of sprinters who just sit on wheels." He began his sprints from a long distance from the line, challenging others to pass him. It endeared him to the French public, said de Latour. Darrigade wore 19 yellow jerseys and won 22 stages. He won the opening stage of the Tour de France in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1961. Darrigade lost time in the mountains and his best final positions were 16th in 1956, 1959 and 1960. In single-day races, he won the national championship in 1955 on the famous Boucles de l'Aulne in Châteaulin, beating a Louison Bobet at the top of his career (reigning world champion and winner of the Tour de France 1953, 1954 and 1955). He won the 1956 Giro di Lombardia, beating the Campionissimo Fausto Coppi in front of his home crowd at the Milan velodrome. A fortnight later he beat Coppi again to win the Trofeo Baracchi with Rolf Graf. He won the world championship in Zandvoort on 16 August 1959, dominating a breakaway of eight riders, ahead of the Italian Michele Gismondi and the Belgian Noël Foré. Darrigade was at his best in the middle of the season and the spring races were too early and those in autumn too late. He did, however, come fourth in the 1957 Paris–Roubaix, third in the 1958 Milan–San Remo and second in Paris–Brussels in 1960. He said: "I was always considered a team man. I never had any pretensions to be anything else. In the days when the Tour had national teams, Marcel Bidot [the manager] always saw me as just that. Those wins never became dull or routine. Each one was an immense pleasure. What's more, I had the chance to race alongside such great champions as Louison Bobet and Jacques Anquetil." He was close to Anquetil, whom he called "bizarrely calm." He said: "Quite often, I had to say to him, 'If you don't get going, you'll lose the Tour." On 19 July 1958 the Tour finished at the Parc des Princes in western Paris. The 70-year-old sécrétaire-général of the stadium, Constant Wouters ran across the grass in the centre of the ground to prevent photographers encroaching on the track. The journalists hid the riders and Wouters from each other and Darrigade rode into Wouters as he stepped onto the track. Darrigade was lifted from his bike and turned round and Wouters thrown into