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Who was Tom Simpson and how did the cyclist die on Mont Ventoux riding the 1967 Tour de France?

This year's Tour marks the 50th anniversary of his untimely, controversial death at the world's biggest bike race

david hughes
Published : 14:31, 13 Jul 2017
Updated : 14:31, 13 Jul 2017

TOM Simpson was Britain's first road cycling world champion, a rider whose success earned him the Sports Personality of the Year award – before it all ended in tragedy and controversy.

With this year's Tour de France marking the 50th anniversary of his untimely death, here's the lowdown on a forgotten British sporting icon .

Tom Simpson was the first Brit to wear the iconic world champion's rainbow jersey

Who was Tom Simpson?

Tom Simpson was a professional cyclist who became Britain's first superstar in the sport.

Born in 1937 in County Durham, he rode his first bike at the age of 12 and enjoyed success as a junior growing up in Nottinghamshire.

Simpson gained a bronze medal at the 1958 Olympics in Melbourne, and went pro the following year while still a teenager.

In 1961, he won the Tour of Flanders, one of the five "monuments" – professional cycling's most prestigious one-day races.

Simpson's audacious, aggressive racing would deliver two more, Milan-San Remo in 1964 and the Giro di Lombardia a year later.

Indeed, 1965 proved a remarkable season for the Brit – he won the World Road Race Championships, and was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Simpson won three of cycling's five 'monuments' in his glittering career

Simpson remained the only road cyclist to earn either accolade for almost half a century, before Mark Cavendish repeated the trick in 2011.

While he spent 1966 plagued with injury as he rode in the coveted rainbow jersey of world champion, Simpson started the 1967 season in superb form.

With a string of high-profile victories under his belt, he entered July as one of the overwhelming favourites for the world's biggest bike race – the Tour de France.

When did Tom Simpson die?

After making a strong start to the 1967 Tour, Simpson fell ill with diarrhoea as the race entered the high mountains and slipped down the race rankings.

Ignoring calls to abandon, the 29-year-old struggled through until the 13th stage on July 13, which scaled Mont Ventoux – a fearsome climb dubbed the "Giant of Provence".

Riding in intense heat, Simpson lost contact with the leaders and began zig-zagging across the road.

Simpson was helped back onto his bike after collapsing on Mont Ventoux

Around a kilometre from the summit of the climb he fell, but remounted, brushing off his mechanic's pleas to quit the race.

He managed another 500 yards before collapsing again, and despite repeated attempts to resuscitate him, was pronounced dead after being airlifted to hospital.

Simpson's last words were famously reported to be "put me back on my bike", as he urged his mechanic and manager to set him on his way.

However, while his desperation to continue his doomed ascent is unquestioned, it's now thought that he simply said: "On, on, on."

What was Tom Simpson's cause of death?

Officially, Simpson's cause of death was heart failure caused by exhaustion.

A post-mortem revealed he had taken large quantities of amphetamines and alcohol, which proved lethal combined with the heat and his existing stomach problems.

The former World Champion was found with empty amphetamine tubes in his jersey's back pocket, and was seen filling his drinks bottle with brandy.

Tom Simpson could not be resuscitated despite the best efforts of medical staff

Although performance-enhancing drugs had been criminalised in 1965, they were still rife in the world of professional cycling, with authorities turning a blind eye.

The results of Simpson's autopsy – and the controversy that followed – helped lead to tighter drug testing, although the sport's uneasy relationship with doping exists to this day.

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“Put Me Back on My Bike” – Remembering Tom Simpson

Tom Simpson was a World Champion, a winner of Paris-Nice and multiple Monuments and a BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and basically blazed a trail for British riders during a brief but decorated career.

The thirteenth stage of the 1967 Tour de France finishes on legendary Mont Ventoux. As the race reached the lower slopes of Ventoux, Tom Simpson’s team mechanic Harry Hall, witnessed the cyclist putting the lid back on his water bottle as he exited a building.

Race commissaire, Jacques Lohmuller, later confirmed to Hall that he also saw the incident and that Simpson was putting brandy in his bottle. Near the summit of Ventoux, the peloton began to fracture.

Simpson was in the front group before slipping back to a group of chasers about a minute behind. He then began losing control of his bike, zig-zagging across the road.

A kilometer from the summit, Simpson fell off his bike. Team manager Alec Taylor and Hall arrived in the team car to help him. Hall tried to persuade Simpson to stop, saying: “Come on Tom, that’s it, that’s your Tour finished”, but Simpson said he wanted to continue. Taylor said, “If Tom wants to go on, he goes”. Noticing his toe straps were still undone, Simpson said, “Me straps, Harry, me straps!”

They got him on his bike and pushed him off. Simpson’s last words, as remembered by Hall, were “On, on, on.” Hall estimated Simpson rode a further 500m before he began to wobble, and was held upright by spectators; he was unconscious, with his hands locked on the handlebars. Hall and a nurse from the Tour’s medical team took turns giving Simpson mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, before Dumas arrived with an oxygen mask.

Simpson was declared dead later that afternoon after being airlifted to Avignon Hospital.

According to the autopsy, Simpson had amphetamines and alcohol in his body, which, combined with the diarrhoea, the oppressive heat and the gradient of Ventoux, contributed to his death.

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Tom Simpson climbing Mont Ventoux, 1967 Tour de France

Remembering Tom Simpson

In the 1967 Tour de France, Tom Simpson, one of the greatest cyclists from Great Britain, has died while climbing Mont Ventoux, the “Giant of Provence”.

Tom Simpson

Born in Haswell, County Durham, on 30 November 1937, later moved to Harworth, Nottinghamshire. He began road cycling as a teenager before picking up track cycling, specializing in the pursuit discipline. On the track, he won a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics and a silver at the 1958 Commonwealth Games.

After switching the road cycling, he won , Tour of Flanders (Ronde van Vlaanderen) (1961), Bordeaux–Paris (1963), Milan – San Remo (1964), Giro di Lombardia (1965), and Paris–Nice (1967). He also became the UCI World Champion in 1965 in San Sebastian. In 1967, he also won 2 stages in Vuelta a España.

The death of Tom Simpson

The 13th stage of the 1967 Tour de France measured 211.5 km (131.4 mi), started in Marseille, went over the 1,910 m (6,270 ft)-high Mont Ventoux , the “Giant of Provence”, before finishing in Carpentras. As the race reached the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux, Simpson – still suffering from illness – was seen ingesting a number of pills with brandy.

As the race closed in on the summit of Ventoux, the peloton began to fracture, and for a while, Simpson managed to stay in the front group of elite riders; he then started slipping back to a group of chasers around one minute behind. He then began to lose control of his bike zig-zagging across the road.

One kilometer from the summit, Simpson fell off his bike. Taylor and the team mechanic, Harry Hall, came from the team car. Hall tried to persuade Simpson to stop when he fell, saying “That’s it for you, Tom.” But Simpson said he wanted to go on.

He said ‘My straps, Harry, my straps!’ Meaning that his toe-straps were still undone. They got him his bike and pushed him off. Simpson’s last words, as remembered by Hall, and by Taylor, were ‘On, on, on.’ The words “Put me back on my bike!” were invented by Sid Saltmarsh, covering the event for The Sun and Cycling, who was not there at the time and in a reception black-spot for live accounts on Radio Tour. He managed to ride a further 500 yards (460 m) before he began to wobble and was held upright by three spectators.

He was unconscious with his hands locked to the handlebars. Hall and a nurse from the Tour’s medical team (see comments) then took turns giving Simpson mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, before Dumas came with an oxygen mask. Around 40 minutes after his collapse, a police helicopter took Simpson to a hospital in nearby Avignon, where he was pronounced dead, with the official time of death at 5:40 pm.

Two empty tubes of amphetamines and a half-full tube were found in the rear pocket of his racing jersey, one of which was labeled ‘Tonedron’.

A memorial stands close to the spot where he died and has become a pilgrimage for many cyclists.

A book, named “Put Me Back On My Bike – In search of Tom Simpson” by William Fotheringham tells the story of Tom Simpson.

Tom Simpson on Wikipedia
Death of Tom Simpson on Wikipedia
“Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson” williamfotheringham.com
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No, the Nurse was a spectator not from the Tour’s medical team – keeping in mind that TS was very ill (diarrhea/vomiting etc – he was probably boarding on a dangerous state of dehydration during the two days proceeding Stage 13 – in today’s Tour he wouldn’t have been allowed to start stage 12, let alone 13…and on his record, notwithstanding the Wins…look at all the high places (top 10) in many of the monuments and the other ‘semi classics” plus the Worlds and Paris – Nice in a very full season plus riding the “sixes”…

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As it happened: UAE Team Emirates continue to dominate Tour de Suisse on stage 6

British Tour de France riders pay tribute to Tom Simpson

Cavendish, Millar, Wegelius and Wiggins pay respects on Ventoux

Whenever Mont Ventoux features on the route of the Tour de France it has special significance for British riders. A memorial to their compatriot, Tom Simpson, who died during the 1967 Tour, stands at the spot where he collapsed, 1.5km from the summit.

This year, with Bradley Wiggins attempting to become Britain’s highest ever finisher and the first Englishman to place in the top ten since Simpson, its significance was enhanced by the presence of two special guests. Simpson’s daughter, Joanne, who had travelled from her home in Ghent, and three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond.

"It’s an important place for cycling," said LeMond. "Because of Tom Simpson’s death dope tests were introduced. Many more cyclists would have died if it hadn’t been for him."

"A la memoire de Tom Simpson," reads the inscription on the smooth marble outline of a racing cyclist – a good likeness of Simpson, with the familiar hook nose and hunched shoulders. "Ambassadeur Sportif Britannnique."

Some have compared Wiggins, in appearance, to Simpson. Like Simpson, he is tall – at 6ft 3ins, an inch taller than Simpson – lean, and he also has the distinctive nose. But the links, as Joanne Simpson explained, go beyond their appearance.

"I just like to be here, I feel my dad is here rather than buried in England," she said. "For me this is his burial place."

She has followed Wiggins’s progress with great interest. "I lived with his father, you know," she said. "Garry Wiggins lived in the same digs as me in Ghent. I remember Brad being born."

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Wiggins, when he passed the memorial and the small knot of spectators gathered there, was fully committed to his pursuit of Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and the Schleck brothers in defence of his fourth place overall. While Wiggins couldn’t afford even a glance at the memorial during the stage, he later communicated a message via Twitter. "Shed a tear today for Tom," read his post. "I had a little extra strength today from somewhere. Had a photo of the man on my top tube."

The other three British cyclists in the Tour all paid their own tributes, Charley Wegelius turning towards the monument as he rode past, and throwing his water bottle towards it, to be added to the pile of cycling-related knickknacks – bidons, caps, shirts, inner tubes – gathered around it.

Then came Mark Cavendish, who removed his helmet, and just behind him David Millar, who reached into his back pocket, removed a cotton Garmin cap, and tossed it over the fence in the direction of the statue. The gesture was clearly planned in advance. "To Tommy, RIP, David Millar," read the scrawled message.

As Millar knows only too well, Simpson, who died with amphetamines in his pocket in an era when there were no dope tests and rampant abuse of drugs, the British rider’s legacy goes beyond his palmares . A legacy, that even in a Tour so far free of any positive drug tests, should not be forgotten.

As Joanne Simpson also noted, with some disappointment, that it was telling that none of the Tour officials stopped to pay their respects as they passed. "They have done nothing," she said.

Of the teams, only Marc Madiot, the director of Française des Jeux, paid any kind of tribute. Madiot stopped his car and climbed the thirteen steps to the monument to leave a bouquet of flowers.

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Richard Moore is a freelance journalist and author. His first book, In Search of Robert Millar (HarperSport), won Best Biography at the 2008 British Sports Book Awards. His second book, Heroes, Villains & Velodromes (HarperSport), was long-listed for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. He writes on sport, specialising in cycling, and is a regular contributor to Cyclingnews, the Guardian, skyports.com, the Scotsman and Procycling magazine.

He is also a former racing cyclist who represented Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the 1998 Tour de Langkawi

His next book, Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France, will be published by Yellow Jersey in May 2011.

Another book, Sky’s the Limit: British Cycling’s Quest to Conquer the Tour de France, will also be published by HarperSport in June 2011.

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The Death of Tom Simpson

In 2010, BBC produced an hour long documentary about Simpson called Death on the Mountain . It not only looks at the fateful 1967 tour, but Simpson’s escape from poverty through cycling, his rise to fame, and the circumstances that lead to his unfortunate death. The program is filled with interviews with Simpson’s teammates and competitors and excellent footage of professional races from that era.

One Response to The Death of Tom Simpson

The Retrogrouch

Old is Good

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Tour de france 1967: the tragedy of tom simpson.

2 comments:

Hiya, Kyle. I read a pretty good biography of Tom Simpson, but this video gives a clearer picture of that last day. The footage of Tom weaving up Ventoux was sobering. Hope all is well with ya. Jim Townsend

It's easy to forget that Tom Simpson and other riders take drugs, not because they're immoral or want to cheat, but because they have so much of themselves invested in winning. You can see how determined he was to make that climb of Ventoux. I also can see why it's such a difficult climb. I haven't done it myself, but I've ridden in the area, and I have ridden up other mountains. When you're in a range of mountains, it's actually easier, in a way, because you do one climb before another. At Ventoux, there's really no way to prepare for the climb because it rises out of nowhere and on a summer day, the sun and win draw a lot out of you.

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Simpson Dies in Tour de France; Former World Bike Champion Stricken on Hilly Course French Investigate Use of Stimulants In Grueling Race

By John Hess Special To the New York Times

July 14, 1967

PARIS, July 13--Tom Simpson, a former world champion bicycle rider, collapsed during the Tour de France today and died as he was being flown by helicopter to a hospital at Avignon. View Full Article in Timesmachine »

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Tom Simpson during the 1967 Tour de France, during which the British rider died on the ascent of Mont Ventoux on 13 July 1967.

Tour has missed a chance to honour Tom Simpson by not going up Mont Ventoux

A s one cycles up Mont Ventoux, the 2,110m high “Giant of Provence”, impressions pile on another like the limestone boulders that make up the summit of the “bald mountain”: the heat, the gradient, the views; the lack of hairpins on what is largely a straight road up a mountainside, the moonscape after leaving the treeline; the sweat in one’s face, the ache in legs and feet and backside – and the energy gel wrappers.

Looking at the road as one tries to keep turning the pedals, one passes the wrappers one by one – at a rough guess there is an average of one per 10 or 20 metres. That is a very large number of gels, a heck of a lot of energy taken in and expended through the pedals. Many, many cyclists ride up this mountain and clearly they do not have very tidy habits.

Late last October, as light snow fell on the observatory at the summit, there were still a few pedalling painfully up on their bikes. This June, when I rode up, the Ventoux had another face: 30-degree heat at the foot where one enters the oak trees, five degrees and low cloud whipped by half a gale buffeting across the limestone scree between the twin summits, the aptly named Col des Tempêtes. Even so, there were hundreds of us, on an average summer Monday, slowly travelling up, then trying to avoid being blown off our bikes on the way down.

We entered the cloud just after the memorial to Tom Simpson, which sits a few metres above the road less than a kilometre from the summit. The polished granite recalls “an Olympic medallist, a world champion, a British sporting ambassador”. It also recalls one of sport’s great morality tales, one which still excites the imagination half a century after the miner’s son from Harworth, Nottinghamshire, collapsed, fell off his bike and died near this spot on 13 July 1967.

The experience of riding up Mont Ventoux had not changed substantially since 2001, when I felt I had to tackle the mountain as part of the research for my biography of Simpson, Put Me Back on My Bike , originally published in 2002 and re-issued this year with an updated foreword. The mountain still plays tricks with the mind – although the initial section through the forest that covers the lower slopes felt less steep and less claustrophobic than memory suggested – and the sweat still pours off the face, arms and legs. The names are still painted on the road, albeit with modern additions, and there are still no markers as on other major ascents. Once embarked without a GPS system one has little idea where one is.

Most telling of all is the fact that once the mountain has dictated one’s speed, there is nothing one can do to change it. With any attempt to change up the gears, increase the cadence or simply press harder, one lasts a certain amount of time before the heat in the body increases, the lactate builds in the legs, and one cracks. The constant gradient means there is no break in the rhythm, no chance to do anything other than plug away.

The Tom Simpson memorial on Mont Ventoux in the Alps is often on the Tour de France route but riders will not pass it in 2017.

The unremitting, monumental nature of the Ventoux surely played a part in the death of Simpson. There remains a sense that his death was partly predestined by the hostile nature of the mountain, something felt again when the wind blew and the temperature plummeted in the final kilometre to the observatory.

On 13 July 1967 it was heat that helped to kill him, combined with the amphetamines he had ingested in huge quantities. There is no “safe” use of these substances, whatever colleagues such as Jacques Anquetil might have claimed. Simpson’s doping was well known and emerged in horrifying detail as I wrote Put Me Back . It was chilling to hear the voice of Dr Pierre Dumas – himself long dead – describing the moment he found the amphetamine tubes in Simpson’s pockets, and to hear his team-mate Colin Lewis recall how he saw Simpson buying his “gear”.

Few men can claim an entire mountain as a vast memorial stone but Simpson has done this. He deserves to be remembered for more than a doping scandal: for his racing achievements, his world title, his Classic wins and his yellow jersey, for the love he inspired, the admiration he wrought out of hard-bitten race followers, for the family he built, for his charisma, his humour, his exuberant inquisitiveness and zany ambition. The full man, good and bad, is what we should recall, celebrating the good and recognising the bad, hoping the lessons can finally be learnt.

The Tour is fond of its heritage. The organisers are fully aware that in the 114 years of its history the race and the men who have made it have left complex snail trails of memories across the whole of France. Hence they make an effort each year to revisit the sites with resonance for the race’s past, with a nod to anniversaries. But there will be no visit this year to the Ventoux, which hosted a stage last year that served up the most dramatic moment of the race, when Chris Froome was forced to run up the final metres to the stage finish, moved down from the observatory to Chalet Renard due to high winds.

It is hard to avoid the sense that someone has missed a trick here. The 50th anniversary of Simpson’s death would have provided the Tour with a chance to do two things: to celebrate one of the pioneers of Anglophone cycling and at the same time to make a serious effort to engage with the issue of how it treats those proven in the past to have taken drugs. There is no consistency over past drug-taking. Lance Armstrong (guilty as hell) and Jan Ullrich (guilty as well) are not welcome; Alexandr Vinokourov (guilty as hell) and Richard Virenque (guilty as well) are fixtures in the caravan. By that measure Armstrong should be here, as should Ullrich.

To suggest that the 50th anniversary of Simpson’s death should be marked in some way by the race in which he died is not to condone doping and neither is the act of climbing the Ventoux with him in mind. One can acknowledge wrongdoing and condemn it while accepting that the person involved had better qualities as well. As I wrote in 2001: “Simpson should be remembered as an impulsive, intelligent, articulate and supremely charismatic man who had a single blind spot: his need to win at any cost. He was not a bad man, nor a foolish one, but he chose to join others in cheating and got caught out in the most dramatic manner imaginable.”

Those words still ring true to me. An honest, straightforward engagement with the issue would serve the Tour and cycling far better.

William Fotheringham’s Put Me Back on My Bike, In Search of Tom Simpson, is published in a new edition by Yellow Jersey press this month

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Tom Simpson

By owen mulholland.

Les Woodland's book Tour de France: The Inside Story - Making the World's Greatest Bicycle Race is available as an audiobook here. For the print and Kindle eBook versions, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

Owen Mulholland writes:

The specter of doping has haunted cycling. From bike racing's earliest days "the bomb" was always there to save a rider from his weakening self. In Europe it was an open secret. Even amateur riders toted around enough pills and vials and syringes to establish a small pharmacy. Some or these unidentified products may well have been vitamin supplements, but as for the rest ...

Victor Vincente (né Mike Hiltner), the first American in this century to win a road race in Italy, told me how he was once so amped up that even after a severe crash into a stone wall, he just babbled away while en route to the hospital in the ambulance

In retrospect, doping has provided the annals of cycling with some of its more amusing moments. There was, for instance, the case or Abd-el-Kader Zaf, a member of a professional North African team in the 1950 Tour de France. (Most of northern Africa was colonized in those days). On a boiling hot stage from Perpignan to Nimes Zaf broke away with a French rider. After establishing a good lead, Zaf began to weaken and finally collapsed under a tree where a local paisan tried to revive him with ample doses of red wine. Delirious from the heat, the effort, the drugs he'd taken, and the wine, he didn't come-to until he'd been carted off to a hospital. Finally realizing his situation he demanded that he be taken back to the roadside where he'd been picked up so he could ride the kilometers over which he'd been driven! Of course the time limit for the stage had long since elapsed and no amount of riding could save his elimination from the Tour

1966: Tom Simpson (far left) with Jacques Anquestil, Rudi Altig & Eddy Merckx.

But the incident that really made the issue inescapable was the death of Tom Simpson in the l967 Tour. Only then did the authorities finally wake up to the fact that this was a matter of life and death. Of course just what is dope and what is acceptable scientific preparation has remained a hot debate right to the present day. The post-Olympic blood doping furor was one of many recent incidents which show how sticky the issue is.

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However, there is an end of the continuum that leads from mineral water to human super-charging where all can agree certain substances must be banned. Taken in sufficient amounts, amphetamines have the ability to override the body's built-in safeguards. Quite simply, that is what happened to Tom Simpson on the most tragic day in our history, July 13, l967.

To this day, Simpson remains the greatest road rider England ever produced. Arriving in France in 1959, he quickly climbed the rungs of the continental professional ladder: 1960 - coming close to winning Paris-Roubaix; 1961 - a victory in the Tour of Flanders; 1962 - maillot jaune for a short time in the Tour de France; 1965 - World Champion.

Tom Simpson in the World Champion's Rainbow Jersey

Such achievements would have satisfied many riders, but Tom still dreamed of the ultimate, victory in the Tour de France. His brilliant but occasionally fragile constitution always seemed to let him down on some mountain stage. But hope springs eternal and 1967 began auspiciously.

He got off to a great start by winning Paris-Nice, the week long "race to the sun" in March. One of the men over whom he showed clear superiority was an up and coming young rider beginning his third season on the professional circuit. His name was Eddy Merckx .

As always, the Tour loomed as the centerpiece of Tom's season, and he wasn't enthralled when the organizers decided to revert to the old time formula of national teams. All through the season riders compete for their trade team sponsors, in Tom's case, Peugeot. Now the riders were supposed to forget all about those commitments and race for their respective countries. A small group of home grown English pros with almost no continental experience were all Tom could look to for teammates. He knew he would be on his own.

His game plan, therefore, was to ride cautiously on the flat and save himself for the mountains where the big time gaps would make all the difference. The 1967 Tour followed a clockwise direction across northern France before dropping south through the Vosges and Alps. Simpson survived these tests fairly well, although he'd had to put down the hammer very hard on several occasions.

July 13 began in Marseilles, and as he awaited the call to the line a Belgian journalist noted that Tom looked tired and asked if it was the heat. "No, it's not the heat." Tom replied. "It's the Tour." As events were to prove, this was a telling comment.

Still the heat could not be ignored. Already it was approaching 80 F in the old port city, and many riders winced at the thought of what lay before them. 100 was quite possible, and there was no protection whatsoever on the rocky face of Mt. Ventoux which they were scheduled to tackle around two in the afternoon.

The long approach slope to the base or the "Giant of Provence" (as Mt. Ventoux is known locally) served to shred the field and leave the big guns clustered at the front. Simpson, as expected, was the only member of his team to be in this group. After seven miles of grueling toil Tom began to slip back to a group of chasers about a minute behind. In that group was Lucien Aimar, the '66 Tour winner. He remembered how Tom hadn't been content to sit in the group, but kept trying to bridge the gap back up to the front bunch. But no matter how hard he tried, Tom simply could not maintain the tempo necessary to move up.

Suddenly Tom dropped from his little cluster of riders. Barely able to turn the pedals he began to weave across the road. In a hundred yards he collapsed. Immediately he was surrounded by spectators, and to them he appealed, in whispered gasps, "Put me back on my bike." These were to be his last words.

Tom Simpson (on left) in his final minutes.

The well-meaning fans lifted him onto the saddle and got him going with a good push. When the momentum dwindled in a few feet Simpson began his former zigzag course. Another hundred yards and Tom again tottered from the bike, this time utterly spent. He immediately lapsed into a coma and nothing the Tour doctor or a local hospital (where he was taken by helicopter) could do brought relief. In three hours Tom Simpson was dead, victim of his own indomitable will and the sorcery of his supposedly magical pills.

Tour de France and the tragedy of a County Durham rider on Mont Ventoux

Epic cycling event reaches Mont Ventoux where North East rider Tommy Simpson died in 1967

13:30, 14 JUL 2016

British cyclist Tommy Simpson (1937 - 1967) wearing the Tour de France race leader's yellow jersey

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Cyclists taking part in the Tour de France today will be racing over one of the event’s most iconic stages which holds a grim place in the history of North East sports.

It was on July 13, 1967 that County Durham’s Tommy Simpson - the first British rider ever to wear the famous maillot jaune (yellow jersey) as race leader - died on Mont Ventoux.

The 23km climb is rated one of the hardest in cycling with a one in 10 gradient at the summit. At 6,000 feet above sea level, the altitude makes it hard to breathe even when walking.

Today Chris Froome leads the race and it was on Mont Ventoux in 2013 he sprinted away from rival Alberto Contador which laid the foundation for the first of his two wins in the event.

People view the Tom Simpson memorial 1km from the finish of Stage 15 of Le Tour De France at the summit of Mont Ventoux in the Alps

On his way to the stage victory he would have passed a memorial to Simpson, paid for by the subscriptions of thousands of British riders, marking the spot where he fell.

As well as Simpson and Froome, other British riders who have worn the maillot jaune are Mark Cavendish, Chris Boardman, David Millar, Sean Yates and Bradley Wiggins .

In 2009 on the Mont Ventoux stage, Wiggins rode with a picture of Simpson attached to his bike frame.

He said then: “I don’t think enough is made of Tom.

“When you read about Simpson in encyclopedias then all it says is he died on the Ventoux on drugs. They don’t tend to mention what he achieved or that he wasn’t the only rider doing that.”

Tommy Simpson Cycling second in the Tour De France in Bordeaux on July 2, 1962

That day in 1967 riders were having to contend with a blistering heat. The temperature on the road was over 50°C and the white shale near the top reflected the sun back on to the competitors, intensifying the heat.

The tour doctor, Pierre Dumas, had taken a stroll at dawn before the race started and commented fatefully: “If the riders take something today, we’ll have a death on our hands.”

It proved to be Simpson’s. Just 2km from the summit he fell for the first time. Legend has it he gasped “put me back on my bike,” and set off again only to fall once more 500 yards further on. He could well have been dead before he hit the ground through heart failure brought on by exhaustion.

Riders of the 1994 Tour de France pass the Tommy Simpson memorial on Mont Ventoux

Simpson, then 29, was found with two tubes of amphetamines and a further empty tube in the rear pocket of his racing jersey and an autopsy later confirmed he had traces of amphetamine in his body.

The following day the reluctant cyclists set off again and fellow Brit Barry Hoban – who ironically was later to marry Simpson’s widow, Helen – was allowed to win the stage.

Simpson was born in Haswell, County Durham, in 1937 – the youngest of six children to miner Tom Simpson senior and his wife Alice. Tom senior worked at nearby South Hetton Colliery, while Alice ran Haswell Workingmen’s Club.

After the Second World War, the family moved to Harworth in north Nottinghamshire, another mining village, where Simpson grew up and developed an interest in cycling.

As well as being the first British rider to wear the famous yellow jersey, he was this country’s first cycling world champion. He won three of the five so-called Monument races – cycling’s equivalent of the Majors in golf and the Grand Slam tournaments in tennis. He was also one of the youngest riders ever to win an Olympic medal – bronze in Melbourne in 1956 – and such was his popularity he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1965.

Wiggins said: “He’s the Bobby Moore of British cycling and for me, for our sport, going up the Ventoux is like the England players going up the steps of the old Wembley stadium, following Bobby Moore.”

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Comment: Why we should all take a moment to remember Tom Simpson

On Thursday July 13, 1967, British cyclist Tom Simpson died near the top Mont Ventoux during the Tour de France. Fifty years on, his life will be remembered by lots of people in lots of different ways. This is why I think it’s important that Simpson, his career and his death, should be remembered

All photos: Cycling Weekly Archive

Fifty years ago today a young Tom Simpson died while racing the Tour de France, collapsing on the higher slopes of Mont Ventoux from the combined effects of heat, exhaustion and having alcohol and drugs in his system. He died while being transferred to hospital. It’s a well-known story that’s been told many times.

The Tour de France didn’t mark or remember his death at the start in Pau today, and this year’s route isn’t going to Mont Ventoux.

Organiser ASO has understandably said it didn’t want the Tour to become a pilgrimage. But for his death to go unmarked by the race in which he died feels a little... uncaring. His daughter Joanne will be marking the anniversary at his memorial on Mont Ventoux which she helped to refurbish last November.

>>>> Watch the new steps to the Simpson memorial being completed

There are many reasons Tom Simpson should be remembered, and his drug use is just one of them.

Each time we publish an article in praise of Simpson or simply remembering him and his achievements we get the inevitable correspondence – not to mention comments in the section below. ‘He was a cheat!’. ‘It’s hypocritical to laud someone who took drugs back then and vilify the likes of Lance Armstrong’ etc, etc.

Well, there are lots of reasons that Simpson is viewed differently, not just by Cycling Weekly but by other publications, fans and riders past and present. The first anti-doping tests at the Tour de France took place in 1966; the Olympic movement followed suit two years later at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

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But the introduction of what were fairly rudimentary tests didn’t flip a switch and change attitudes, morals, opinions and behaviour overnight. The attitudes of many back then, that doping is part and parcel of professional sport, were deeply entrenched and can sadly still be seen in very small pockets of the sport today.

Even once these tests did come into being, they were sporadic and regularly overturned. Consider Merckx’s at the 1969 Giro d’Italia, when a one-month suspension was overturned by cycling’s governing body simply to ‘give him the benefit of the doubt’.

There was little appetite or reason to enforce these new rules and potentially damage the sport and its riders. Doping was something that, at this time, was poorly understood, carried out by individuals and their ‘helpers’, and wasn’t exactly perceived as a wrongdoing.

We may not like the fact this happened back then, but to view drug taking in the context of today is to completely fail to understand the sport, its environment and how it has changed over the decades. No one is saying it’s right. It’s just how it was. Remember, Simpson even showed a journalist the drugs he was taking that day.

Poor anti-doping governance continued in to the 1990s; let's be honest, it took the formation of the independent World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 2000 to really make anti-doping a serious, respected and meaningful movement. That's one of the reasons it has taken so many generations to change attitudes.

Therefore to put Simpson in the bracket of Armstrong, Bjarne Riis et al. makes no sense. Simpson was racing at a time when the sport had few rules, and little moral compass outside of its own unwritten rules that did little more than reflect the wishes of the more powerful people in the sport.

Moving on. Simpson was a huge talent. A road race world champion , winner of Milan-San Remo , Bordeaux-Paris, Paris-Nice and Il Lombardia. His achievements, having moved abroad to Ghent knowing little of what was to come, were groundbreaking.

Brian Robinson had in fact paved the way in 1955 when he finished 29th in the Tour riding for the British national team. The Yorkshireman’s ride proved that British riders could perform on the biggest stage. His career left the door ajar, before Simpson kicked it open and bolted through.

His talent, charisma and leadership inspired others. One of the few stories Keith Butler (a man very modest about his riding achievements) has told me is the one of the 1965 World Champs. His sole job that day was to mark Jacques Anquetil. It was a small but important role and one that helped Simpson win. Being part of that winning team clearly meant a lot.

>>>> Tom Simpson: A life in pictures

There are few riders who come along and have such an effect on the sport and those around them. Even today when the pathway to Europe is a feasible option for a talented young British rider and we come to expect a British Tour win, there are really only a handful who hit the heights winning Grand Tours, Monuments and world titles.

Back then it was unimaginable, but Simpson did it, and he did it with a smile on his face and a personality that endeared him to his fans back home and the traditional French public. Major Tom, as he was known, was one of cycling’s first superstars.

But all that was lost overnight, and everything changed.

His death was devastating to his family and friends and dealt a huge blow to cycling in the UK. Such was Simpson’s status and presence that, Barry Hoban’s Tour stage wins aside, success abroad ceased almost immediately.

The door to racing in Europe seemed to have closed again and only opened sporadically when similarly talented individuals like Robert Millar, Chris Boardman and David Millar came along.

Simpson's death did to cycling then what losing lottery funding would do today.

His death was a tragedy on both a personal and sporting level. He was a victim of his own ambition and of a sport that had questionable morals at best, few rules and little or no duty of care.

Simpson played by the unwritten rules, desperate to win and perhaps to be adored. He was a victim of the sport that didn’t care about or understand the risks and paid the ultimate price. His story is as relevant today, if and when the sport ever stops and asks itself, are we doing enough?

That’s why we need to remember.

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Editor of Cycling Weekly magazine , Simon has been working at the title since 2001. He fell in love with cycling 1989 when watching the Tour de France on Channel 4, started racing in 1995 and in 2000 he spent one season racing in Belgium. During his time at CW (and Cycle Sport magazine) he has written product reviews, fitness features, pro interviews, race coverage and news. He has covered the Tour de France more times than he can remember along with two Olympic Games and many other international and UK domestic races. He became the 130-year-old magazine's 13th editor in 2015.

The three-stage race has existed in its current format since 2022

By Adam Becket Published 14 June 24

Louis Garneau and his Major Taylor paintings

Louis Garneau painted 100 pieces in 24 hours to support upcoming Major Taylor Film 'Whirlwind'

By Tim Peck Published 14 June 24

New monument to British cyclist Tom Simpson is unveiled in Haswell during the 50th anniversary year of the rider's death on Mont Ventoux

By Nigel Wynn Published 18 September 17

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Tom Simpson's death on Mont Ventoux on July 13 1967 while riding the Tour de France. This gallery from the archives tells of the story of Tom Simpson's decorated life and career

By Jack Elton-Walters Published 13 July 17

Sir Bradley Wiggins paid a visit to the Bircotes and Harworth Sports and Social Club to take a look at the Tommy Simpson memorabilia

By Nigel Wynn Published 19 December 16

Paired with exclusive photography from the Cycling Weekly archive, Chris Sidwells looks back on the year his uncle Tom Simpson won the world title

By Chris Sidwells Published 30 December 15

In celebration of Lizzie Armitstead's win in the World Championships, we look at the six British professional riders who have worn the rainbow stripes on the road, and give a special mention to Britain's two amateur World Champions

By Jack Elton-Walters Published 29 September 15

Originally retailing at £130, one eBay auctioneer is set to make a quick buck by flogging his limited edition Rapha Tom Simpson jersey for £205

By Stuart Clarke Published 15 September 15

The word ‘chequer’ is derived from the Persian ‘shah’ or king, so it’s entirely appropriate that the Peugeot jersey was worn by cycling royalty in its 23-year existence

By Simon Smythe Published 16 June 15

Tom Simpson's memorial stone re-erected after being blown over in gale-force winds on Mont Ventoux. Photos by Chris Hodgson

By Chris Sidwells Published 21 May 14

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Netflix's Tour de France: Unchained - Gino Mäder's death hangs heavily over the second season

C ycling is supposed to be having its moment. Netflix and the Tour de France organisers hoped to drive a huge influx of new fans to pro cycling via the Tour de France: Unchained series. Can the second season push fans into the sport like Drive to Survive did for Formula 1?

Previewing the series before today's release, one major flaw stuck out that will probably prevent the series from tapping into the US market like Drive to Survive did: The biggest influx of new fans to F1 came from North America and it might be that Unchained: Tour de France is too French to have the same effect.

Netflix France was behind the show and it seems as if they formulated a script to appeal to the home base rather than to try to reach across the Atlantic. The show uses Steve Chainel and Orla Chennaoui as narrators, giving a nice balance between a pro commentator and ex-professional cycling. While Chainel has great insights, there are numerous established English-speaking former pro commentators who could have provided the same service without the subtitles.

Having to read subtitles isn't a big problem for most Americans, especially younger generations who watch TV with the closed captions on even if it's in their native language, but the way the subtitles jump between the bottom of the screen and the top and disappear amid light backgrounds was super frustrating and distracted from the content.

The season also spends more time on French riders than on other stories that are more appealing to Netflix's largest customer base in North America, and it spends too much time on a petty squabble between team managers Richard Plugge and Marc Madiot without really getting to the heart of the issue.

There were 22 teams in the 2023 Tour de France but if you watch Unchained, you wouldn't know it. Lidl-Trek are hardly mentioned and Mads Pedersen's win on stage 8 is skipped over in between episodes 3 and 4.

Even with a French production, the series overshadows Cofidis' first stage win in 15 years , framing Victor Lafay's stellar stage 2 victory as a massive failure for Wout van Aert. Movistar, DSM, Intermarché, Israel-Premier Tech, Jayco-AlUla, Arkéa-Samsic, Lotto Dstny, Uno-X and TotalEnergies hardly get a mention.

Yes, teams have to sign on to be in the series but how realistic a portrayal of the Tour de France is it if half of the peloton is completely ignored?

From the teams that are featured, there is plenty for even the most devoted cycling aficionados to enjoy, with pre-race interviews in riders' homes and other never-before-seen moments. The in-race visuals are stunning and the production reproduces the feeling of being on the Tour by amping up the contrast between the raucous noise of the crowds on the climbs and the silence on the descent.

The series does a great job of digging deep into topics like how Bahrain Victorious riders cope with the tragic death of Gino Mäder , AG2R La Mondiale's inner struggles after Ben O'Connor's GC ambitions evaporated, and Thibaut Pinot's search for glory in his final Tour.

However, the outline of the series is also somewhat disjointed as the producers backtrack to follow different storylines, and like the race itself, the thrilling battle between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard is over before the show's season, making the last couple of episodes a French-focussed denouement.

While there might not be as much broad appeal as the producers hoped, the seasoned cycling fan will find it hard to stop bingeing.

Episode 1: No Risk, No Reward

The series opens with in-home interviews with Julian Alaphilippe, Thibaut Pinot, and Tadej Pogačar, highlights Pogačar's crash in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and has one very poignant scene from AG2R's training camp where the team's trainer has to tell Ben O'Connor that his friend Mäder has died. Two weeks later, Mäder's teammates and friends have to start the Tour de France. Alaphilippe sums it up: "It makes you realise you're nothing on this earth - we're nothing, especially me on a bike".

The rest of the episode focuses on EF-EasyPost's GC hopes evaporating when Richard Carapaz crashes and ends with Lafay's stage win. Unfortunately, even though the American team were signed on to star in the series, most of their coverage ends along with Carapaz's abandon.

It seems as if the producers started with who won and worked their way backwards to find the good stories rather than the other way around, and that's not how pro cycling works.

Episode 2: The Third Man

This episode focuses on Ben O'Connor's GC hopes, which started to evaporate on stage 4 and contrasts his fortune and his personality with compatriot Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), who took the yellow jersey on the same stage. O'Connor comes off as quite whiny, negative and a bit entitled compared with Hindley, which hardly seems fair. He gets a chance for his gracious side to show later on in the season, however.

This episode also features Pogačar's time loss on the stage and his comeback on the next stage.

Striking : this episode made me wonder what Grischa Niermann did to deserve such an unflattering camera angle.

Episode 3: No Mercy

Jasper Philipsen gets his well-deserved highlight, transforming from 'Jasper disaster' in season 1 to the best sprinter in the race. He even folds his clothes! We also get to see Mark Cavendish and Fabio Jakobsen's races get ruined by crashes.

The episode looks back on Van Aert's horrific 2019 Tour de France crash and zooms in on the massive scar on his hip during a massage.

Striking : There's something vaguely unsettling about how Alpecin-Deceuninck director Christoph Roodhooft is framed in shadows as if they're trying to portray him as a crime boss - telling Philipsen to push the other sprinters.

Surely he didn't mean it literally but Roodhooft's comment makes it seem like the ensuing incident where Philipsen boxed Van Aert in along the barriers as the road curved as planned.

Episode 4: For Gino

Bahrain Victorious feature heavily in this episode as the team fight to win a stage in memory of Mäder. Pello Bilbao and Matej Mohorič come away as the most human characters in the entire season, and neither can contain their emotions when talking about their fallen teammate but use their grief as motivation.

Mohorič climbs out of his skin amid the dead silence on the Puy de Dôme but is passed by Michael Woods and misses the stage win. Then, Bilbao gets the win on stage 10 and the emotion comes pouring out in the post-stage interview.

It's too bad the show decided to interrupt this compelling life-and-death storyline to fold in more drama between O'Connor and his AG2R management as they switch GC focus to Felix Gall.

Striking : In context, Bilbao's interview is even more powerful than it was on the day, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house last July.

Episode 5: The Enemy Within

We get a rare look inside the headless Ineos Grenadiers team who are in their first Tour de France without a podium contender. No spoilers, but Tom Pidcock doesn't come off well as the team find Carlos Rodriguez to be the more dependable GC rider.

Striking : Tom Pidcock jokes he's going to attack over the top of the Joux Plane and descend to the win before stage 14 but it's Rodriguez who actually does it. Editing or fact?

Episode 6: Domination

The yellow jersey contenders finally come back into focus after four episodes of sideshows. Unfortunately, the 15 stages where the battle was excruciatingly tight ended up largely on the cutting room floor to make room for the crushing performance of Vingegaard in the stage 16 time trial, and the subsequent speculation about doping. Groupama-FDJ seem to be the main instigators of the trash talk as a foreshadowing.

Striking : The best part of the episode is the race director's car stalling out on the climb to Courchevel - the cameras provide a real feeling of frustration and panic - and Gall's reaction to his stage win. The worst was poor Pogačar's devastating collapse.

Episode 7: Kamikaze Mission

Soudal-Quickstep is the focus of this episode. With Fabio Jakobsen heading home due to his crash injuries, the team are facing their first Tour de France in decades without a stage win. Kasper Asgreen to the rescue! It's too bad Lotto Dstny weren't part of the series because Victor Campenaerts deserved to be featured after ensuring that the breakaway succeeded only for his teammate Pascal Eenkhoorn to get beaten.

The episode ends with more Mohorič - including some footage of him training in Slovenia and revealing how much analysis he does about every aspect of cycling. The episode brings together all of the previous ones when Mohorič, O'Connor and Asgreen end up in the three-man breakaway on stage 18 and Mohorič gets the team's third stage win .

Striking : What happened to Wout Poels' victory on stage 15? Was he not emotional enough?

Mohorič's post-stage interview - with him explaining how cycling is cruel because only one rider can win, and 'you almost feel like you've betrayed them because you beat them' - is stitched in beautifully with clips of Asgreen being frustrated.

This should be the first episode to show to any non-cycling fans who want to get into the sport.

Episode 8: The Last Dance

What should have been a wrap-up of a thrilling Tour de France descends into that previously mentioned petty squabble. The episode begins with Marc Madiot having to explain to his riders how Jumbo-Visma boss Richard Plugge has said the team aren't serious because they drink beer during the Tour.

It's classic deflection by Plugge, going on the attack to change the narrative over speculation that Vingegaard must be doping because of his huge winning margin. So, when Madiot refuses to just laugh it off, Plugge wins. The final episode is too much about whether or not Groupama-FDJ riders drink beer.

Thibaut Pinot's final chance at glory has some great in-race visuals of his supporters crowding the roadsides and then booing at Vingegaard. "Thanks for that, Richard," Niermann says as we can hear impacts on the of who-knows-what on the team car.

We get to see Pogačar out-sprint Vingegaard to win stage 20, and Meeus winning the final sprint stage but if the Netflix producers wanted to make this show memorable to non-cycling fans to get them interested in the sport, one has to question why they spent so much time on Groupama-FDJ's beer consumption.

In between Mäder's death and the final stage of the 2023 Tour de France, there are many moments not captured in this season of Unchained that could have made for a better series. However, the eight episodes are still must-see watching for a cycling fan.

Striking : After Jordi Meeus wins the final stage ahead of four-time stage winner Jasper Philipsen, Bora-Hansgrohe's DS Rolf Aldag actually says that Meeus "is the only sprinter to beat Philipsen in the whole Tour de France" - and the directors fail to correct that - Mads Pedersen beat him on stage 8.

Netflix's Tour de France: Unchained - Gino Mäder's death hangs heavily over the second season

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How Did OJ Simpson Die? Nicole Brown Simpson’s Sisters Talk About His Death & Lifetime Documentary

Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of death. Reader discretion is advised.

OJ Simpson was considered one of the most influential names in NFL history. However, his life turned upside down after the gruesome murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson . After authorities found her body just outside her house, they initiated an investigation. Although they arrested OJ for her murder, the court found him not guilty. In the following years, OJ found himself in several controversies and died at the age of 76 due to prostate cancer. The Lifetime documentary The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson sees Simpson Brown’s sisters talking about the murder and how OJ’s death affected them.

On April 11, 2024, a day after OJ Simpson’s death, his family confirmed the news of his death on social media. They announced that he passed away after battling cancer and was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. They added , “During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.” A couple of weeks later, NBC New York confirmed his cause of death and reported that OJ Simpson died due to prostate cancer.

In a recent interview, Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters opened up about how the documentary made them learn about certain things. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter , Denise Brown said, “I think we all were kind of taken back. We were talking about Nicole and the abuse, and what we found out was something completely different.” The trio also shared that OJ Simpson’s death affected them in several ways.

What did Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters say about OJ Simpson’s trial and recent death?

On January 24, 1995, the trial of OJ Simpson began, and the prosecution tried to prove his involvement in the murder. Almost nine months later, the court acquitted him of all charges in the murder case of Nicole Brown Simpson. In an interview with ABC News , Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister, Denise Brown, shared how the “not guilty” verdict shocked them. During the interview, Brown said, “I thought it was gonna be a hung jury. We were told by Judge [Lance] Ito, ‘Nobody make a noise.'” However, she said that the verdict made her “numb.”

Meanwhile, talking about OJ Simpson’s death , Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters claimed that it affected them in different ways. Denise revealed that she didn’t know much about OJ’s condition, while Tanya noted that she and Dominique cried together after his death. Tanya told The Hollywood Reporter , “Minnie (Dominique) and I, we cried together… It was another piece of Nicole. Now O.J.’s gone, and now it’s like another piece of Nicole and my story.”

On the other hand, Dominique cried at the news of OJ Simpson’s death because of Nicole Brown Simpson’s children. She said, “My mind goes to the children right away. I think that was why I cried, because the kids don’t have any parents anymore.”

The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson is available to stream on Lifetime.

The post How Did OJ Simpson Die? Nicole Brown Simpson’s Sisters Talk About His Death & Lifetime Documentary appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

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Dear Deidre

Who was Tom Simpson and how did the cyclist die on Mont Ventoux riding the 1967 Tour de France?

This year's Tour marks the 50th anniversary of his untimely, controversial death at the world's biggest bike race

david hughes
Published : 14:31, 13 Jul 2017
Updated : 14:34, 13 Jul 2017

TOM Simpson was Britain's first road cycling world champion, a rider whose success earned him the Sports Personality of the Year award – before it all ended in tragedy and controversy.

With this year's Tour de France marking the 50th anniversary of his untimely death, here's the lowdown on a forgotten British sporting icon.