At seven in the morning, 38 runners started at La Casilla yesterday. At that time it was raining torrentially.” This is how El Noticiero Bilbaíno began the Time.news of the start of the newborn Tour of the Basque Country. That August 7, 1924, the runners covered 182 kilometers from Bilbao to Pamplona, with steps through Sodupe, Orduña -where there was a signature control-, Murgia, Vitoria -20 minute stop for supplies- and Alsasua.
The news, lost in the fourth of the eight pages of the newspaper, was barely visible. The headlines were for ‘The moral ravages of Bolshevism’, the town’s festival program (parades, pilgrimages, big heads, silly soup, Hungarian frying pan, dances in the ‘Bilbaína’ and the ‘Sitio’, and regattas of chanelas, drifters , boats and skiffs) and the events (‘Formidable fire in a pine forest’, ‘One who chokes and suffocates to death’).
And it is that the return was still a novelty without echo. The germ of the race was planted by the Excelsior newspaper, directed at the time by Jacinto Miquelarena, and had the impetus of the Count of Villalonga, who was president of Athletic. Those responsible for the Bilbao publication called the French newspaper L’Auto, organizer of the Tour. They wanted to have the best cyclists in the world. Henri Desgrange, director of the Grande Boucle, welcomed the initiative and contacted the stars: the Pélissier brothers (Henri had won the 1923 Tour), Fontán, Brunier, legendary names whose exploits were covered by all the European newspapers. .
Deep down, the birth of cycling had little to do with romance. It was more of a business issue. At that time, two almost inseparable products had to be sold: bicycles and newspapers. Selling in Paris, where they invented the Tour de France, and also in Bilbao, the cradle of the first Tour of the Basque Country. Miquelarena, journalist, writer, war correspondent and bourgeois with plant, left sentences like this: “There is only one love until death, the last one!”. Worshipful, ironic and with the ability to adapt to situations. Before writing for Falangist publications, he was director of Excelsior, a nationalist newspaper from Bilbao, a paper gift from tycoon William Randolph Hearst to the PNV for supporting the De la Sota shipping company for the allied side during World War I. The fact is that Miquelarena saw cycling as a market for distributing newspapers. The new showcase. He hit.
ran in august
In 1924, world sport was watching Johnny ‘Tarzan’ Weissmüller, double Olympic champion, and the Finnish Paavo Nurmi, capable of winning the 1,500 and 5,000 meter events in Paris with only half an hour of rest between the two races. In Bilbao, the Excelsior reported the appearance of an abandoned child on Viuda de Epalza street. He was only five years old. Nobody claimed him and he ended up in the hands of the Child Protection Board. One less mouth at home. The rest of the pages were for sports. For the boxer Paulino Uzcudun, a star in the British press. “Throw him out, throw in boxers, he will give a good account of them!”, he read. In the Baracaldés Fronton, Chato de Gallarta faced Marquesito. And, of course, some pages were dedicated to the first edition of the Basque round, which ran from the 7th to the 10th of that month of August.
The race filled newspapers and also gutters. Miquelarena had convinced the councils to put tar on the roads. All for the dough. And he had Henri Desgrange as an ally. The French manager was interested in the Basque market, a good prey for French bicycle manufacturers. In fact, the Excelsior was filled with advertisements for Christophe bicycles, the company of the legendary French racer, and Automoto, the brand that had an overwhelming slogan: “This bike swallows the roads.” Cycling sold. The Frenchmen Francis and Henri Pélissier, forged on the roads of Tour, dominated the initial edition of the Tour of the Basque Country at will.