“Vous êtes des criminels!” Octave Lapize is said to have shouted in the general direction of race organisers at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet. Lapize would go on to win the 1910 Tour de France, but he was extremely annoyed he had to climb a mountain to do it.
It was the first time a mountain pass had ever been included in the Tour’s route, a decision considered downright sadistic by riders at the time. The Tourmalet has since become an integral part of its story, featuring more than any other mountain climb, and on Saturday it will be ridden for the 91st time when the peloton traces the same Pyrenean roads that peeved Lapize 115 years ago.
