his favourite winner, calling him an all-rounder who had used his legs to win and his head to secure his winning position. France, however, remained unimpressed and for many years, Walkowiak's name passed into the language, so that do something "à la Walko" meant to succeed unexpectedly or without panache. That reaction depressed Walkowiak. He rode the Tour the following year, but slipped from top of the field to almost the bottom. He rode the Tour of Spain, the Vuelta a España, in 1957 and won a stage, raced a further two years and then retired to run a bar in the area from which he had left, as an unknown, to win the Tour de France. When even his customers teased him about winning the Tour, he lost confidence still more and went back to working on a lathe in the car factory in Montluçon that had employed him as a young man. It took many years to persuade Walkowiak that there was merit in what he had done and, though he lived quietly in south-west France, he did talk about the day he became the unknown who won the world's greatest cycling race. After the death of Ferdi Kübler on 29 December 2016, Walkowiak was for a short while the oldest Tour de France winner still alive. Following Walkowiak's death in February 2017, the oldest living Tour winner is Federico Bahamontes, who won the Tour in 1959. Career achievements Major results 1951 3rd Tour de Dordogne 1952 2nd Tour de l'Ouest 3rd G.P de Vals-les-Bains 1953 2nd Paris-Côte d'Azur 1954 3rd Tour de l'Ouest 1955 2nd Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré 1956 1st Overall Tour de France 1st Stage 13 Vuelta a España 3rd Circuit du Cher 1957 1st Stage 8 Vuelta a España 1958 2nd Boucles du Bas-Limousin 3rd Tour du Sud-Est 1960 3rd Tour de l'Aude 3rd Circuit d'Auvergne Grand Tour results timeline Tour de France 1951 – 57th 1953 – 47th 1956 – 1st 1958 – 75th Bibliography Woodland, L., Yellow Jersey Companion to the Tour De France, Yellow Jersey Press, London 2003 The Tour De France: The Official Centennial 1903 – 2003, Weidenfeld Nicolson, London 2004 References External links Palmares at memoire-du-cyclisme.net The story of the 1956 tour and the epilogue at pezcyclingnews.com 1927 births 2017 deaths French male cyclists Tour de France winners French people of Polish descent People from Montluçon French Vuelta a