Тур де Франс 1971: Триумф Меркса и трагедия Оканьи.

The 1971 Tour de France was the 58th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race consisted of 22 stages, including three split stages, starting in Mulhouse on 26 June and finishing at the Vélodrome de Vincennes in Paris on 18 July. There were three time trial stages and two rest days. Eddy Merckx of the team won the overall general classification, defending his title to win his third Tour de France in a row. Joop Zoetemelk finished second, 9:51 minutes behind, and Lucien Van Impe was third , just over 11 minutes in arrears. Pre race favourite Merckx took the first yellow jersey as general classification leader after his team won the prologue stage's team time trial. Merckx's teammate Rini Wagtmans took the Tour lead after the second of stage 1's three split stages, before returning it to his leader by the end of the day. The leading positions of the general classification became clearer after stage 2 when a sixteen strong breakaway group of mostly pre race favourites ended with a margin of over nine minutes. On stage 8 in the Massif Central, Merckx's closest rival Luis Ocaña attacked and won atop Puy de Dôme to move within just over 30 seconds of the race leader, just behind second placed Zoetemelk. In the Chartreuse Mountains on stage 10, Merckx had a tyre puncture and was distanced by a group of rivals, with Zoetemelk of the group taking the race lead. Another from the group, Ocaña, took the yellow jersey the next day as he soloed for to victory up to Orcières Merlette in the Alps, ending with an overall lead of more than eight minutes. Merckx gained back close to two minutes the following stage as he broke away from the start with a small group in record breaking speed to Marseille. Two days later in the Pyrenees on stage 14, a thunderstorm passed as the riders traversed the Col de Menté mountain pass. Race leader Ocaña crashed on the wet roads during the descent, and afterwards was hit by other riders. He left the race with injury, with Merckx reluctantly taking over the Tour lead. He comfortably held the yellow jersey for the remaining stages, ending the Tour with victory in the individual time trial held in Paris. In the other race classifications, Merckx also won the points and the combination classifications. Van Impe won the mountains classification. The intermediate sprints classification was won by Zoetemelk's teammate Pieter Nassen. The winners of the team classification were The overall award for most combative rider was given to Ocaña. Merckx won the most stages, with four.

The 1971 edition of the Tour de France consisted of thirteen teams, Teams were either invited or paid a participation fee. The Italian based and the Belgian teams announced they would not be entering the race due to the high cost, although Salvarani later reached an agreement. Belgian based and Tour co organiser Félix Lévitan were in disagreements over the team's participation and there was speculation that the team would instead race the Grand Tour of Italy, the Giro d'Italia, which took place one month before the Tour. The team chose to wait for Lévitan's decision regarding their entry, which came following the Giro's start, and therefore did not participate in the Giro. Ultimately, Lévitian requested the team to pay extra money, on top of the 25,000 French francs (f) entry fee, to participate in the Tour. Each squad was allowed a maximum of ten riders, resulting in a start list total of 130. The riders came from twelve countries, with the majority of them coming from France (35), Belgium (25), Italy (25), Spain (21) and Netherlands (14). Francisco Javier Galdeano was the youngest rider at 21 years and 201 days, and the oldest was Ventura Díaz at 32 years and 304 days. The cyclists had the youngest average age while the riders on had the oldest. The teams entering the race were: who had won the 1969 and 1970 Tours by the large margins of 17:54 and 12:41 minutes respectively. He had been the strongest rider throughout the 1971 season, winning 54 of the 124 races he entered (43.5%). Of the 13 before the Tour, the most notable were the one day races Milan–San Remo, Omloop Het Volk, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the general classification in the stage races Giro di Sardegna, Paris–Nice, Tour of Belgium, Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré and Grand Prix du Midi Libre. He opted for the Dauphiné and Midi Libre races to warm up for the Tour instead of the Giro d'Italia, which he rode the two previous seasons. In these races, constant adjustment to his riding position caused a knee injury, and he came close to abandoning the final stage of the Midi Libre, a month before the Tour. Merckx was such an overwhelming favourite that the interest was not in if could win, but rather the manner in which he would do it. The strongest challenger to Merckx was expected to be Luis Ocaña but unlike the success of Merckx, Ocaña crashed out of the race on a descent. In 1970, Ocaña won the Vuelta a España, Spain's Grand Tour, and was likewise Merckx's main rival before the Tour, but he finished the race over an hour behind in 31st place. His confidence in beating Merckx grew in 1971, saying: "they all surrender to Merckx, but I'm going to stand up to him". Speaking prior to the Tour, climbing specialist Ocaña thought he would able to get the better of the all rounder Merckx in the mountains, He finished second to Merckx in the closely contested Midi Libre. Several other riders were named as favourites for a high place in the general classification. The winner of the 1971 Giro and the third place finisher of the 1970 Tour Gösta Pettersson was considered by Merckx to be among two of his closest rivals, along with Zoetemelk. Bernard Thévenet was third in the Dauphiné. Climber Lucien Van Impe , who was sixth overall in 1970, was also consider a contender. Other favourites included Joaquim Agostinho , Gianni Motta and Leif Mortensen Agostinho took a three week rest two weeks before the Tour following bad crash at the Dauphiné. Van Impe's teammate Lucien Aimar, a Tour veteran, was the only rider entering apart from Merckx to have won the race, the 1966 edition. Notable absentees from the start list were Raymond Poulidor , Felice Gimondi , Frans Verbeeck , Georges Pintens , Roger Pingeon and Jan Janssen Poulidor, who had top ten finishes in all of the previous nine Tours bar one, withdrew from his team's squad stating: "I will only do this if my physical condition leaves something to be desired". Gimondi, winner of the 1965 Tour, was not selected by his team as Motta was preferred as the leader. Verbeeck, whose team did not enter, was considered to be one of few that would challenge Merckx. Janssen, winner of the 1968 Tour, kept to his promise to never ride a Tour again, made following his bad crash in the 1970 Paris–Tours. He was critical of the Tour's commercial prioritisation which made the race too hard for riders.

The prologue team time trial consisted of four laps of a circuit around the streets of Mulhouse. covered it at an average speed of to win with a combined time of 1:05:16 hours, beating second placed by 1:48 minutes and third placed by 2:16 minutes. took the lead of the team classification. The general classification was the only one of the Tour's individually contested classifications taken into account for the prologue stage. Eddy Merckx led his squad across the finish line to take the lead of the general classification and with it the first yellow jersey. The five teammates that finished with him took up the following places. Only time bonifications (time subtracted) counted towards the classification, and their victory gave each of the riders twenty second time bonuses. Three riders from and six from received time bonuses of ten and five seconds respectively. efn|In the team time trial prologue stage, time bonuses were only awarded to riders with the same time as the first member to cross the finish line. even though Wagtmans then went on to struggle on a climb halfway on the stage and was dropped by the peloton (main field), finishing the stage a minute behind Merckx; Wagtmans later admitted to relinquishing the yellow jersey back to his team leader, at the time, lying that his shoes were a size too small and had caused rubbing. The stage finished on the cinder track inside Freiburg's Möslestadion with a bunch sprint won by rider Gerben Karstens. A bunch sprint finish followed again in the final part of the day, which saw Albert Van Vlierberghe of finish first of the large field. Across the three parts of stage 1, the points classification's green jersey changed hands between Leman, Walter Godefroot and Karstens, respectively. Joop Zoetemelk became the first leader of the mountains classification following stage 1b. On the wet cinder track of Stade Tivoli, Herman Van Springel led out teammate Merckx to victory in a frantic sprint finish with Roger De Vlaeminck of The points gained by De Vlaeminck put him in the green jersey. The fifteen riders that ended in the breakaway now held an advantage of close to nine minutes in the general classification. a duo of Jean Pierre Genet and José Gómez Lucas escaped the peloton, who, on the straight slightly uphill finish, managed to hold off the field by a distance of at the line, which was crossed by Genet first. Stage 5 featured two iconic locations of one day "monument" races, the short steep sett paved climb Muur van Geraardsbergen of the Tour of Flanders and the stage finish of Roubaix Velodrome, likewise used in Paris–Roubaix. With remaining, the crowds lining the Geraardsbergen saw a breakaway by Agostinho, together with the uncooperative Jos Huysmans The pair were caught, before another break moved clear. The group of five reached the banked velodrome over a minute ahead of the peloton, and Pietro Guerra of won the stage in a sprint with Huysmans's teammate Julien Stevens. The two legged stage 6 was raced over a total distance of , as the Tour reached the channel coast at Le Touquet.

After their rest in Le Touquet, the riders took two early planes to Paris and the start of the transitional stage 7, a route to Nevers and the subsequent two stage traverse of the Massif Central. Although to a lesser extent than in his previous Tours, Merckx competed for the time bonuses available in intermediate sprints and final sprints throughout the flat terrain of the early stages, unlike his closest rival Ocaña, who had been saving his energy for the upcoming mountains, on the advice of five time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil. Stage 8 saw the Tour's first summit finish, atop the dormant volcano of Puy de Dôme at an elevation of , a first category climb.

In the opening of stage 11, the race began with the steep Alpine second category climb of Côte de Laffrey, known locally as 'the ramp'. An attack early on the climb by Agostinho was joined by a group of Ocaña, Van Impe, Gösta Pettersson, and Zoetemelk. Merckx, who was suffering with an upset stomach, was two minutes behind the Ocaña led group at the summit in a second group of chasers accompanied by his teammates. The leading group gained a two minute margin along the consistent terrain of the historic Route Napoléon, with Ocaña dropping his fellow riders on a detour climb over the second category Col du Noyer with remaining. He then performed a time trial like solo effort for the remainder of the route and up to victory atop the first category climb to the Orcières Merlette ski resort. Van Impe had also ridden alone since the Noyer and finished nearly six minutes behind Ocaña. Merckx led the group of remaining favourites all the way to the finish, 8:42 minutes in arrears. Ocaña took the general classification lead, with Van Impe rising to third, behind Zoetemelk. After the stage, Merckx admitted defeat in the overall race to the new leader, but Ocaña was still wary of the former leader. Van Impe took the lead of the mountains classification from Zoetemelk. De Vlaeminck abandoned the Tour, four days after his crash on stage 7. The next day was the second rest of the race, spent at Orcières Merlette. This could have been more if not for a tactical error by , when four riders of theirs were dropped by the peloton as they waited to pace back tyre punctured teammate Joseph Bruyère, only just making the time limit; with them being at the front of the peloton they would have been able to disrupt and slow down the chase. Although Merckx rose to second overall, he was just over seven and a half minutes behind the leader, and was left dissatisfied with the meagre finishing margin. Reassuring his leader, Wagtmans told him that Ocaña had looked exhausted on the podium after the stage and that "Ocaña has no future in this Tour." After the stage, the riders were transferred by plane between the cities of Marseille and Toulouse, before a coach ride to Albi and stage 13's individual time trial held the next day in the town. The hilly and technical course which started and finished at the Circuit d'Albi motor racing track was won by Merckx with a time of 22:57 minutes, beating second placed Ocaña by 11 seconds. Merckx accused the French television operated car of following alongside Ocaña and giving him an unfair draft, but the reason for this was that for the first time colour television was being broadcast live and a car was required instead of a motorbike. This furthered tensions in the race with accusations that, in the previous stage, seven riders of the all Spanish team, allied to Ocaña, were given unwarranted reprieves after finishing outside the time limit.

In total, 100 doping tests were done during the 1971 Tour de France, from which 2 returned positive: Yves Ravaleu, after the thirteenth stage; Jean Claude Daunat, after the eighteenth stage. Both riders received the customary punishment: a fine of 1200 f; being set back to the last place in the stage's results and getting ten minutes penalty time in the general classification.