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Philippe Thys was the first rider to win the Tour three times. His guts typified him: three times he smoothly predicted his Tour victories. In the 1914 Tour, he led the general classification from the first to the last stage. World War I struck at the height of his powers. The cycling champion became a volunteer aircraft mechanic in the Belgian army. What would his list of honors have looked like without this bloody interlude ?
Philippe Thys was the first dedicated rounder of his generation. His preparation with sophisticated training work was far ahead of its time and closer to that of Froome, than to the practices of his contemporaries Lapize or Faber. In his own words, Philippe Thys was also at the cradle of the yellow jersey, perhaps the first yellow jersey wearer ever.
Thys did not focus only on the Tour. His palmares include Paris-Tours and the Tour of Lombardy, he excelled in Paris-Roubaix, won six-day races and also became the first Belgian cyclo-cross champion in 1910. Despite that list of honors, Philippe Thys' name has faded away in the mists of time. After a hundred years of oblivion, this book finally gives him his due credit.
"How unfortunate that that war interrupted cycling. No Tour de France for four years and that in my best years. Damn, without it I could have won at least two more Rounds."
Johan Van Win (b. 1960) has been snooping around the past of the underrated Brussels monde du cyclisme for years. With this work on Philippe Thys, he unlocks a piece of his archival data in story form: because le triple vainqueur is the biggest blind spot in cycling history.
