Maurice De Waele (; 27 December 1896 – 14 February 1952) was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer.
De Waele placed second in the 1927 Tour, an hour and fifty eight minutes behind Nicolas Frantz, and third in 1928, again won by Frantz. However, he is most famous for winning the 1929 Tour de France. He led the Tour until stage seven when two punctures on the way to Bordeaux cost him the yellow jersey to no less than three other riders on the same time in the general classification, Frantz, Andre Leducq and Victor Fontan. Fontan was the sole leader of the race when a broken bike led to his retirement, leaving De Waele in the lead, seventy five seconds ahead of Frantz. However, punctures to De Waele gave the lead to his nearest rival until he too suffered the same problem. With Frantz out of the running for the title, sickness in Grenoble nearly cost him too but with help from his teammates, he was led to victory.
After winning the 1929 Tour, the organiser, Henri Desgrange despaired so much of the trickery that he thought had let such a minor rider succeed that he abandoned commercially sponsored teams and ran the Tour for national teams for two decades. Desgrange had until then insisted that while riders could compete in the name of their sponsors, cooperation or tactics between those riders was not allowed. They were to consider everyone their rival and ride against them whether they had the same sponsor or not.
De Waele was sponsored by the French bicycle company, Alcyon, whose ability to employ many of the leading riders gave it a dominant place in the sport. Clashes between Alcyon and Desgrange were frequent and came to a head when De Waele won the Tour with the illegal help of other Alcyon riders even though he was ill.
"My Tour has been won by a corpse," Desgrange complained and from the following year denied entries to commercial teams and accepted national teams instead.
De Waele finished 5th in 1931. Other notable wins include the 1928 and 1929 Tour of the Basque Country.
Career achievements Independent
1921 1st Overall Tour of Belgium Independents 1922 1st National Cyclo-cross Championships 1st Bruxelles-Luxembourg-Mondorf 1st Bruxelles-Liège (fr) 2nd Belgian National Road Race Championships Independents 2nd Overall Tour of Belgium Independents 1st Stage 3 2nd De Drie Zustersteden 3rd Grand Prix François Faber
Professional
1923 1st Overall Le Havre-Rouen-Le Havre 1st Stage 2 1st Arlon-Oostende 2nd Belgian National Road Race Championships 2nd Paris–Brussels 2nd Scheldeprijs 3rd National Cyclo-cross Championships 4th Overall Tour of Belgium 5th De Drie Zustersteden 1924 1st Overall Circuit des villes d'eaux d'Auvergne (fr) 1st Stage 1 1st Overall Grand Prix Alceida 1st Stage 1 1st Stage 2 Tour of Belgium 2nd National Cyclo-cross Championships 2nd De Drie Zustersteden 3rd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 6th Liège-Bastogne-Liège 6th Paris–Brussels 7th Paris–Roubaix 8th Tour of Flanders 1925 1st Kampioenschap van Oost-Vlaanderen 1st Balgerhoeke 2nd Overall Tour of Belgium 2nd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 3rd Circuit du Massif Central 6th Tour of Flanders 7th Paris–Roubaix
1926 1st Paris-Menin (fr) 1st Circuit Vosges-Alsace 1st Saint-Brieuc-Brest-Saint-Brieuc 1st Grand Prix Alceida 2nd Paris-Saint-Étienne (fr) 3rd Paris-Longwy (fr) 5th Scheldeprijs 6th Paris–Brussels
1927 Tour de France 2nd Overall, @ + 1h 48' 21" 1st, Stage 2 (Dieppe - Le Havre), 103km 1st, Stage 13 (Perpignan - Marseille), 360km 1st Paris-Menin (fr) 3rd Tour of Flanders 3rd Paris–Brussels
1928 Tour de France 3rd Overall, @ + 56' 16" 1st, Stage 8 (Bordeaux - Hendaye), 225km 1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 271km 1st Overall Tour of the Basque Country 1st Stage 2 2nd Bordeaux–Paris 6th Paris–Brussels
1929 Tour de France 1st Overall, 5254km in 186h 39' 16" (28.319km/h) 1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 270km 1st Overall Tour of the Basque Country 1st Stage 3 2nd Paris–Brussels 2nd Overall Tour of Belgium 3rd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen 7th Paris–Tours
1930 4th Tour of Flanders 6th Paris–Roubaix
1931 1st Overall Tour of Belgium 1st Lebbeke 5th Overall Tour de France 9th Road race, UCI World Championships
Grand Tour results timeline 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931Giro d'Italia DNE DNE DNE DNE DNEStages won — — — — —Tour de France 2 3 1 DNE 5Stages won 2 2 1 — 0Vuelta a España N/A N/A N/A N/A N/AStages won
References