with bourgeois comforts just as Anquetil bought a country manor. Often portrayed as a paysan, a bumpkin peasant, Poulidor deployed his winning to buy a lot of real estate. In his autobiography “Dans Les Secrets du Tour de France” Cyrille Guimard writes Poulidor was a shrewd investor, accumulating wealth outside the sport while his contemporaries didn’t know where to put their money.

Poker Face

Guimard also says Poulidor was a handy card player. Each year Poupou booked a team training camp in the south of France and in those days the riders paid for their board. In the evenings Poulidor would challenge team mates to a card game and invariably he won, accumulating enough cash to pay the hotel bill by the end of the week. This is a steelyfrequent losers get labelled “the Poulidor of parliament” and so on.

Conclusion

A birthday today but a lesson in mythology too. Poulidor’s list of wins is impressive but his list of losses is astonishing. Eight times on the podium in Paris but he never once wore the yellow jersey.

He remains a popular figure and can be seen at the Tour de France or on television chat shows where the crowds gently mock his valiant loser image. Yet behind the image of a peasant and the embodiment of La France profonde is a man seemingly at ease calculating the odds in a card game or investing hundreds of thousands of francs.

Finally if he retired long ago his daughter married Adrie Van der Poel, a successful Dutch pro from the late 80s.