Tour de France: "I kept a can from the 1954 Tour", says Jean-Paul Ollivier with emotion

In my early childhood.

As soon as I was old enough to understand things, straight away it was just the Tour de France.

I remembered everything from the Tour, it was so beautiful, so magical.

When I went to the critériums or the races in Brittany, I slipped from time to time towards the runners, I looked at them and I gave them their prize list.

That's how, at 14, I met a runner who said to me: ''What do you want to do in life?'' I replied that I wanted to be a journalist .

He took me around the newsrooms three years later.

The Tour has never left me.

It was visceral.

In 1954, July 14.

It was pouring rain and I deeply regretted it because I could not recognize the silhouette of the runners in raincoats.

It was too hard… I wasn't happy.

But it was the magic of the Tour, even if they had passed quickly.

It was on my doorstep.

“Bernard Thévenet's climb to Pra Loup in the 1975 Tour. It was fantastic to see him win and knock Merckx out of the untouchable caste.

It was great.

An idol faded away, another emerged.

We still expected the Bernard Thévenet, 4th in 1971, 2nd in 1973, stage winner at La Mongie.

We said to ourselves, he will get there one day… ”

The first one I dared to ask was to be on the Aulne circuit.

On the Tour, it was at the start of a stage in Lorient, in 1960. It was René Pavard, a rider who was a member of the French team, a good rider who did not have a fantastic career.

He was very good in the passes, he was a carpenter from Épinay-sur-Orge, he was very handsome on a bike, he made you want to pedal.

He was terrific.

To him too, I recited his prize list and he had given me his musette.

A Spar haversack, marked Tour de France.

Thanks to him and this autograph, I had come a little closer.

The gendarmes had left me, because I was dubbed by René Pavard.

And I saw, almost touched, Roger Rivière and the others.

I

“When Louison Bobet gave up in 1959 at the top of Iseran.

I found it very hard.

Louison was at the end of the race.

We knew what he had been through.

He was still suffering from the saddle, he had been operated on, he had almost had sepsis.

He went after himself.

He did not know the Col de l'Iseran.

It had been crossed once in 1949 but Bobet had given up before, in the Pyrenees.

And there he was let go, like the average runner.

The broom wagon was still far away, he got into the Parisian's car and said to the journalist: ''Lend me your cap so that no one recognizes me, I'm ashamed to give up''.

It was beautiful.

I cried…

I kept a bottle from the 1954 Tour which belonged to Marcel Dussault who was the first yellow jersey of the 1949 tour, won several stages on the Tour.

It was his son who sent me the bottle marked Tour de France 1954. 1954, for me, is a symbol because it was the first time I saw the Tour go by.

I did 41 Tours, meals, I shared some, right and left.

So choosing a runner, I don't know.

Everyone, I am so attached to the Tour.

On this Tour, I would like the French to be able to show up.

I hope that Gaudu, Madouas and Barguil will shine.

I would like to be with them.

I always ride my bike.

I drive quietly on the green lane.

I don't do big raids but I like to ride.

Every morning when I am in Brittany…