.[13] "You're ready, Monsieur Bobet?", he asked, laying emphasis on the false politeness of the monsieur. "I'll give you a chance. I'll attack on the Luitel climb. I'll even tell you which hairpin. You want to win the Tour more than I do? Easy. I've told you what you need to know."[17]

There was a prize of 100,00 francs at the top of the col de Lautaret in memory of the race's founder, Henri Desgrange. The Dutchman Piet van Est won it, with Bahamontes behind him. A small group broke clear on the descent and had eight minutes on the rest. Gaul began the chase and shed rider after rider, including the Spaniard, Salvador Botella, who held eighth place. Botella stopped, covered his head in his hands and wept. Teammates turned back to encourage him; he burst into tears again when he saw them and climbed into the race ambulance.

Gaul and Bahamontes dropped the rest. At first the rest thought that Gau...