Tom Simpson - victim of cycling and circumstance

By Esteban Engel Jul 11, 2007, 4:25 GMT

Compiegne, France - The barren landscape high up Mont Ventoux was the setting and Tom Simpson the doomed rider.

The last photos, already high up the 1,912-metre Provence mountain in sweltering heat, show the Briton with hollow eyes, cap slightly moved sideways, shirt partly open and his fingers clasping the handlebar.

The blurry black-and-white TV footage captures some of Simpson's final zig-zagging before he collapses into the arms of team mechanics and is lifted off the bike.

Doctors fight in vain to save his life on July 13, 1967.

'In hindsight it seems almost inevitable that the combination of poor hydration, stimulants and naked ambition was going to kill someone. That someone was Tom Simpson,' the cyclingnews website once said.

It could have also been Frenchman Jean Mallejac, who barely survived after collapsing further down the same mountain during the 1955 Tour de France.

The use of various substance was not new to the Tour, as riders had in fact used alcohol and later amphetamines to help them through the gruelling race.

The first doping tests were introduced in 1966 but the first Tour ban for the use of amphetamines did not come until 1968 when Jose Samyn was caught.

In addition, the effects of dehydration were unknown and riders limited to two litres of water each from team cars - making them scramble for additional liquid from fans, cafes or fountains.

Simpson, born November 30, 1937, was Britain's brightest cycling star in the 1960s - having won the road racing world title 1965, the Tour of Flanders in 1961, Milan-San Remo 1964 and Paris-Nice earlier in the 1967 Tour de France.

What was missing was a real impact at the world's biggest race, the Tour de France, where he briefly wore the yellow jersey in 1962.

Aged 29 and placed sixth overall, Simpson made his move for fame on Thursday, July 13, 1967, on the 13th stage between Marseille and Carpentras - even though temperatures soared at 45 degrees celsius and he was weakened by a stomach bug.

Simpson broke away early on the climb up the Ventoux, after reportedly having some brandy before the 21km climb. He was later passed by the eventual stage winner Julio Jiminez and others before starting to zig-zag some two kilometres away from the summit.

Mechanics put him back on his bike as Simpson rode on for a few hundred metres before collapsing into their arms.

Simpson's last words were 'On, on, on' and not the famous 'Put me back on my bike.'

Tour doctor Pierre Dumas said that Simpson was clinically dead when he arrived on the scene, and all efforts to revive him failed. Simpson was airlifted to hospital and then officially pronounced dead.

According to The Independent, the post mortem said: 'Death was due to a cardiac collapse which may be put down to exhaustion, in which unfavourable weather conditions, an excessive workload, and the use of medicines of the type discovered on the victim may have played a part.

'The doses of amphetamines ingested by Simpson could not have led to his death on its own, but on the other hand it could have led him to go beyond the limit of his strength and thus bring on the appearance of certain troubles linked to his exhaustion.'

Many like French star Jacques Anquetil, the five-time Tour winner who much later admitted he used them as well, disputed that amphetamines played a role in his death even though three tubes of them were found in his back pocket.

Former team-mates Pete Ryalls told Tuesday's edition of The Independent daily it was unfair that the drugs issue has taken centre stage.

'What you've got to realise is that there was no such thing as banned stimulants for much of that decade. Stimulants were taken by everybody. Period,' he said.

This somewhat echoes the latest doping confessions in the sports - showing that nothing has changed over the years - from riders such as German Joerg Jaksche.

'I did what I had to do to be better in my job. The logic behind it is that you adjust your performance level to that of the others because everyone is doing it (doping). You live in a parallel world in cycling,' Jaksche said.

William Fotheringham also highlighted this parallel world in his Simpson-biography titled 'Put me back on my bike.'

'Tom Simpson was a victim of the system of exploitation and insecurity, but he had no illusions about what he was doing, and cannot be held up as an innocent. He was working the system as hard as he could, and it backfired,' Fotheringham said.

'He chose to join others in cheating and got caught out in the most dramatic manner imaginable.'

What's left is a granite memorial at the site where Simpson died, a site the riders like to salute when the Tour de France includes the Ventoux.