Henri Desgrange

Henri Desgrange (1865 in Paris, France - 1940 in Beauvallon, France) was a competitive bicycle racer and French sports journalist.

He set twelve world track cycling records, including the hour record of 35.325 kilometers on May 11, 1893.

Desgrange is credited with founding the Tour de France in 1903. Certainly, with the Baron de Dion he had co-founded the daily sports paperL'Auto which promoted the Tour to boost its poor circulation, but the idea came from one of his journalists, Géo Lefèvre,just 23, who said he blurted out the idea because he felt under pressure to say something at a crisis meeting held to resolve L'Auto's poor circulation. Desgrange looked at the third man present, Georges Prade, and then back to his young journalist, whom he had poached from a rival paper.

"If I understand you right, petit Géo, what you are proposing is a Tour de France", he said. The words had been used for other sporting events but never for cycling.

Desgrange was cautious and suggested that he and Lefèvre lunch at the Taverne Zimmer in the boulevard de Montmartre. The café, now called TGI Friday, is still there and has a small display to celebrate the meeting. The subject wasn't mentioned until coffee, Lefèvre recalled, and the most Desgrange would say is that he would discuss it with Victor Goddet, the L'Auto financial manager. Lefèvre said he was sure Desgrange, not wanting to say "non" himself, was passing the buck.

Instead, Goddet was delighted and was said to have pointed at the safe and invited Desgrange to take all he needed. L'Auto announced the race on January 19, 1903.

Although Desgrange liked to be called "the father of the Tour", the idea was not only not his but he was so unsure of it that he stayed away from the first event in 1903 until it turned out, against his expectations, to be a success. Lefèvre, who reported that race while travelling by bicycle and train, was switched from cycling to other sports.

Desgrange's uncertainty extended to taking the riders into the Pyrenees. That idea came from another colleague, who proposed it so persistently that Desgrange finally exploded and told him to do whatever he wished. He regretted the decision when riders began protesting they would be eaten by bears even assuming they reached the summits alive. Desgrange feigned illness and stayed away, leaving the race to his deputy, Victor Breyer.

L'Auto started life in 1900 as L'Auto-Vélo, but was forced to change its name in January 1903 after the threat of legal action by Pierre Giffard, the owner-editor of a rival publication, Le Vélo. It was from Giffard that Desgrange had poached Géo Lefèvre.

Promotion of the Tour de France proved a great success for the newspaper; circulation leapt from 25,000 before the Tour to 65,000 after it; in 1908 the race boosted circulation past a quarter of a million, and during the 1923 Tour it was selling 500,000 copies a day. The record circulation claimed by Desgrange was 854,000, achieved during the 1933 Tour.