1972 Tour de France
The 59th Tour de France took place from 1 to 23 July 1972 and led to 20 stages over 3847 km. The Belgian Eddy Merckx and Spaniard Luis Ocaña Pernia, who was eliminated in the lead in the previous year, went into the race as favorites. It was attended by 132 racers participated in the tour, of which 88 were classified.
Race course
Merckx took over after the prologue won the yellow jersey, which he lost the next day on the first leg of the French stage winner Cyrille Guimard. Guimard drove up to the stage to Luchon Pyrenees in yellow, there Merckx took off about two minutes and took over the overall lead, which he defended to the finish in Paris. On the stages to Briançon and Col du Galibier and the last individual time trial Merckx extended his lead by winning stage further.
Nevertheless Guimard showed a good performance in the mountains and took after his two stage wins at the start of the tour on the first and fourth stage also has two victories in the Alps. In Le Revard he übersprintete it even Merckx, who had prematurely yanked his arms to celebrate his stage win. Guimard was able to prevail against both Sprinter and in the mountains and wore long the green jersey, but had on the penultimate stage after a tendonitis in my knee up. Merckx, who won the scoring, gave him at the end symbolically his green jersey.
The Frenchman Bernard Thévenet won two mountain stages for itself: the Mont Ventoux and the Ballon d'Alsace. On the stage over the Col d' Aubisque in the Pyrenees he was thrown hard, it had apparently recovered well.
The Spaniard Luis Ocaña Pernia, who was Merckx ' biggest competitor in the previous year, had to give up after a fall on the 15th stage. Ocaña was at that time in fifth place overall, but was weakened by a disease.
Lucien Van Impe was able to defend winning the mountains classification from the previous year. In the overall standings was Felice Gimondi, winner in 1965, finishing second behind Merckx, third was the Frenchman Raymond Poulidor. Merckx was six stages to decide for himself and, by his fourth Tour win in a row Jacques Anquetil's record one.