On Thursday he died in Melun, in the Prefecture of Seine-Et-Marnee, Jacques Marinelli, an old man of 99 who had kneaded a considerable fortune … with its conforama and bicycle appliance businesses. He was a popular guy who signed autographs because he was, until his death, the living cyclist who had dressed the yellow jersey of the Tour’s leader had been longer. He did it for six days of the 1949 edition. He first put it in Ruan and wore it to the San Sebastián-Pau stage, on July 9.
Marinelli still retained the wool garment that chopped, apolillada, with the HDI Desgrange HD initials, the precursor of the best career in the world, the most exhausting. «On the bike, sometimes I felt so much pain that my only desire was to fall and die. To give us strength, we already took small things, such as caffeine pills. They didn’t make us go faster, but they prevented us from sleeping, ”he confessed. But the Tour changed his life, like so many others. When he returned home like a hero for those six days dressed as yellow, he was walked between crowds, and with the money he earned from the criteriums he was able to install the ordinary water at his home. “Before we picked it up from the rain in cubes, we lit the stove and warmed it to wash ourselves.” When he retired he put a bicycle shop with a single advertisement on the wall: ‘Yellow jersey of the Tour de France’. That was enough to prosper, to be mayor of his people from 1989 to 2002 and leave office a day after the tour left there.
The gala round changes the life of winners like Marinelli. He also tramples at the time to Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, who again face a fierce duel that begins this Saturday and takes place for three weeks of emotion. The show begins on the road. It will be in Lille, in northern France, where they have been preparing the ‘great departure of that great caravan that moves every day with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people. And in the epicenter, a squad of 184 cyclists with 23 teams of eight components each, with the television cameras above at all times and the gutters of the highway full on each kilometer of the tour.
Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard face a fierce duel for three weeks full of emotion
It has not yet begun and nobody speaks more than the two favorites, or rather, of a favorite and the applicant, who is not any because he has already won twice in Paris. Although today all bets refer to Tadej Pogacar. They have only faced once this season, in the Dauphiné, and his victory was resounding. ‘L’Equipe Magazine’ speaks even of psychological war, as in the seventh stage of the Dolphinated career, when the Slovenian lowered his rhythm and let the Danish approach. «Pogacar deliberately wasted about twenty seconds, with the carefreeness of a wealthy family son who spends his chips on the casino, without fear of what the future would hold. The message – descifrable even for a secondary school student – was aimed at his direct opponent: I am not afraid of you at all. You impress me so little that I can afford to finish calm ».
“They are not mathematics”
Josean Fernández Matxin does not agree, the director of the Slovenian phenomenon: “One thing is the theory and prognosis that people may have, but the tour is not mathematics,” he says. «There will be important rivals to respect, such as Jonas Vingegaard, who has won twice and has two seconds. In no way this tour will be a walk for Tadej ». The Danish cyclist encourages himself: «We are not afraid of Tadej Pogacar; If not, it would have been better not to come here, but we respect him a lot ».
The others resign. Remco Evenepoel, one of the stars of the cycling firmament, is formed to repeat his experience last year, in which he went up to the podium in his first participation. “It is obvious that I aspire to a good general classification, but the most important thing will be not to waste time in the first half of the race, which promises to be very tense, with many traps and complicated paths.”
The countdown to Paris begins in Lille with an injured 185 -kilometer day and in which the first points of the mountain will be played with three fourth category tachuelillas. A day that, possibly, will appreciate the arrivators. But as in all the premieres of the Tour, with the dangers that a great squad entails in which nobody wants to lose their place from the beginning, because the yellow jersey, even for one day, is an irresistible temptation, that can change life to a cyclist. Jacques Marinelli already said: “Bartali told me that, from that day, my life would never be the same again, and he was right.”
