The first ever King of the Mountains

Probably not who you think it is

Every Tour de France has a list of things that it is celebrating. Things which have a significant anniversary. Sometimes it’s famous winners or famous incidents, other times it’s the birth or death of one of the Tour’s greatest protagonists. This year one of the big ones will be the polka dot jersey, which celebrates its 50th birthday this year.

Even though the mountains classification has been around since 1933, the polka dot jersey wasn’t invented until 1975. Which means if we’re being pedantic (and of course we should, pedantry is the real currency of the whole internet), facts like this one, included in the official Tour de France guide are wrong…

Federico Bahamontes didn’t win six polka-dot jerseys. He won none. Never wore it. And Lucien van Impe didn’t win six either, he won four of them starting in 1975.

Van Impe, I’m sure, will be mentioned a lot in July for this reason. He was the first ever winner of the polka-dot jersey. Which is good. It wasn’t some imposter who got to take home the first king of the mountains jersey (your Bernard Kohls, your Anthony Charteaus, (Charteaux?!)). It was one of the greats. One of the best, most consistent climbers the Tour de France had ever seen. And a future Tour de France winner.

Van Impe was the first rider to win the jersey but he wasn’t the first rider to wear it. That fact is a less well-known one but in one of those pleasing coincidences, the rider to whom this honour befell was also one of the greats, one of the best, most consistent climbers the Tour de France had ever seen. And a future Tour de France winner. It was Joop Zoetemelk.

I say it is a pleasing ‘coincidence’. On face value, two really really good climbers being the first riders to wear and win the jersey for the best climber isn’t really a coincidence is it?

The reason it kind of is though, is because Zoetemelk didn’t take the first ever jersey where you would expect him to take it, somewhere normally associated with Zoetemelk - on Alpe d’Huez or the Puy de Dome where he won Tour de France stages.

No. The first ever polka-dot jersey was awarded to Joop Zoetemelk in, of all places, Belgium.

---