runner then journalist-writer, Jean Bobet is inseparable from his older brother, Louison, the first to win three times in a row, between 1953 and 1955.
Le Monde with AFP
“I was a private cyclist,” said the cadet, Jean, born in 1930, five years after his brother, Louison. “First, I was a curiosity that we called intellectual. It was written in my face: I wore glasses. And then, I was the brother of the other. It was written everywhere : Louison Bobet was the champion. “
Jean Bobet, whom the writer Antoine Blondin nicknamed “The man with the mask of brother”, died at the age of 92, announced on Saturday the National Union of Professional Cyclists (UNCP), of which He was one of the founders.
Jean Bobet Co-founder of UNCP with Henry Anglade died at the age of 92.
Pros runners,
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Winner of Paris-Nice in 1955, third in Milan-Sanremo the same year, Jean Bobet led a most honorable career, accompanied by two participations in the Tour de France (14 e in 1955, 15
“I fed many more moods than I was successful,” he recognized, however, in one of the books, a dozen, which he wrote elegantly (he obtained the Grand Prix of the Sports literature), finesse and precision.
“He is the great victim of the Tour”
After his career, he turned to journalism (L’Equipe, RTL, of which he headed the sports service) and was even expected for a time to direct the Tour de France. But he did not resist the call of his brother, who had embarked on thalassotherapy.
After the death of Louison, in 1983, Jean Bobet had become the guardian of the Breton champion. As vigilant as when he rejected the philosopher and literary critic Roland Barthes, on the evening of the Ventoux stage 1955 stage, closing the door of the room. “After the work of a teammate on the road, I reached another job on arrival, that of a guard dog attached to the close protection of the champion.”
In his most famous work, Mythologies, Barthes also evokes the brother of the one he called “Promethean heroes”: “The double of Louison is also the negative; he is the great victim of the Tour. He owes his elder the total sacrifice of his person, in brother. This runner suffers from a big infirmity: he thinks. “