19 January 1964(1964-01-19) (aged 77) Borgerhout, Belgium
Team information
Discipline
Road
Role
Rider
Major wins
Grand Tours
Tour de France
General classification (1919, 1922)
Mountains classification (1914, 1920)
6 individual stages (1913, 1914, 1919-1921)
One-day races and Classics
National Interclubs Championships (1919)
Firmin Lambot (pronounced[fiʁ.mɛ̃lɑ̃.bo]; 14 March 1886 – 19 January 1964) was a Belgian bicycle racer who twice won the Tour de France.[1]
Born in the small town of Florennes,[2] Lambot worked as a saddler. He worked 12 hours a day, starting at 6am.[2] He bought his first bicycle at 17 and began riding 50 km a day to and from work. His first race was in a local village; he won five francs as first prize. He then bought a racing bike.
He began racing professionally in 1908. In that year he won the championships of Flanders and Belgium. He rode the Tour de France from 1911 to 1913 but the First World War ended the race for the next five years.
When the Tour returned in 1919, it was a miserable affair of war-torn roads, fractured logistics and former contenders no longer alive to compete. Only 11 riders finished. Lambot was approached at the Buffalo track in Paris, where he had ridden a 24-hour race, to ride the Tour in the Globe Cycles team. He was second for much of the race but took the lead when Eugène Christophe broke a fork. Observers felt Lambot owed his victory more to Christophe's bad luck than his own ability and a collection for Christophe surpassed the prize money Lambot received. His performance brought him a contract from the larger Peugeot team at 300 francs a month.[2] He was engaged to ride just the Tour de France.
Lambot in the Parc des Princes, after winning the 1919 Tour de France
In the 1920 and 1921 Tours, Lambot placed respectably and in 1922 he won for the second time after Hector Heusghem was handed a one hour penalty for swapping his bicycle after breaking the frame. He became the first to win the Tour without winning a stage. Lambot was 36 when he won the 1922 Tour, the oldest winner of one of cycling's grand tours tours at that time. He kept the record for over 90 years, until it was broken by 41-year-old Vuelta winner Chris Horner in 2013. He remains the oldest Tour winner to date.[3]
By the end of his career he was paid 1 800 francs a month by his team.[2] In retirement, he returned to work as a saddler.
^"Firmin Lambot". FirstCycling.com. 2023.
^ abcdThe Bicycle, UK, 26 March 1952, p6
^"Palmarès de Firmin Lambot (Bel)". Memoire-du-cyclisme.eu (in French). Retrieved 31 December 2021.
FirminLambot (pronounced [fiʁ.mɛ̃ lɑ̃.bo]; 14 March 1886 – 19 January 1964) was a Belgian bicycle racer who twice won the Tour de France. Born in the...
the youngest winner; he won in 1904, just short of his 20th birthday. FirminLambot is the oldest winner, he was 36 years, 4 months old when he won in 1922...
It was the first Tour de France after World War I, and was won by FirminLambot. Following the tenth stage, the yellow jersey, given to the leader of...
photography pioneer Firmin Lebel (died 1573), French composer and choir director FirminLambot (1886–1964), Belgian cyclist Firmin Marbeau (1798–1875)...
kilometres (3,340 mi). The Tour de France was won by the Belgian cyclist FirminLambot, who had also won the 1919 Tour de France. The first part of the race...
solely by the total race time. This has happened eight times so far: FirminLambot (BEL) 1922 Roger Walkowiak (FRA) 1956 Gastone Nencini (ITA) 1960 Lucien...
jersey was only introduced during the 1919 Tour de France, during which FirminLambot was the first Belgian cyclist ever to wear the yellow jersey. "Obtained"...
the folk walk with a couple of thousand valorous walkers. Cyclists FirminLambot, who won the Tour de France in 1919 and in 1922 and Léon Scieur, who...
more cyclists started the race that would later win a Tour de France: FirminLambot, Léon Scieur, Henri Pélissier and Lucien Buysse. This number of 11 former...
Alavoine Marcel Buysse Eugène Christophe Oscar Egg Frederick Grubb FirminLambot Rudolph "Okey" Lewis Henri Pélissier Fritz Schallwig (1890–1916), champion...
161 mph). The slowest Tour de France was the edition of 1919, when FirminLambot's average speed was 24.1 km/h. The fastest massed-start stage was in...
so far, over 36 km/h. Walkowiak became only the second rider, after FirminLambot in the 1922 Tour de France, to win without taking a single stage. In...
handlebar, and finished almost three and a half hours after stage winner Lambot. This was the end of the chances for Buysse for the victory. Buysse did...
– Raoul Lufbery, French-American soldier and pilot (d. 1918) 1886 – FirminLambot, Belgian cyclist (d. 1964) 1887 – Sylvia Beach, American-French bookseller...
one-hour penalty that relegated him to fourth and handing the tour to FirminLambot. Hector Heusghem was brother of cyclists Pierre-Joseph Heusghem and...
inventor of the training camp". Cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 2007-11-04. "FirminLambot (Belgique)". Memoire du cyclisme.net. Archived from the original on...
Scieur (BEL) 9 12 July Toulon to Nice 272 km (169 mi) Stage with mountain(s) FirminLambot (BEL) Leon Scieur (BEL) 10 14 July Nice to Grenoble 333 km (207 mi)...
(160 km/h), leading to speculation that his accelerator had gotten stuck. FirminLambot, 77, Belgian racing cyclist Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the U.S. Ambassador...
Eddy Merckx, Philippe Thys won the most prestigious tour 3 times while FirminLambot and Sylvère Maes won it twice. The last Belgian winner at the Tour de...
Bernard Hinault Miguel Indurain Jan Janssen Hugo Koblet Ferdinand Kübler FirminLambot Roger Lapébie Octave Lapize André Leducq Greg LeMond Jeannie Longo Romain...
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