Changes From The 1929 Tour De France
Tour director Henri Desgrange had tried many things to remove the team tactics from the Tour de France, because the wanted the race to be won on individual strength. In 1929 he had removed the sponsors, but this had had no effect; the Alcyon team members still cooperated and managed to let Maurice Dewaele win the race, even though he was sick. For 1930, Desgrange replaced the trade teams by national teams. He gave up on the idea that he could keep team tactics away from the Tour, but decided that he could still try to keep commercial team tactics away. The race started with five national teams of eight cyclists each, completed by 60 touriste-routiers. All cyclists raced on identical, yellow-coloured bicycles.
The trade teams did not like the national teams, because they lost the publicity during the most important race of the season, while they still had to pay for the riders' salary. The trade teams used to supply food, transport and lodging for the cyclists during the race, but now the Tour organisation had to pay for all this. To pay for this, the publicity caravan was started. In 1930, only three companies were in that publicity caravan, but it has grown since. The most popular sponsor in the publicity was Menier chocolates, whose advertising manager had advised the Tour organisation to start the publicity caravan; 500.000 fans came to the Tour de France stages early to receive chocolate handouts.
In 1929, all cyclists had to do their own repairs, and had to finish with their bicycle they started with. This had caused Victor Fontan to quit the race while he was leading. In 1930, this rule was abandoned, and from now on, cyclists could get help when they had mechanical problems.
From 1927 to 1929, some stages were run in the team-time-trial format. This was completely abandoned in 1930.
The first live radio broadcast from the Tour de France happened in 1930.
Two extra prizes were given in 1930, donated by the Soors brothers from Grand Sport. The cyclist who led the general classification, and therefore wore the yellow jersey, received the Maillot d'or (French for golden jersey), which was 1000 francs for every stage. The best touriste-routier in the general classification received the Maillot d'argent (French for silver jersey), which was 500 francs per stage.
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