The tragic first British leader

Tom Simpson receives first aid from a nurse after fainting during the Marseille-Carpentras stage of the Tour de France on the climb to Mont-VentouxAFP

Everything has been written about Tom Simpson. His figure has given for several books, for dozens of documentaries; for a monument on Mont Ventoux, before which Eddy Merckx was discovered, flying alone to the top. But Simpson was also a forerunner, the first British rider to wear the yellow leader's jersey. It was in 1962, it lasted one day, and no other cyclist in his country would wear it again until 32 years later. It was Chris Boardman, first leader in 1994, for three days. That year Sean Yates also dressed him for a day, before Miguel Indurain imposed his hierarchy.

The Tom Simpson legend would not be without the mixture of amphetamines and alcohol on Mont Ventoux, where he died on July 13, 1967 at the age of 29, without the resuscitation maneuvers of Dr. Dumas, kneeling on his chest on the burning slopes of the stark mountain.

But neither without his World Cup, won in the rain at the Lasarte circuit, against Rudy Altig and the Basque fans;

or without the yellow sweater that he wore one day, but which was, for once, featured news in the

London

, when there was still five years before his country adopted the metric system for its currencies.

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• Enter after the peloton ... and win the stage

Simpson dressed as a leader in Saint Gaudens, thanks to Federico Bahamontes, who had already won the Tour three years earlier, but his ambition satisfied, the late Fausto Coppi, who had been the one who had pushed him to fight for everything with the colors of the Tricofilina team , which was a brand of hair spray, was back to his old ways, to settle for being the king of the mountain. He could no longer eat ice cream at any peak, but he fought at least because no one dethroned him from the specialty in which he was still king.

So in the Tourmalet he threw Campillo ahead, to open the way, and left later, to crown alone. He did the same on the Aspin, although on the Peyresourde he allowed Messignan and Wolfshohl to catch up with him. Two hundred meters from the top, he pretended to give way, and launched a brutal attack to crown the head and take the prize. On the way down he raised his foot, the chronicles of the time speak of fear. He was overtaken by Poulidor, Anquetil and a platoon in which Tom Simpson was going, with the previous leader very far apart, so the Englishman took the lead. He telephoned the

, to whom he dictated a short chronicle every day, and then spoke to journalists: “All the Common Market countries, except Luxembourg, had had a leader on the Tour.

Now that it seems that the United Kingdom has requested admission, let's see if my yellow is useful for integration ".

Simpson was wrong, because Luxembourg had already had four Tour winners, including Charly Gaul, just four years earlier, and integration also delayed, which came six years after his death.

Now, as Brexit has separated the European Union from the United Kingdom, six triumphs of the Union Jack country honor Tom Simpson, the forerunner.

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