{"id":174031,"date":"2019-05-30T12:47:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T12:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=174031"},"modified":"2019-05-30T12:48:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T12:48:32","slug":"the-triumph-of-the-first-woman-to-win-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2019\/05\/30\/the-triumph-of-the-first-woman-to-win-the-tour-de-france\/","title":{"rendered":"The Triumph of the First Woman to Win the Tour de France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine it\u2019s 1984 and you\u2019re watching the award ceremony for the Tour de France. It\u2019s the first time both a man and a woman are standing on the platform, the winners of separate races.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Two years later, the male winner, Laurent Fignon, would still be in the midst of a successful professional cycling career, while the woman, Marianne Martin, would be retired from racing and working two jobs to pay off her debts. But she wouldn\u2019t have any regrets, because she would forever be the first woman to win the Tour de France F\u00e9minin, a race that almost never happened.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

Women on the Tour: A Controversial Idea<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 1983, Felix Levitan, one of the Tour\u2019s organisers, sparked a heated debate in France with a daring proposal: organizing a women\u2019s Tour. The French weren\u2019t so thrilled about the idea. As the 1983 Tour winner Laurent Fignon put it, \u2018I like women, but I prefer to see them doing something else\u2019.<\/p>\n

Luckily, Levitan pushed his plan through and in the summer of 1984, 18 stages and about 1,083 km were ready and waiting for female racers. The press took particular interest in the Dutch national team, because it had one of the greatest female racers in Europe, Heleen Hage. No one knew much about the American team, so expectations for them were low. Who would have known that the US team\u2019s underdog would get most of the attention in the coming weeks!<\/p>\n

The US Team\u2019s Hidden Star<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the spring of 1984, only a few months before the race, Marianne Martin was recovering from anemia. The 26-year-old American had discovered her talent for cycling in college and was soon entering major races throughout the country. Racing became her passion, and nothing could stop her, even illness.<\/p>\n

When Marianne heard there would be a women\u2019s equivalent of the Tour, she knew she had to race. With no recent wins to her credit, Marianne basically had to beg the US national cycling coach to let her join. Luckily, he accepted the young lady as the sixth and final member of the American women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The bicycle Martin was riding in 1984.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The then-leader of the US team was Betsy King: the first female participant in the famous Bordeaux\u2013Paris race. So everyone was surprised when Marianne finished third in the first stage, but no one was very excited. On the contrary, Marianne got into trouble for not being a team player. The racer disciplined herself and kept a low profile for the next 11 stages.<\/p>\n

The Challenging Alpine Passes<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The game changer came in the 12th stage. Two mountain passes in the Alps awoke the inner climber in Marianne, who cut loose and left the pack. Once at the top, she planned to wait for the other racers, but eventually she just kept on riding her way to the polka-dot jersey, an award for the Tour\u2019s best climber. That\u2019s when she knew she might actually have a shot at winning the race.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=50LuR1YMZEg<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the American team started getting attention from the media. In a few days, Marianne passed the famous Heleen Hage with a five-minute lead in the La Plagne stage, adding a yellow jersey to her collection. And so the team rearranged around a new leader.<\/p>\n

Go, Marianne Martin!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Right before the final stage, Marianne tried calling her father to tell him to turn on his TV and watch his daughter finish the race. But she couldn\u2019t get a hold of him. When she reached the finish line of the final stage under the Arc of Triomphe, Marianne heard someone in the crowd cheering: \u201cGo, Marianne Martin!\u201d That someone was her father, who had jumped on a plane so he didn\u2019t miss his daughter\u2019s triumph.<\/p>\n

Marianne collected the award: a trophy and $1,000, which she shared with her team, and then returned to America. In 1986 she quit racing for good due to health issues, and started working to pay off the debts she\u2019d built up during her cycling career. But she never really cared about prizes: even when she recalls the 1984 Tour, Marianne mostly talks about how much fun she had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine it\u2019s 1984 and you\u2019re watching the award ceremony for the Tour de France. It\u2019s the first time both a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":174032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[334],"tags":[2784,3085,3087,3088,3084,433,3086,538],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-174031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-socialising-and-culture","tag-cycling-history","tag-heleen-hage","tag-la-plagne","tag-laurent-fignon","tag-marianne-martin","tag-tour-de-france","tag-tour-de-france-feminin","tag-women-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Triumph of the First Woman to Win the Tour de France - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Imagine it\u2019s 1984 and you\u2019re watching the award ceremony for the Tour de France. 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