Romain Maes

Romain Maes
Maes after winning a time trial in the 1939 Tour de France
Personal information
Full nameRomain Maes
BornRomanus Maes
(1912-08-10)10 August 1912
Zerkegem, Belgium
Died22 February 1983(1983-02-22) (aged 70)
Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium
Team information
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Major wins
Grand Tours
Tour de France
General classification (1935)
4 individual stages (1935, 1939)

Stage races

Tour de l'Ouest (1933)

One-day races and Classics

Omloop der Vlaamse Gewesten (1939)
Paris–Lille (1935)

Romain Maes (pronounced [ʁɔ.mɛ̃ maːs]; 10 August 1912 – 22 February 1983) was a Belgian cyclist who won the 1935 Tour de France after wearing the yellow jersey of leadership from beginning to end.[1] Maes was the 13th child in his family.[2] He started racing when he was 17. He turned professional in 1933 and won the Tour de l'Ouest (Tour of the West). The following year he started the Tour de France and twice finished stages in second place.[3] He then crashed on the day from Digne to Nice and left the race in an ambulance.

His Tour de France win in 1935 ended a six-year run by French riders. He became a hero in Belgium.

Maes enters a packed Parc des Princes stadium as final stage and overall winner in the 1935 Tour de France

He won the 1936 Paris–Roubaix but wasn't given the victory. The judge said he had seen the Frenchman, Georges Speicher, win.[4]

Sylvère Maes, Romain Maes and Josephine Baker at the start of the 1936 Tour de France

In 1938 he was well on the way to winning Paris-Brussels, leading the race by 100m with only 500m to go. He rode into the velodrome on which the race finished, crossed the line and stopped. The chasers, who had remembered that there was a further lap to ride, swept by him. Maes realised his mistake too late and Marcel Kint won.[2]

Maes started the Tour de France in 1939 and won the stage from Caen to Vire, a time trial over 63 km. It gave him the lead. Then he crashed on the eighth stage and abandoned the race.

Maes rode on the track for several years with his namesake, Sylvère Maes, to whom he wasn't related.

Romain Maes stopped racing in 1944 and opened a bar, "In de Gele Trui" (In The Yellow Jersey), near the North station in Brussels.[2]

  1. ^ "Romain Maes". FirstCycling.com. 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "1935: Romain Maes". Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  3. ^ "Palmarès de Romain Maes (Bel)". Memoire-du-cyclisme.eu (in French). Retrieved 31 December 2021.
  4. ^ laura. "Historique de Paris-Roubaix". lauravanel-coytte.com.