1934 Tour de France - Changes From The 1933 Tour de France

Changes From The 1933 Tour De France

The major introduction in 1934 was the introduction of the individual time trial (ITT). There had been time-trial like stages before in the Tour de France, but they had been run as a team time trial. Since the format of the Tour de France changed in 1930 from trade teams to national teams, the Tour organisation had to pay for the housing, travel and feeding for the cyclists. The organisation received the money from the sales of l'Auto, the newspaper that organized the Tour. l'Auto was a morning newspaper, while one of its competitors, Paris-Soir, was an evening paper. Paris-Soir was also following the race, and was able to publish the results the same day, while l'Auto had to wait for the next day, publishing old news. To counter this, the stages in the Tour de France had started later, so they would end after Paris-Soir had to print their newspapers. The Paris-Soir sports editor had countered this by starting his own race, the Grand Prix des Nations, run as an ITT. The first edition in 1932 was not received well by the cyclists, but from 1933 on it was a success. The tour director Henri Desgrange saw the success of the French cyclists in the Grand Prix des Nations, and adapted the individual time trial format in the Tour. Not all cyclists were happy with the ITT. René Vietto, a climber, said it was a dull test of horsepower, while a bike race should also test the head. Other cyclists said the ITT would negate the effect of good teamwork.

The bonification system from the 1933 Tour de France was slightly reduced: now the winner of a stage received 90 seconds bonification, and the second cyclist 45 seconds. In addition to this, the winner of the stage received a bonification equal to the difference between him and the second-placed cyclists, with a maximum of two minutes. This same bonification system was applied on mountain summits that counted for the mountains classification.

In 1933, there had been 40 touriste-routiers, cyclist not competing in a national team, but in 1934 this was reduced to 20.