Rudi Altig

Rudi Altig (; 18 March 1937 – 11 June 2016) was a German professional track and road racing cyclist who won the 1962 Vuelta a España and the world championship in 1966. After his retirement from sports he worked as a television commentator.

Amateur career

Rudi Altig was born in Mannheim, Baden, Germany, an area which had produced good track riders. He began racing in 1952, following his older brother, Willi. at a meeting on Herne Hill velodrome in Good Friday in 1956. He said:

What a pair they made! They just about slaughtered a top-class field of international riders, with all our best home lads. Only Michel Rousseau, later that year to become world sprint champion, was able to take a points sprint from them. That was in the first sprint, too; thereafter the German pair gained not only every sprint for points but every prime [lap prize] as well ... They went on to Coventry [another meeting held over Easter] and did much the same thing, winning everything in which they rode, so classy was their performance.

Professional track career Altig was allowed by the Union Cycliste Internationale to turn professional in 1960 within a year of his world championship.

Road career

Altig started his professional career as a track rider; it was Raphaël Géminiani who persuaded him his future was on the road. Altig agreed because fame on the road would give him better contracts on the track. He won the Vuelta a España and three of its stages in 1962. He led the general classification for five days in his first Tour de France that same season, winning three stages and the points competition, and finishing 31st.

He won his first classic in 1964, the Tour of Flanders after riding 60 km alone and winning by four minutes. In the same year he won the German National Road Race. In 1965 he finished second to Englishman Tom Simpson in the professional road championship in San Sebastián, Spain. Simpson said:

I could not accept that Altig could beat me. Going round the back of the circuit we came to a gentleman's agreement. Both of us had worked hard in our little break and therefore we each deserved an equal chance of victory. We agreed to separate when we reached the one kilometre to go board and ride in side by side. Altig was quite happy about this for I am sure he thought he could put it across me. So there we were, two gentlemen virtually fighting a duel over the last kilometre. I was glad that Altig had accepted my proposal for it was the fairest way out. I have always regarded him as a great rider and his showing that day did nothing to make me change my mind.

But the world title was not denied for long: he won the 1966 championship not too far away from his home, at the Nürburgring. There was controversy because Altig had been helped by Gianni Motta, riding that day for Italy but normally Altig's companion in the Molteni team. The concern was quickly overshadowed by the refusal of the first three riders to give urine samples for a drugs check. They were protesting at what they saw was the laxity with which tests were carried out and at what they considered restrictions on the way they prepared themselves. Altig said: "We are professionals, not sportsmen." The three were disqualified and suspended but ten days later the Union Cycliste Internationale allowed the result to stand. He also took two stages of that year's Vuelta, finishing 18th overall. In 1969 he finished 9th in the Giro, and won the prologue individual time trial of the Tour de France.

Jacques Anquetil Altig rode his first Tour as a domestique and as team sprinter for Jacques Anquetil. The two developed a rocky relationship in the Tour of Spain that hardened when Altig took the yellow jersey early in the Tour de France. to keep his lead through the mountains. The two never became close until they rode for different teams.

That same year the two were paired for the Trofeo Baracchi, a 111 km two-man time-trial in Italy. The writer René de Latour wrote:

Generally in a race of the Barrachi type, the changes are very rapid, with stints of no more than 300 yards. Altig was at the front when I started the check - and he was still there a minute later. Something must be wrong. Altig wasn't even swinging aside to invite Anquetil through... Suddenly, on a flat road, Anquetil lost contact and a gap of three lengths appeared between the two partners. There followed one of the most sensational things I have ever seen in any form of cycle racing during my 35 years' association with the sport - something which I consider as great a physical performance as a world hour record or a classic road race win. Altig was riding at 30mph at the front - and had been doing so for 15 minutes. When Anquetil lost contact, he had to ease the pace, wait for his partner to go by, push him powerfully in the back, sprint to the front again after losing 10 yards in the process, and again settle down to a 30mph stint at the front. Altig did not this just once but dozens of times. Of his fellow German, Jan Ullrich, he said he would do better to talk less about what he was going to do and get on and do it.

Major results Road

1960 1st Stage 7 Deutschland Tour 1961 4th Genoa–Nice 6th Overall Deutschland Tour 1962

1st Stages 2, 5 (TTT), 7 & 15 (ITT) 1st Critérium des As 1st Grand Prix de Cannes 1st Manx Trophy 1st Trofeo Baracchi (with Jacques Anquetil) Tour de France

1st Stages 1, 3 & 17

1st Stage 6 Paris–Nice Deutschland Tour 1st Stages 2 & 3 2nd Road race, National Road Championships 1963

1st Stage 1 2nd Overall Paris–Nice 1st Stages 2 & 5 2nd Rund um den Henninger Turm 9th Road race, National Road Championships 1964

1st Stages 3 & 4 1st Tour of Flanders 1st GP Union Dortmund 1st Grand Prix du Parisien (TTT) Tour de France 1st Stage 4

1st Stage 8b (ITT) Paris–Nice 2nd Paris–Camembert 2nd Manx Trophy 3rd Gran Premio di Lugano 3rd Trofeo Baracchi (with Tom Simpson) 6th La Flèche Wallonne 6th Rund um den Henninger Turm 8th Overall Tour of Belgium 1st Stage 2 1965 1st Stage 3 Vuelta a España Circuit du Provençal 1st Stages 1 & 2

2nd Overall Paris–Nice

1st Stages 1, 4 & 6b 2nd Grand Prix des Nations 3rd Critérium des As 4th Genoa–Nice 7th Rund um den Henninger Turm 1966

1st Giro del Piemonte 1st Giro di Toscana 1st Bol d'Or des Monédières Tour de France 1st Stages 1, 12 & 22b (ITT)

Giro d'Italia 1st Stages 7 & 11

3rd La Flèche Wallonne 3rd Genoa–Nice 6th Overall Paris–Nice 1st Stage 3 6th Paris–Roubaix 8th GP Alghero 1967 1st Milano–Vignola Giro d'Italia 1st Stages 6 & 11 3rd Paris–Roubaix 3rd Giro di Campania 4th Trofeo Baracchi (with Felice Gimondi) 5th Overall Paris–Luxembourg 1968 1st Milan–San Remo Vuelta a España 1st Stages 3b & 5

2nd Tour of Flanders 2nd Baden-Baden (with Jacques Anquetil) 3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico 1st Stage 2 3rd Gran Premio di Lugano 9th Road race, National Road Championships 1969 1st Gran Premio di Lugano 1st Maël-Pestivien Tour de France 1st Prologue

2nd Baden-Baden (with Vittorio Adorni) 9th Overall Giro d'Italia 1970

1st Rund um den Henninger Turm 1st Sassari-Cagliari 1st Prologue Tour de Suisse 1st Stage 5 Paris–Nice 1st Stage 3 Paris–Luxembourg 2nd Tour des Quatre-Cantons 3rd Overall Vuelta a Mallorca 1st Stage 4 4th Overall Tour de Romandie 4th Mont Faron Hill Climb

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

Classics results timeline Monuments results timeline Monument 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971Milan–San Remo——24——DSQ2949—1—37—Tour of Flanders————111—34712———Paris–Roubaix——32——111263—14——Liège–Bastogne–Liège———————18—————Giro di LombardiaDid not contest during career

Major championship results timeline

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish DSQ Disqualified

Track 1960

1961