Lucien Buysse

Personal information
Full name	Lucien Buysse
Born	(1892-09-11)11 September 1892 Deinze, Belgium
Died	3 January 1980(1980-01-03) (aged 87) Deinze, Belgium
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Major wins
Road Grand Tours Tour de France General classification (1926) Mountains classification (1926) 5 individual stages (1923, 1925, 1926) One-day races and Classics Stadsprijs Geraardsbergen (1927) Track Six Days of Ghent (1923)

Lucien Buysse (French pronunciation: [ly.sjɛ̃ bɥisə]; 11 September 1892 – 3 January 1980) was a Belgian cyclist and a champion of the Tour de France.^[1]

Career

Born in Wontergem, Buysse began racing professionally in 1914, when he entered the Tour de France but did not finish. He resumed his career after World War I, entering but abandoning the Tour again in 1919 but placing third in the Paris–Roubaix classic in 1920. In 1923 he completed the Tour de France and finished in eighth place. In the 1924 and 1925 Tours, he rode with the Italian Automoto team led by Ottavio Bottecchia, where he was perhaps the first domestique in the history of the Tour. He placed third in 1924 and second in 1925.^[2]

The 1926 Tour was the longest in its history (5,745 km), with 17 stages averaging 338 km. Buysse, racing with his two brothers Jules and Michel, took the yellow jersey from Gustave Van Slembrouck on stage 10 by attacking during a furious storm on the Col d'Aspin in the Pyrenees. He gained almost an hour during the stage over his team leader Bottecchia who then abandoned. Buysse arrived in Paris as the champion despite suffering the loss of his daughter during the race.^[3]

In 1926, Buysse forced the Tour de France organiser Henri Desgrange to create a new rule when he eliminated the entire field by finishing so far ahead that everyone else was outside the limit. Desgrange extended the day's limit to 40 per cent of the winner's time and ruled that nobody in the first 10 could be eliminated.

Buysse won a total of five stages of the Tour during his career: one in 1923; two in 1925 and two in 1926.

Career achievements

Major results

Track cycling

1922

2nd Six Days of Ghent (with Henri Van Lerberghe)

1923

1st Six Days of Ghent (with Victor Standaert)

1924

2nd Six Days of Ghent (with Jules Van Hevel)

1925

3rd Six Days of Ghent (with Emile Thollembeek)

Grand Tour results timeline