by Tom Ewing
Fifty years ago, when the Tour de France finished on the Champs-Elysee for the first time, Americans could read about the final stage from three distinguished foreign correspondents. Their articles on the events of July 19, 1975 illustrates the potential of foreign correspondents to bring unique stories and thoughtful perspectives about the world to American readers.
In the Los Angeles Times, Don Cook wrote that France “found a new national hero,” as Bernard Thevenet won the 62nd annual race. France has been “a little short of sports heroes recently,” so President Valery Giscard D’Estaing was at the finish line. The final stage covered more than 100 miles over, as an audience of 500,000 watched cyclists complete 27 laps through the city. Cook reported that “Paris has never seen anything like the Sunday windup,” making the final day “by far the most successful finish from a spectator point of view in the history of the race.”
In the Washington Post, Bernard Kaplan wrote that the final stage was “a day of national Thanksgiving for this country’s chauvinists today” as the race was won by a Frenchman. After describing the attack on Mercks, Kaplan wrote that the “Tour de France is national institution, stirring emotions far beyond the limits of the sport.”
In the New York Times, Nan Robertson wrote that “the cavalcade swept around the course,” and “the crowds grew, pressing against the barricades.” More than 6000 policemen patrolled the course, “but there was really little need. The enormous throng was content to cheer the riders and their entourage as they swept by, sometimes wedged together, sometimes strung out in single file.” Sunbathes in the Tuilleries Gardens got up to watch cyclists fly by, while spectators “hung from windows and balconies and clung to rooftops” along the Rue de Rivoli and the Champs-Elysees.
These reports were about a bicycle race, but they also expressed a certain understanding of national identity. In the 1970s, Americans generally saw nationality in the European context in terms of cultural expression or athletic compeition. In the decades that followed, however, the potential for nationalism to reshape political systems and even geographical boudaries would become evident in a succession of nationalist movements pressing for self-determination, autonomy, and even separation.
Fifty years later, the most successful rider in recent Tour de France history, who may exceed the number of titles won by Eddie Mercx, is Tadej Pogačar, who represents a county, Slovenia, that did not exist as an independent state in 1975. At the time, these distinguished correspondents, like most world observers, probably assumed the post-war boundaries of Europe were settled, thus underestimating the potential for national movements and geopolitical conflicts to redraw these maps in the decades to follow.
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