Charly Gaul Sporting Cyclist, UK, undated cutting (8 December 1932 – 6 December 2005)Velo-club, 4335, Charly Gaul, Posté le Mercredi 06 février 2002 was a Luxembourgish professional cyclist. He was a national cyclo-cross champion, an accomplished time triallist and superb climber. His ability earned him the nickname of 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 recluseL'Equipe, 06/12/2005 Cyclisme – Disparition – Décès de Charly Gaul and lost much of his memory.
Early life and amateur career
Gaul was a fragile-looking man with a sad face and disproportionately short legs. As one writer put it, 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."Cited obituary, The Guardian, UK, 8 December 2005
Gaul worked in a butcher's shop and as a slaughterman in an abattoir at Bettembourg before turning professional on 3 May 1953Memoire du Cyclisme, Charly Gaul, Palmares for Terrot, at the age of 20. By then, he had already won more than 60 races as an amateurVeloNews, Charly Gaul dies at 72 By John Wilcockson Posted Dec. 6, having started racing in 1949. They included the Flêche du Sud and the Tour of the 12 Cantons. 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.Konrad, Gabor and Melanie (eds), Bikelore (2000), On The Wheel Publications (USA), , p70
His first professional race was the Critérium de la Polymultipliée, which he finished eighth. His first professional win was in 1953 in Luxembourg, in the national cyclo-cross championship. 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.
Professional career
Tour de France
Gaul rode his first Tour de France in 1953 but abandoned on the sixth stage. 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. 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),John Wilcockson . 50 years later: Remembering Charly Gaul's great ride. VeloNews 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, and 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 41 years later in the Dauphiné Libéré.Vaughters broke the record for the ascent of Mont Ventoux with 26 other riders, timed in 56m 50s. Gaul was there to see it happen and had forecast the fastest would take less than an hour. He told Cycle Sport in August 1999: "I am glad that my record will fall. That's what records are there for, to be beaten. The road is pretty similar, slightly better surfaced, but the equipment is better, too. That is bound to have an effect. I can remember that, like today, it was very hot and I was worried about that because I didn't respond well to the heat." The last time Gaul had tried the climb, he said it took "a whole two hours."
On the last day in the Alps, his manager, Jo GoldschmidtJo Goldschmit's first name was Jean but he was always referred to as Jo. 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. 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. Historian Bill McGann said his feelings for Bobet had turned to "flaming hatred."McGann, Bill and Carol (2006), The Story of the Tour de France, vol 1, Dog Ear, USA, , p233 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.L'Équipe, 12 July 2000 Asking whether he was ready ("You're ready, Monsieur Bobet?"), he laid emphasis on the false politeness of the monsieur and continued: "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."Chany, Pierre (1997), La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, La Martinière, France,
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 Gaul had lost too much time earlier in the race to be a threat, that he was looking only at the best climber's prize.Chany, Pierre (1997), La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, La Martinière, France, , p466 On the climb to the col de Luitel, Gaul dropped Bahamontes as well. He was within three minutes of the leaders at the top, with Bahamontes a minute behind. Gaul took the lead and moved ahead as the race progressed through "a curtain of water, a deluge without an ark", as L'Équipe described it. Michel Clare, reporting for the paper, said: "I was on a motorbike and I had to stop at Granier for a hot grog. I was so cold that afterwards it was an hour before I could start writing." When he finally began his report in the press room at Aix-les-Bains, he wrote: "I remember only a curtain of rain. A deluge without an Ark. The caravan"The caravan" is a term used for the procession of vehicles preceding and following the race. dissolved from the moment it entered the sea of clouds that followed the pretty chalets of [the ski station of] Chamrousse. Now we know what it means to be 'soaked to the bone.' I thought of Jacques Anquetil, whose face was becoming more and more triangular and yellow. I thought of them all, the known and the unknown, sailors carried away by the flood and who tried desperately to avoid being shipwrecked. One man escaped from the storm. Charly Gaul. Finally, his time had come."Cited Vélo, France, July 2002 Gaul crossed the line at the lake in Bourget-en-Aix in near darknessAlchin, Richard and Bell, Adrian (eds), Golden Stages of the Tour de France, Mousehold Press, UK, , p50 with a slight smile, 12m 20s ahead of the chasing group and 15 minutes ahead of the leader, Raphaël Géminiani.When Gaul crossed the line in Bourget-en-Aix, it was dark enough that the streetlights had come on and cars and motorcycles were using their headlights. The finish line had begun to wash away in the rain.
It moved him to third place, and two days later Gaul got those 67 seconds and more in a time-trial on a difficult circuit at Châteaulin, riding at 44.2kmh.Chany, Pierre (1997), La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, La Martinière, France, , p467 There, he beat even Anquetil, who was suffering a lung infection after the rainy ride to Bourget-en-Aix.McGann, Bill and Carol (2006), The Story of the Tour de France, vol 1, Dog Ear, USA, , p234The 1958 Tour de France became known as the Judas Tour. Raphaël Géminiani and Louison Bobet chased after Gaul, and Géminiani asked his fellow Frenchman to help, but Bobet could not or would not. He had a fragile personality, was suffering, and was quite possibly demoralised by Gaul's taunting. Géminiani was a good climber but not in Gaul's class. Géminiani lost his lead by a quarter of an hour and accused Bobet publicly of betraying him, calling him "Judas."
1959 In 1959, he was 12th. He lost time in the heat of the Pyrenees but won the stage to Grenoble again, with the eventual overall winner Bahamontes second.
Late Tours Gaul missed the 1960 Tour. In 1961, he came third and won stage nine to Grenoble. He crashed in the Alps, on the descent of the Cucheron, bruising his hip, shoulder and knee. At the beginning of the final stage, he was second to Anquetil. Guido Carlesi attacked as the Tour entered its final kilometre, overcoming a four-second deficit to Gaul. This moved him to second, relegating Gaul to third.
In 1962, he finished ninth with no stage victories. The 1962 Tour was contested by trade rather than national teams for the first time since 1929, and Gaul's was not one of the strongest. His final contested Tour was 1963, when he dropped out without winning any stages.
Giro d'Italia
Gaul won the Giro d'Italia in 1956 and 1959. His victory in 1956 came after leaving the field in the climb of Monte Bondone at 1,300m.Vélo, France, May 2006 Snow fell and Gaul was alone with 88 km to go. It was so cold that he had to be carried off his bike at the finish and stopped on the way up for a drink.Sporting Cyclist, UK, 1958
On the stage victory to Courmayeur, he took a 10-minute advantage over Anquetil on the final two climbs. Gaul lost the 1957 Giro after stopping for what was described in French papers as "a natural need" on the road to Trieste. His rivals, particularly Bobet and Gastone Nencini, attacked. Gaul was upset at a breach of race etiquette and still more annoyed to find himself referred to as Monsieur Pi-Pi, which in French rhymes with and means pee-pee. Gaul rounded on Bobet and said: "I will get my revenge. I will kill you. Remember I was a butcher. I know how to use a knife."Procycling, UK, undated cutting. It was that that sparked the attack in the following year's Tour de France.
In the 1960 Giro, he won a stage on his way to third place. In 1961, he finished fourth.
Cyclo-cross Gaul was national cyclo-cross champion at the start and the end of his time as a professional. He also came fifth in the world championships of 1956 and 1962. He won in Dippach in 1955, Kopstal, Colmar-Berg and Bettembourg in 1956, Schuttrange, Ettelbruck, Kopstal, Bissen and Colmar-Berg in 1957, Alzingen in 1958, and Muhlenbach in 1960.
Final years