Robert Marchand is celebrated after setting another record in 2012
Photo: Laurent Gillieron / AP
Of course, at the age of 105 even Robert Marchand had his complaints.
A little high blood pressure.
Hearing problems.
And rheumatism on the hands.
That was particularly annoying because it made it increasingly difficult for him to hold the handlebars of his racing bike.
And cycling was his life.
"But the legs are fine," the aged Frenchman nevertheless happily assured the reports when in January 2017 he again set a world record in cycling.
In the “Vélodrome national” of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in northern France, Marchand had driven an astonishing 22.547 kilometers within an hour.
Of course, he had no competitors, even if he wanted them: The UCI World Sports Federation had introduced the new age category "105+" especially for Marchand.
Not doped
"If I had made the 30 kilometers, everyone would have said I was doped," Marchand joked at the time.
With age, satisfaction returned to him as well.
Because three years earlier, as a 102-year-old, he had covered almost 27 kilometers in one hour on the same railway line.
His internist Veronique Billat emphasized something else after the record from 2017: “This record is a message to all retirees.
It shows how important it is to still do sport in retirement. ”And the President of the French Cycling Federation praised Marchand for showing“ what extraordinary things people are capable of ”.
Robert Marchand died on Friday night at the age of 109.
This was confirmed by Charlotte Blandiot-Faride, mayor of the small town of Mitry-Mory east of Paris.
Marchand had last lived there.
»Doyen of cycling«
First, the newspaper "Le Parisien" dedicated an obituary to the "oldest cyclist on the planet".
This was followed by other major accolades in the French press, for example as the "doyen of cycling".
"Robert was a great champion," said Mayor Blandiot-Faride, a member of the communist party PCF.
“He was someone who made people dream and still kept his head on his shoulders.
He was also a friend, one who was very committed to the unions and the left!
He was the image of our city. ”The politician posted photos with Marchand on her Facebook page and wrote:“ Rest in peace, my friend. ”
One might perceive that as appropriation.
Or as real mourning for a politically like-minded person who actually went to demonstrations in biblical age and got involved in local elections.
Robert Marchand, a widower since 1943, had survived two world wars and with the Spanish flu and Corona also two pandemics.
Born on November 26, 1911, as a child, he experienced the invasion of the Germans in his native Amiens, where the Allies achieved an important success in an offensive against the Germans in 1918.
And Marchand followed the Tour de France 98 times in his long life, sometimes from abroad.
Adventurous career
His sporting and personal career was rarely straightforward and usually quite adventurous: Marchand worked as a firefighter in Paris in the 1930s, after the Second World War he hired himself as a sugar cane planter in Venezuela for seven years, returned to France, only years later in Working Canada as a lumberjack.
Back in France, he tried it as a gardener, shoe seller and wine merchant - here too into old age.
In sport he hit similar volts: Marchand was a good boxer and excellent gymnast, who even won a national title in pyramid gymnastics at a young age.
As a cyclist, he did not draw attention to himself until 1946, when he was in his mid-30s: at the "Grand Prix des Nations", an individual time trial over 140 kilometers, he finished in seventh place.
That also meant a personal satisfaction for him.
Because in his sports club Marchand was predicted because of his small height of 1.58 meters that he would not be able to tear anything in cycling.
"So I stopped," he once recalled in an interview with "Le Parisien".
And was annoyed that he shouldn't laugh about it because his advisor was long dead from back then.
"Methuselah Sportsman"
The French only grew fond of Marchand in his prime role as a "Methuselah athlete", as the German press called him.
He hurried from record to record and in the end, due to a lack of competition, was only able to set his own best marks: a fate he shared with other very old athletes such as the Indian marathon runner Fauja Singh.
“But no, I'm not a phenomenon, absolutely not!” Marchand was happy to assert, adding that he was “just a simple, normal guy”.
However, some doctors considered him to be quite extraordinary and, at the age of 100, attested that he had the oxygen levels of a 50-year-old.
Of course, that's why the French were often asked about the recipe for his fitness.
It was not very exotic: lifelong sport, even in old age cycling ten to 15 kilometers a day - but because of the risk of colds, better indoors.
Lots of vegetables and fruit, hardly any coffee, no cigarettes, little alcohol.
Sometimes he made an exception.
For example on his 103rd birthday, which he celebrated with champagne - albeit during a tour of a mountain pass named after him in the Ardennes.
"I'm sick of the disease"
After his record at the age of 105 at the “Vélodrome national”, Marchand frankly said that things couldn't go on like this forever.
When asked if he would try another record in two years, he said, "You know it takes nine months to be born, but only half a minute to die."
About a year later, after another competition, he announced that he was finally retiring from cycling.
Nevertheless, he continued to cycle privately until shortly before his death.
But the psychological stresses during the Corona crisis also hit him.
"I have the disease from people who are 108 years old," he said in 2020 during the pandemic.
"And I'm sick of having her."
