The route of the 2023 Tour de France includes several brushes with the fate of champions who defined the history of the race. Racing the Tour on home turf was often an intense sporting experience for these riders, who were born or settled down in some of the towns and cities that dot the map of this edition. In the run-up to the start of the event on 1 July, letour.fr is pulling out the photo album to revisit the ties of six extraordinary riders to the Grande Boucle.
Luis Ocaña was born in Spain and bred in the Val d'Aran before following his parents to France at age 12. He got his first taste of cycling in Mont-de-Marsan, the town of his first club. He moved up the ranks of the peloton to the very top, but it was his constant rivalry with Eddy Merckx —in which he would usually end up on the losing side— that came to define his career. He seemed to have the 1971 Tour de France in the bag when a crash sent him home. Ocaña finally got his hands on the Holy Grail of his career when he claimed the 1973 edition… the only time that the "Cannibal" skipped the Grande Boucle.
ALL THE EPISODES
