We remember the emotion of Mathieu Van der Poel this summer, when the 9th stage of the last Tour de France started from Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, the Limousin stronghold of his grandfather Raymond Poulidor. The Dutch world champion should also have a pang in his heart when crossing the Pyrenees next summer, while the route for this 2024 edition will be revealed this Wednesday.
A life-size bronze statue of “Poupou” will be erected in Saint-Lary (Hautes-Pyrénées), which will host the finish of the 14th stage, on July 13, between Pau and Pla d’Adet, as indicated by France Bleu Occitanie. It is precisely at the junction of Pla d’Adet and Col du Portet that the work of Breton sculptor Bernard Potel, already the author of numerous busts of personalities, including those of Charles de Gaulle, is to be installed in mid-April 2024. and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
His seventh and final stage victory on the Tour
The rival, then friend of Jacques Anquetil will be represented in full effort, as he was 50 years earlier, when he won the 16th stage of the 1974 Tour between Seu d’Urgell (Andorra) and Pla d’ Adet. At 38, Poulidor won for the seventh and final time on the Grande Boucle, two minutes ahead of Eddy Merckx, who will however beat him in Paris.
To carry out this project, which began in September and which will require more than eight months of work, the town of Saint-Lary joined forces with the association “Les amis de Raymond Poulidor”. A call for donations is also launched for businesses and individuals. on the specialized Ulule platformas part of the endowment fund created by this village of around 850 inhabitants to finance this work.
The statue of one of the heroes of French cycling, who died on November 13, 2019 at the age of 83, will join in the Pyrenean pantheon that of the Giant of Tourmalet, tribute to Octave Lapize, first rider to cross the legendary pass on the Tour in 1910. But also the sculpture of the “handyman” Eugène Christophe in Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, and the stele commemorating the tragic death, in 1995, of the Italian Fabio Casartelli in the descent of the Col de Portet-d’ Aspet.