Pic of the Day Special - Wim Van Est
Oscar, those pics of Wim Van Est's wrecked Garin are great! Who would have guessed that bike would still be around? Where were those pictures taken?
(If you missed Oscar Casander's pictures yesterday, take a look:)
http://home.wanadoo.nl/
I'm sure many of you have seen the pic in the Tour de France history books of Van Est being pulled up the stone wall with a "rope" of tubulars. I searched through the magazines last night, and here are a few more pictures from "But et Club - Le Miroir des Sports" magazine, No.305, 19 July 1951, reporting the incident.
http://www.birfield.com/
Pic #1 Wim Van Est, magnificent winner of stage 12 from Agen to Dax, 1951 Tour de France. That's Van Est on the left, wearing the Yellow Jersey, with team director Kaas Pellenaers on the right in the dark shirt. Van Est's time in the Yellow Jersey was to be surprisingly short!
Pic #2 Stage 13, Dax to Tarbes, 1951 Tour de France. Single frame from the movie filmed by Henri Persin, showing the retrieval of Wim Van Est from a ravine. Van Est rode of the edge of the road while descending the Aubisque, falling some 230 feet.
Pic #3 Another frame from the movie, showing Van Est looking back up the mountainside toward the road. His wreched Garin bicycle is visible in the background.
Pic #4 Van Est, assisted back up the mountainside.
Pic #5 Same again.
Pic #6 Taken from the road... here's a large view showing just how far Wim Van Est fell. The red arrow indicates the location of the first movie still, the green arrow shows someone retrieving the bicycle. Click on the picture for a larger version.
Pic #7 I think this is the photograph shown in the Tour books... it took a rope made of three or four tubulars to pull him the last 10 feet up the stone wall.
Pic #8 Next day, in the hospital. Does he realize just how lucky he is to be alive, or is it the pretty nurse which has him smiling again?
Aldo Ross
Blue Ball, Ohio