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Rating: 
Summary: 100 Years of the World's Greatest Sporting Event
Review: 2003 saw the 100th birthday of the Tour de France, the world's most famous bike race. This book was released at the beginning of the centenary year as part of the race's birthday celebrations.
The race was created by a newspaper called L'Auto, the forerunner of today's sports newspaper L'Equipe. The race's organisers worked closely with L'Equipe in the production of this book. Thanks to L'Equipe's involvement, the book had the pick of a huge amount of material dating back to the Tour's inception. The collection of photographs used is incredible and is the main strength of the book. The Tour is a tough enough race today, but being able to see what sort of conditions and equipment the cyclists had to endure in the early days.....well, phrases like 'seeing is believing' and 'every picture tells a thousand stories' could've been formed with these pages in mind. It was also nice being able to finally put a face to some of the famous names - the likes of Coppi, Bobet and Anquetil. Essentially, the book begins in 1903, and has something similar to a chapter for each edition of the race. The level of detail varies from year to year - the years where there was a 'big' story are generally given the luxury of an extra couple of pages. These would include, for example, 1998's Festina Affair, Merckx's and Hinault's first wins (1969 and 1978 respectively), the deaths of Tom Simpson (1967) and Fabio Casartelli (1995) and the completion of the race's first hat-trick by Philippe Thys in 1920. Inevitably, some races are comparatively skimmed over. It would've been nice if, for example, the 1960 race had been given some extended coverage also, when Roger Reviere crashed in the mountains and broke his back. For the most part, the writing centres on the battle for the yellow jersey. L'Auto was responsible for the creation of the famous yellow jersey. In 1919, it arranged for a special jersey to be presented to the race leader so spectators could easily identify him. As the newspaper was printed on yellow paper, they chose yellow as the colour for the jersey. Of course, this would've done no harm to the newspaper sales either. Little is said, however, about the battles for the race's other jerseys. The King of the Mountains (polka dot) jersey was introduced in 1933, while the Sprinter's (green) jersey was introduced 20 years later, in 1953. They are given some coverage in the stats section at the back of the book, but really only mentioned in passing throughout the book. The combined and red jerseys that were formerly a part of the Tour don't even get a mention in the stats section - though the combined jersey, at least, does make an appearance in one or two photographs. These are only minor quibbles, it has to be said. These omissions are understandable, given all that has happened in this race over the years, and that there was always going to be a limited amount of space available ! This is an incredible book, one that should be owned by anyone who is even vaguely interested in sport.
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Summary: Captivating
Review: A sumptuous volume. I found I had to ration my reading to three years at a sitting to avoid finishing it too quickly. A perfect balance of history, anecdote, statistics and photographs. One thing to bear in mind is that this book is written by the tour organisation. The organisation is rarely at fault for the mishaps and scandals down the years. One technical quibble is that I don't seem to be able to avoid making smudges on the page edges, no matter now carefully I handle the pages. No-one is going to be disappointed by this book. I may buy several more copies to give as gifts.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: The photo on page p. 209 of Jacques Anquetil climbing the Aubisque is one of the most amazing photographs I've ever seen. It's all in there. I'm going to buy another copy just to cut that photo out and frame it.
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