It is listed as the most successful cycling team of all time on cyclingranking.com, with a large margin on the second placed team, Alcyon.[1]
History
Peugeot cycles started producing bicycles in 1882, and from then on it was involved in sponsoring cyclists.
At the beginning of the century a Peugeot cycling team existed.[2] Hippolyte Aucouturier rode Peugeot cycles when he won Paris–Roubaix and Bordeaux–Paris in 1903, and when he was disqualified from the 1904 Tour de France in which he had finished fourth overall, for the illegal use of trains and cars.
Directly after the war, Peugeot cycles was one of the companies that made a consortium that pooled their resources into a collective cycling team called La Sportive. The objective of forming such a consortium was to keep the sport alive in the poor post-war economic situation.
After three years of the La Sportive consortium, Peugeot re-established its separate cycling team, and with Belgian Firmin Lambot won the 1922 Tour de France. During this time the team was known as the Peugeot team, or sometimes the name of a co-sponsor was added, which occasionally was Wolber, Alcyon, Dunlop, Tedeschi, Bianchi-Pirelli.
From 1936 until 1955 the team was the Peugeot-Dunlop team. Yves Petit-Breton (son of the two time Tour de France winner Lucien Petit-Breton) would be a directeur sportif of the team in 1956.[4]
From 1948[5] to 1959[6] there was a Belgiancycling team which was also sponsored by Peugeot, called Elvé-Peugeot.
In 1958, Gaston Plaud became the directeur sportif of Peugeot-BP, where he would stay until the mid seventies. He would direct big names to success, such as Charly Gaul, Pino Cerami, Ferdinand Bracke, Walter Godefroot, Tom Simpson, Jean-Pierre Danguillaume, and the early career of Eddy Merckx.
In 1963 Team Peugeot adopted the black and white checkerboard design,[7] that would be on their white jersey until the team retired from the sport in 1986. During this time the team achieved many successes, such as Tom Simpson winning Bordeaux–Paris in 1963, Milan–San Remo in 1964, and then in 1965 becoming world champion and winning the Giro di Lombardia.
Eddy Merckx rode his first two seasons with the team, and won Milan–San Remo twice, Gent–Wevelgem, La Flèche Wallonne, a stage in the 1967 Giro d'Italia, and the world championships road race with the team, in 1966. In 1967, the Tour de France was disputed by national teams, and one of Peugeot's riders, Roger Pingeon won the race. He would win the 1969 Vuelta a España for the team. The team won the Vuelta a España again, with Ferdinand Bracke in 1971. The name of the team changed in 1965 to Peugeot-BP Michelin, which it stayed until 1976, when Esso took the place of the second sponsor.
Peugeot team jersey
Maurice De Muer became directeur sportif with the team in 1975, and directed Bernard Thévenet to beat Eddy Merckx, in the 1975 Tour de France. He directed the team until 1982. The last time the team would win the Tour de France would be with Bernard Thévenet, in 1977.
In 1982 Shell became the second sponsor, and until its finish the team was Peugeot-Shell-Michelin.
In the late seventies and early eighties, the team signed many Anglophone riders. Many of these came from a Parisian Amateur club Athletic Club de Boulogne Billencourt (ACBB) that acted as a feeder club for top amateurs to turn professional. Phil Anderson, Robert Millar, Stephen Roche, Sean Yates, and Allan Peiper all started their careers with the Peugeot team. The last time that the team had the yellow jersey of the Tour was the 1983 Tour de France when Pascal Simon wore the jersey, but had to abandon the Tour, due to a broken collarbone. The team had its last chance at a Grand Tour win in the 1985 edition of the Vuelta a España with Robert Millar. Millar was wearing the leader's red jersey on the penultimate day when Pedro Delgado attacked him, to take the stage and the leader's jersey.[8]
In its final year of existence (1986), the team was managed by Roger Legeay. After 1986, Legeay created the Vétements Z-Peugeot team as a continuation of the Peugeot cycling team. Legeay's team was subsequently renamed Z-Peugeot (1988–89), Z-Tomasso (1990), Z (1991–92), GAN (1993–96) and Crédit Agricole (1997–2008), before being disbanded in 2008. Legeay's team is best remembered for being the team which the American cyclist Greg LeMond rode for when he won the Tour de France in 1990 (when the team was known as Z-Tomasso). Other directeur sportifs of the Peugeot cycling team during its existence included: Leon Van der Hulst, Roland Berland, Robert Naeye, Roger Moreau, Jean Lecocq, Camille Narcy, Serge Beucherie, and Jean-François Guiborel.
Raymond Poulidor, nicknamed "Pou-Pou", was a French professional racing cyclist, who rode for Mercier his entire career.
Felice Gimondi was an Italian professional racing cyclist. With his 1968 victory at the Vuelta a España, only three years after becoming a professional cyclist, Gimondi, nicknamed "The Phoenix", was the second cyclist to win all three Grand Tours of road cycling: Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and Vuelta a España (1968). He is one of only seven cyclists to have done so.
Bernard Thévenet is a retired professional cyclist. His sporting career began with ACBB Paris. He is a two-time winner of the Tour de France and known for ending the reign of five-time Tour champion Eddy Merckx, though both feats are tarnished by Thévenet's later admission of steroids use during his career. He also won the Dauphiné Libéré in 1975 and 1976.
Óscar Freire Gómez is a Spanish former professional road bicycle racer. He was one of the top sprinters in road bicycle racing, having won the world championship three times, equalling Alfredo Binda, Rik Van Steenbergen, Eddy Merckx and Peter Sagan. In the later years of his career, he became more of a classics rider. He won the cycling monument Milan–San Remo three times, the green jersey and four stages in the Tour de France and seven stages of the Vuelta a España, throughout a successful career.
Roger De Vlaeminck is a Belgian former professional racing cyclist. He was described by Rik Van Looy as "The most talented and the only real classics rider of his generation". Nicknamed "The Gypsy" because he was born into a family of traveling clothiers, he is known for exploits in the cobbled classic Paris–Roubaix race, but his performances in other "Monument" races gave him a record that few can match. His record in Paris–Roubaix earned him another nickname, "Monsieur Paris–Roubaix".
Visma–Lease a Bike is a Dutch professional bicycle racing team, successor of the former Rabobank. The team consists of four sections: ProTeam, Women's Team, Development Team, and cyclo-cross.
Mapei was an Italian-based road bicycle racing team active from 1993 to 2002, named after sponsoring firm Mapei.
Vittorio Adorni was an Italian professional road racing cyclist.
Filippo "Pippo" Pozzato is an Italian former road racing cyclist, who rode professionally between 2000 and 2018 for the Mapei–Quick-Step, Fassa Bortolo, Quick-Step–Innergetic, Liquigas, Team Katusha, Lampre–Merida, and two spells with the Farnese Vini–Selle Italia/Wilier Triestina–Selle Italia teams.
Molteni was an Italian professional road bicycle racing team from 1958 until the end of 1976. It won 663 races, many of them earned by its most famous rider, Eddy Merckx. Other riders included Gianni Motta and Marino Basso, who contributed 48 and 34 wins respectively. The Molteni family continues in cycling with sponsorship of Salmilano.
Mercatone Uno–Scanavino is a former professional cycling team which was based in San Marino and then in Italy. Throughout the 1990s it was one of the strongest Italian cycling teams in the peloton. The team was sponsored by a chain of supermarkets in Italy.
Carrera was an Italian-based road bicycle racing team active from 1984 to 1996, named after sponsoring Italian jeans manufacturer Carrera. The team was successful in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France with three overall wins and several wins in the Points classification and Mountain Classifications.
Festina was a former professional cycling team that was active in the professional peloton from 1989 to 2001. The team was sponsored by the Swiss watch manufacturer of the same name.
Bianchi was an Italian professional cycling team that was sponsored by and cycled on Bianchi Bicycles. A Bianchi cycling team existed in 1899 which implies that Bianchi was sponsoring professional cycling at a very early stage in the sport. It appears that the team existed from 1899 to 1900, then from 1905 to 1966, then from 1973 until 1984. It existed again in 1993 and for the last time in 2003, as Team Bianchi. In addition Bianchi has been a co-sponsor of many cycling teams.
Système U was a French professional cycling team that existed from 1986 to 1988 and which cycled on and promoted Gitane racing bikes. In 1989 the team was renamed Super U–Raleigh–Fiat and rode Raleigh bicycles. Super U being a chain of supermarkets owned by the Système U group.
Castorama was a French professional cycling team that existed from 1990 to 1995 and was sponsored by the French DIY and home improvement retailer Castorama.
Alcyon was a French professional cycling team that was active from 1905 to 1959, and returned in 1961 and 1962. It was started by Alcyon, a French bicycle, automobile and motorcycle manufacturer.
Mercier was a French professional cycling team that promoted and raced on Mercier racing bikes. Together with the Peugeot team, the Mercier team had a long presence in the cycling sport and in the Tour de France from 1935 until 1984.
Kas was a Spanish-based professional cycling team which was active from 1958 until 1979 and again for three years in the 1980s. Its name was derived from the name of the principal sponsor of the team, the soft drinks manufacturer, Kas. The team was principally based in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Its riders typically wore a jersey that consisted of yellow and blue.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
