Just as it had with each year that passed, the Tour continued to grow both in prestige and in renown, and there were more ‘firsts’ as Max Bulla became the first Austrian to wear the yellow jersey, following his win on stage 2 between Caen and Dinan, and the race added Gap, Aix-les-Bains and Colmar as first-time stage hosts – more towns that would later become real regulars on the Tour’s route.
Frenchman Antonin Magne gained his first of two Tour victories, taking decisive control of the race once it hit the mountains for the first time on stage 9 between Pau and Luchon, which took the riders over the by now extremely tried and tested Col d’Aubisque and Col du Tourmalet. The yellow jersey then remained safely on Magne’s capable shoulders all the way to Paris, where a ‘pitch invasion’ – or, rather, a track invasion – welcomed him home as the winner once the race reached the velodrome at the Parc des Princes.
If Magne was a great rider, he was an even better directeur sportif, going on to manage the mighty mauve Mercier team in the 1950s and 1960s, whose charges included Raymond Poulidor, Jean Stablinski and Britain’s Barry Hoban.
Charles Pélissier and Antonin Magne recover after the gruelling stage from Nice to Gap
| Start: Paris, France, on 6 JulyFinish: Paris, France, on 31 July | |
| Total distance: 4520 km (2809 miles)Longest stage: 387 km (241 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 8 | |
| Starters: 80Finishers: 57 | |
| Winning time: 154 h 11’ 49”Average speed: 29.214 kph (18.153 mph) | |
| 1. André Leducq (Fra)2. Kurt Stoepel (Ger) at 24’ 03” 3. Francesco Camusso (Ita) at 26’ 21” |
André Leducq – winner of the 1930 Tour – was back on form, and firing on all cylinders for the 1932 race. His compatriot, and 1931 champion, Antonin Magne, was a non-starter for the French national squad, and instead Leducq’s biggest challenge came from within the German team.
Kurt Stoepel won the sprint for stage 2 between Caen and Nantes from a thirteen-man group that included Leducq. When the Frenchman won stage 3 into Bordeaux, it was game on between the two. Stoepel had become the first German rider to wear the yellow jersey after his stage win, but once the race hit the Pyrenees, Leducq began to stride out and, come the Alps, the French rider held a lead of just over three minutes from his German rival.
Leducq steadily increased his lead over Stoepel on the climbs, winning stage 13 from Grenoble to Aix-les-Bains over some tough climbs including a snow-covered Col du Galibier – consistently the highest mountain scaled by the Tour peloton – which, at 2556 m (8386 ft), was covered in snow despite the high temperatures of a French summer. By the time the race reached Paris – Leducq having also won the last two stages, just for good measure – Stoepel was a massive 24 minutes behind, and it was a third straight victory for a French rider since the introduction of the national-teams format.
A triumphant André Leducq jokes with the media after taking his second Tour de France crown
| Start: Paris, France, on 27 JuneFinish: Paris, France, on 23 July | |
| Total distance: 4396 km (2732 miles)Longest stage: 293 km (182 miles) | |
| Highest point:Col du Galibier: 2556 m (8386 ft) Mountain stages: 11 | |
| Starters: 80Finishers: 40 | |
| Winning time: 147 h 51’ 37”Average speed: 29.732 kph (18.475 mph) | |
| 1. Georges Speicher (Fra)2. Learco Guerra (Ita) at 4’ 01” 3. Giuseppe Martano (Ita) at 5’ 08” | |
| Mountains: Vicente Trueba (Spa) |
At last – a clockwise Tour, for the first time since 1912. While the riders could ‘unwind’ after two decades of dizziness caused by following what had become a very samey anti-clockwise route around the edge of France, the watching public, too, must have appreciated the change of direction.
The dizzy heights of the race’s mountain climbs continued to capture the imagination as well, and 1933 was the first year that the organisers introduced an official grand prix de la montagne – the climber’s prize that would later use that garish white and red polka-dot jersey to identify the leader in the competition. That wouldn’t come until 1975.
Vicente Trueba – ‘The Torrelavega Flea’, hailing from the same Cantabrian town as Óscar Freire, who won Spain’s first, and only, green jersey in 2008 – hoovered up the big points available on most of the climbs in both the Alps and then the Pyrenees, including topping the Galibier and the Lautaret on stage 7, the Peyresourde and the Aspin on stage 17, and the Tourmalet and the Aubisque on stage 18, all at the head of the race.
Over in the French camp, both defending champion André Leducq and 1931 winner Antonin Magne were back, helping to make up a very strong team, but it was another member of the squad, 26-year-old Georges Speicher, who came to life in the Alps, winning two stages, and then won a third en route to Marseille to take the yellow jersey, which his team ably helped him defend all the way to Paris.
The race literally had a new direction, the French were still winning, and the race was more popular than ever, continuing to help shift copies of L’Auto, as had been the intention since the outset way back in 1903.