Background
He was born in Plessé, Loire-Atlantique, a part of Brittany, now part of Pays de la Loire. As his father wanted him to do a "real" job, he adapted the nickname Lucien Breton for races, to deceive his father.
He was born in Plessé, Loire-Atlantique, a part of Brittany, now part of Pays de la Loire. As his father wanted him to do a "real" job, he adapted the nickname Lucien Breton for races, to deceive his father.
The same year he started road-racing and finished the Tour de France in an astonishing fifth overall.
Later he changed it to Petit-Breton, because there already was another cyclist called Lucien Breton. His first notable victory was the track cycling championship of Argentina but in 1902 he was drafted in the French Army and he moved back to France. In 1905 he broke the world hour record on the Buffalo cycling track in Paris with 41.110 km.
However, by the end of stage five from Lyon to Grenoble, his chance of victory looked slim.
However, with the points system, time was irrelevant, and he was still in second place. In the tenth stage, Georget illegally changed bicycles, and was placed last in the stage by the Tour jury, which cost him 44 points.
Behind him, team-mates Francois Faber and Georges Passerieu finished with 68 and 75 points respectively. That was his last great victory.
First World War ended his career.
He joined the French army and died in 1917 when he crashed into an oncoming car at the front near Troyes. The French television series Les Brigades du Tigre was a popular crime drama focusing on an elite squad of police detectives in the early 20th century. He himself is later assaulted by the man but defiantly continues the stage to the admiration of those present.
Grand Tour General Classification results timeline.
His cycling career started when he won a bike in a lottery at the age of sixteen. Two years later in 1904 he won the Bol d"Or track event at the second attempt, having finished second the previous year. In 1906, he won the third Paris–Tours race and improved on his previous performance by finishing fourth in the Tour. In 1907, he won the inaugural Milan–San Remo race before entering the Tour. Losing contact with the leading riders on the Colonel de la Porte, he could only manage a tenth place, twenty eight minutes behind Emile Georget who won his third stage. This meant that Petit-Breton took over the lead, and with two stage wins, plus second and third places in eight other stages, he won the Tour with 47 points, 10 point ahead of second placed Gustave Garrigou and 27 points ahead of Georget in third. He also won the Tour in 1908, becoming the first rider to win the Tour twice, after winning the Paris–Brussels race. As part of the all-conquering Peugeot team that took the first four places, Petit-Breton won the Tour even more easily with just 36 points, finishing outside the first four in just one stage. Jacques Giraud appears as Petit Breton who is determined to continue the event come what may and persuades the other hesitant cyclists to also continue on the grounds that they should not let him win without a fight.
