Julien Pretot PARIS — Maurice Garin, winner of the inaugural Tour de France in 1903, belonged to an era of adventurous pioneers and so-called amateurs in a world without television and little press coverage. In contrast, the 2012 champion Bradley Wiggins and his Team Sky partners embody modernity and high tech in the multimedia age. Yet as the race prepares to celebrate its 100th edition, it appears the first and the last Tour winners are not entirely worlds apart. Garin, a former chimney sweep from the Italian valley of Aosta, was known as a hard-training perfectionist, who took great care of his machine. The White Bulldog, as the Franco-Italian was known, made the arduous decision to give up drinking and even cigarettes to achieve his goal of winning the Tour. Wiggins, who started his career as a pursuit specialist and won three Olympic golds, went on a strict diet to lose seven kilos in his bid to become a Grand Tour winner. Both men were brought up across two cultures, prefiguring the globalization of cycling's showcase event. Like many boys from his valley, Garin left to become a chimney sweep in France, ending up in the north of the country where he developed his taste for cycling. Wiggins was born in the Belgian city of Ghent, one of the strongholds of Six-Day Racing, the cycling discipline in which his father Gary made his reputation as a solid yet maverick track rider. Both men hardly knew their fathers, which might explain their motivation and an explanation of their hunger to win. Cycling has undergone many transformations in the years between the two men's victories and, with all due respect to the 198 riders starting the Tour in Corsica on June 29 — Wiggins will be missing through injury, the 60 brave men who embarked for the unknown in 1903 probably had more merit. Stages were twice as long, with a 471-km ride from Nantes to Paris, and often started at night. Bikes were gearless, three times as heavy – about 20 kilos – and riders were not allowed to receive any assistance so were forced to carry spare tires around their neck in case of punctures. And punctures were common, as roads were covered with gravel and dust, while cobbles were usual in the north. Riders were allowed to give up in one stage and start the next, although they did not compete for the general classification. The race was also open to strictly amateur riders, who usually spent most of their savings for the chance to compete on the Tour. Not only were nails an everyday fixture of the 1904 race, competitors were attacked and beaten up by fans of rival riders and the men who reached Paris in the four top placings were all disqualified for various offenses, including taking the train. Unfortunately, as the case against seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, who was last year stripped of his titles for doping, has shown, cheating has also been a feature of the modern Tour. Founder Desgrange ended the original formula of teams sponsored by bicycle manufacturers in 1930 when it turned out they were making arrangements to earn victory for the best man for their business at the expense of sporting concerns. The Tour was then raced by national teams, which forced the organizers to find new means to fund it. This is how the publicity caravan has now become a vital feature of the Tour was invented. As Wiggins's victory showed last year, the Tour is now much more an international event than a piece of French national heritage. In 2012, 31 nations were represented at the start, compared with five in 1903. — Reuters
