History has been less kind to the memory of Pierre Giffard, the great
rival of Henri Desgrange. Remembered by cyclists chiefly as the founder
and first organiser of Paris-Brest-Paris, his role in sports history was
somewhat wider and, in his own way, he was no less a significant figure
than Desgrange.
Giffard was, above all, a journalist. He worked for a French press that
closely mirrored the social divisions of the late-nineteenth century.
Newspapers of the era were linked directly with political groupings:
competition was not simply a matter of commercial success, but, as
importantly, a way of building political influence. By the 1890's,
already a veteran of over twenty years of journalistic experience, he
was employed by the Parisian newspaper Le Petit Journal as chief
correspondent. It was an era which saw the emergence for the first time
of organised sporting activities in France, not the least of which was
cycling.
Cycling: Paris - Brest - Paris
The emergence of cycling resulted directly from a revolution in cycling
technology in the 1880's - principally the advent of the safety bicycle.
The application in 1885 of the chain and cog mechanism to transfer
propulsive energy to the rear wheel, led to a fundamental change in
frame geometry: from the perilous high wheeler to the "safer"
configuration of the small-wheeled diamond frame. This innovation was
followed rapidly by other improvements to spokes, wheel rims, brakes
and, importantly, pneumatic tires. By the end of the 1880's, something
closely approximating the modern bicycle had come into being. Its
promoters sought venues in which to display its worth.
The first such venue to catch the attention of the French public was a
race jointly announced in 1890 by the Velo Club Bordelais and the
leading cycling periodical of the day, Veloce-Sport. Bordeaux-Paris was
held on May 23 -24, 1891 on a 572 kilometer route. It was the first
inter-city race to feature the safety bicycle. A crowd of 7000 were on
hand in the Port Maillot, near the northern corner of the Bois de
Boulogne, the site in Paris of the Velodrome Buffalo, to meet the
cyclists as they arrived at the race finish.
Le Petit Journal, noting the spike in its circulation its coverage of
the event had caused, charged Giffard with organising a more challenging
event that would sustain the interest of its readership over a longer
period. And so, several months later, the first Paris-Brest-Paris was
held. It was to be the first of several events organised on behalf of
the newspaper by Giffard. The next significant undertaking, however, was
not a cycling event but a mass participation event that combined
cross-country running with hiking.
Athletics: Paris - Belfort and the Paris Marathon
As was the case with cycling, athletics, and particularly running,
emerged as a sport in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In
1889, the first national organisation was formed, grouping together
French athletics associations. Athletics were promoted by the first
periodical devoted exclusively to the sport - La Revue Athletique. This
was a monthly publication started in 1890 by Pierre de Coubertin, who
would later found the modern Olympic movement. Coubertin was an
important proponent of amateurism in sport. He emphasised the virtue of
participation in sport for its own sake, downplaying the competitve
aspect and the emphasis on winning inherent in sporting activities.
These ideals found their way into the organisation of sports activities
other than running.
Runners remember Giffard as the organiser of Paris-Belfort, a foot race
over a course of some 380 kilometers in early June 1892, and the first
large scale long distance foot race on record. Over 1100 registered for
the event of which over 800 showed up for the start on June 5th, at the
offices of le Petit Journal, close to the Paris Opera. This had also
been the start point for the inaugural Paris-Brest-Paris the previous
year. Again, circulation of the newspaper showed a dramatic increase as
the French public followed the progress of race participants, 380 of
whom completed the course in under 10 days. Giffard waxed eloquent in a
summation of the event in the pages of le Petit Journal on June 18th,
1892, praising the event as a model for the physical training of a
nation faced by hostile neighbours.
Giffard returned memorably to the field of athletics in 1896 with the
inaugural Paris marathon on July 18, 1896. Although by now editor of his
own daily newspaper, Le Velo, he organised the event on behalf of le
Petit Journal, an arrangement that suggests a continuing relationship
between the two publications. The marathon was held in emulation of the
inclusion, at the insistence of the Greeks, of the event in the
inaugural Olympics held in Athens earlier that year. It was Giffard who
started the race before a large crowd assembled at the Port Maillot. The
race was won by an Englishman, Len Hurst, who collected the 200 franc
prize money put up by Le Petit Journal. This was to be the last marathon
held in Paris until the mid-1980's.
As a final hurrah, Giffard organised a footrace on the Bordeaux - Paris
race route in 1903. This race was won in the time of 114 hours, 22
minutes and 20 seconds. But, by this time, his rivals had undermined his
competitve position. Le Velo was within months of collapse.
Automobile Racing: Paris - Rouen
Equally, Giffard was the first to organise a significant event in the
field of automobile racing. Like bicycles, with which they share a
common early technological history, automobiles emerged in the last
decades of the 19th century. Among the first to enter the field in
France was the Marquis Albert de Dion who had become interested in a
small steam engine built by a Parisian artisan, Georges Bouton. By 1887,
the firm of De Dion Bouton had managed to produce several prototype
steam tricycles. Although other firms had begun to enter the field, in
the first French automobile race organised by Velocipede magazine in
1887, Georges Bouton was the winner and only participant.
If the timing of an automobile race in 1887 was premature, by 1894 the
timing was ripe for a showcase event. Giffard, who had permitted an
automobile to participate in the inaugural Paris-Brest-Paris (the
automobile's average speed on the course 14.7 kph: Charles Terront's
average speed, 16.9 kph), was asked to organise the event. There was
hope that the race could generate the same sort of favourable publicity
for the automobile that Paris-Brest-Paris had earned for the safety
bicycle.
The course chosen was Paris - Rouen. One hundred and two competitors
registered for race, the entries featuring an assortment of power
sources bewildering in its variety (including one human-powered pedal
vehicle). Of those, who actually started the race, 25 remained in the
field at the 50 kilometer mark. The finish line was crossed first by a
steam tricycle entered by De Dion Bouton, with an average speed of 20
kilometers per hour. However, the Giffard-selected race jury adjudged
the tricycle to be unsafe and uneconomical. They consequently awarded
first place, and the award money, jointly to the entrants of the firms
Peugeot and Panhard & Levassot. Giffard was to organise a second
automobile race in that year on the route of Paris-Brest-Paris, but the
event was not well attended, and is scantily reported in history.
The Marquis De Dion, undoubtedly smarting from his disqualification,
undertook to organise his own automobile race. In June of 1895, the
inaugural Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race was held over a course of 1175
kilometers. Ironically, the race was won by a vehicle constructed by
Panhard & Levassot, with a Peugeot-built automobile in second place. To
deepen the irony, the firm of De Dion Bouton came to abandon the steam
engine, on which the fortunes of the firm had been built, in the first
years of the next decade.
But it was too late for Giffard. Later in 1895, De Dion, with the
assistance of other automobile industrialists, founded the Automobile
Club de France. This grouping was charged with the organisation of
automobile races in France, and further, with the defence of the
industry against public initiatives to limit the growth of what was
still widely perceived to be a dangerous vehicle. The responsibility for
this latter undertaking was placed in the hands of another journalist.
Giffard had been effectively cut out.
Le Velo
Giffard's newspaper, Le Velo, was launched in 1892 with a particular
advantage in the late-nineteenth century market for sports publications.
It was published as a daily newspaper. Its publishing schedule soon
allowed it to displace its two chief rivals - La Bicyclette and
Veloce-Sport both published weekly. Printed on green paper, by
mid-century it had reached a daily circulation of 80,000 and had
attained a dominant position in its market. La Bicyclette responded by
purchasing in 1894 a small daily called Paris-Velo that had been created
in 1893. This paper was printed on pink paper but was to prove only
marginally successful. More significantly, the success of Le Velo drove
Veloce-Sport, one of the prime movers of the first Bordeaux - Paris
bicycle race, out of business. With the failure of this rival, Giffard
was able to assume sponsorship of the event.
By the last decade of the nineteenth century, cycling had become the
dominant sporting event in France. Giffard consolidated his grip on his
market by assuming sponsorship and promotion for a sizeable number of
races across the country. Many of the races of this era - Paris -
Besancon, Lyon - Paris - Lyon, Rennes - Brest, Paris - Tours - are no
longer remembered. This is not the case, however, of Paris - Roubaix, a race that was created in this era and which has become the most famous of the Spring Classics. This race, first held on April 19, 1896, was the product of the research, and some miserable early season cycling, of a young journalist in the office of Paris-Velo, a sometime colleague of Henri
Desgrange, named Victor Breyer.
It was quite possibly his control of Bordeaux - Paris that persuaded
Giffard to give up the organisation of Paris - Brest - Paris. Regarded
unfavourably by cycling professionals who resented the training the
exceptional distance of the race required, participation by racers was
expected to be low. Race organisation fell to Henri Desgrange, recently
appointed director of the new rival publication L'Auto - Velo. It was
Desgrange who, in the second edition of the event in 1901, opened up the
event to non-professional sport tourist cyclists - this decision three
years before he was to organise the French branch of Audax cycling.
By striking successfully at Bordeaux - Paris, first by running an
alternative edition of the event in 1902, and then by creating the event
- the Tour de France - that was supersede Bordeaux - Paris in the
imagination of the French public, Desgrange was aiming at the heart of
Giffard's enterprise. Desgrange was by training a lawyer. However, he
was overtaken by a passion for cycling and earned his living, while
pursuing his cycling career, as a part-time correspondent for La
Bicyclette. This would make him a contemporary of Pierre de Coubertin in
sports journalism. Indeed de Coubertin was still an active member of the association of Parisian journalists at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Through time, Desgrange came to work in public relations for Adolphe Clement, head of Cycles Clement, the largest bicycle manufacturer of the era.
It was Clement that brought forward Desgrange's name to direct
L'Auto-Velo, the daily newspaper founded by a group of industrialists
disgruntled with the stranglehold exerted by Giffard on sports
journalism. This group, that included the Marquis De Dion, Baron de
Zuylen - the head of the Automobile Club of France, Edouard Michelin, as
well as Adolph Clement, had a variety of interests to advance They were
concerned with the promotion of their own events, cheap access to an
advertising source for their products, as well as, probably, a common
political agenda.
The introduction of L'Auto - Velo in October 1900 was the beginning of
the end for Giffard. Circulation of the new publication ate into that of
its senior rival. Circulation spiked after the success of the alternate
edition of Paris - Bordeaux, only to have the circulation of the paper
printed on yellow newsprint fall back to 20, 000 in the aftermath of
Giffard's last gambit, a legal suit to change the name of the rival
publication.
The success of the Tour de France spelled the death knell of Le Velo.
The last edition was published in November 1904. With it, Pierre Giffard
- the dominant sports promoter of his era - slipped into obscurity.
For his part Desgrange never forgot the lessons of these early newspaper
wars. When, in 1920, members of the Parisian branch of the organisation
of Audax cyclists he had helped to create, assisted in preparations for
a race sponsored by a rival newspaper, Desgrange expelled them. He
forbade them to organise events under the rules of French Audax cycling.
This was the beginning of the fundamental schism in sport tourist
cycling that has resulted three-quarters of a century later in the
affiliation of clubs from around the world with Audax Club Parisien.
