Thomas Simpson (30 November 1937 – 13 July 1967) was one of Britain's most successful professional cyclists. He was born in Haswell, County Durham, and later moved to Harworth, Nottinghamshire. Simpson began road cycling as a teenager before taking up track cycling, specialising in pursuit races. He won a bronze medal for track cycling at the 1956 Summer Olympics and a silver at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.
In 1959, at age 21, Simpson was signed by the French professional road-racing team . He advanced to their first team () the following year, and won the 1961 Tour of Flanders. Simpson then joined ; in the 1962 Tour de France he became the first British rider to wear the yellow jersey, finishing sixth overall.
In 1963 Simpson moved to , winning Bordeaux–Paris that year and the 1964 Milan–San Remo. In 1965 he became Britain's first professional world road race champion and won the Giro di Lombardia; this made him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the first cyclist to win the award. Injuries hampered much of Simpson's 1966 season. He won two stages of the 1967 Vuelta a España before he won the general classification of Paris–Nice that year.
In the thirteenth stage of the 1967 Tour de France, Simpson collapsed and died during the ascent of Mont Ventoux. He was 29 years old. The post-mortem examination found that he had mixed amphetamines and alcohol; this diuretic combination proved fatal when combined with the heat, the hard climb of the Ventoux and a stomach complaint. A memorial near where he died has become a place of pilgrimage for many cyclists. Simpson was known to have taken performance-enhancing drugs during his career, when no doping controls existed. He is held in high esteem by many fans for his character and will to win.
Early life and amateur career
Childhood and club racing
Simpson was born on 30 November 1937 in Haswell, County Durham, the youngest of six children of coal miner Tom Simpson and his wife Alice (née Cheetham). His father had been a semi-professional sprinter in athletics. The family lived modestly in a small terraced house until 1943, when his parents took charge of the village's working men's club and lived above it. In 1950 the Simpsons moved to Harworth on the Nottinghamshire–Yorkshire border, where young Simpson's maternal aunt lived; new coalfields were opening, with employment opportunities for him and older brother Harry, by now, the only children left at home. Simpson rode his first bike, his brother-in-law's, at age 12, sharing it with Harry and two cousins for time trials around Harworth. Following Harry, Tom joined Harworth & District CC (Cycling Club) aged 13. He delivered groceries in the Bassetlaw district by bicycle and traded with a customer for a better road bike. He was often left behind in club races; members of his cycling club nicknamed him "four-stone Coppi", after Italian rider Fausto Coppi, due to his slim physique.
Simpson began winning club time trials, but sensed resentment of his boasting from senior members. He left Harworth & District and joined Rotherham's Scala Wheelers at the end of 1954. Simpson's first road race was as a junior at the Forest Recreation Ground in Nottingham. After leaving school he was an apprentice draughtsman at an engineering company in Retford, using the commute by bike as training. He placed well in half mile races on grass and cement, but decided to concentrate on road racing. In May 1955 Simpson won the National Cyclists' Union South Yorkshire individual pursuit track event as a junior; the same year, he won the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) junior hill climb championship and placed third in the senior event.
Simpson immersed himself in the world of cycling, writing letters asking for advice. Naturalised Austrian rider George Berger responded, travelling from London to Harworth to help him with his riding position. In late 1955, Simpson ran a red light in a race and was suspended from racing for six months by the BLRC. During his suspension he dabbled in motorcycle trials, nearly quitting cycling but unable to afford a new motorcycle necessary for progress in the sport.
Track years
Berger told Simpson that if he wanted to be a successful road cyclist, he needed experience in track cycling, particularly in the pursuit discipline. Simpson competed regularly at Fallowfield Stadium in Manchester, where in early 1956 he met amateur world pursuit silver medallist Cyril Cartwright, who helped him develop his technique. At the national championships at Fallowfield the 18-year-old Simpson won a silver medal in the individual pursuit, defeating amateur world champion Norman Sheil before losing to Mike Gambrill.
Simpson began working with his father as a draughtsman at the glass factory in Harworth. He was riding well; although not selected by Great Britain for the amateur world championships, he made the 4,000-metre team pursuit squad for the 1956 Olympics. In mid-September, Simpson competed for two weeks in Eastern Europe against Russian and Italian teams to prepare for the Olympics. The seven-rider contingent began with races in Leningrad, continuing to Moscow before finishing in Sofia. He was nicknamed "the Sparrow" by the Soviet press because of his slender build. The following month he was in Melbourne for the Olympics, where the team qualified for the team-pursuit semi-finals against Italy; they were confident of defeating South Africa and France but lost to Italy, taking the bronze medal. Simpson blamed himself for the loss for pushing too hard on a turn and being unable to recover for the next.
After the Olympics, Simpson trained throughout his winter break into 1957. In May, he rode in the national 25-mile championships; although he was the favourite, he lost to Sheil in the final. In a points race at an international event at Fallowfield a week later Simpson crashed badly, almost breaking his leg; he stopped working for a month and struggled to regain his form. At the national pursuit championships, he was beaten in the quarter-finals. After this defeat Simpson returned to road racing, winning the BLRC national hill climb championship in October before taking a short break from racing. In spring 1958 he traveled to Sofia with Sheil for two weeks' racing. On his return he won the national individual pursuit championship at Herne Hill Velodrome. In July, Simpson won a silver medal for England in the individual pursuit at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, losing to Sheil by one-hundredth of a second in the final. A medical exam taken with the Royal Air Force (RAF) revealed Simpson to be colour blind.
In September 1958, Simpson competed at the amateur world championships in Paris. Against reigning champion Carlo Simonigh of Italy in the opening round of the individual pursuit, he crashed on the concrete track at the end of the race. Simpson was briefly knocked unconscious and sustained a dislocated jaw; however, he won the race since he crashed after the finish line. Although he was in pain, team manager Benny Foster forced Simpson to race in the quarter-final against New Zealand's Warwick Dalton, hoping to unsettle Dalton ahead of a possible meeting with Simpson's teammate Sheil. Simpson wanted to turn professional, but needed to prove himself first, setting his sights on the world amateur indoor hour record. Reg Harris arranged for an attempt at Zürich's Hallenstadion velodrome on Simpson's birthday in November. He failed by 320 metres, covering a distance of and blaming his failure on the low temperature generated by an ice rink in the centre of the velodrome. The following week he travelled to Ghent, in the Flanders region of Belgium, to ride amateur track races. He stayed at the Café Den Engel, run by Albert Beurick, who organised for him to ride at Ghent's Kuipke velodrome in the Sportpaleis (English: Sport Palace).
Simpson decided to move to the continent for a better chance at success, and contacted French brothers Robert and Yvon Murphy, whom he met while racing. They agreed that he could stay with them in the Breton fishing port of Saint-Brieuc. His final event in Britain was at Herne Hill, riding motor-paced races. Simpson won the event and was invited to Germany to train for the 1959 motor-paced world championships, but declined the opportunity in favour of a career on the road. Bicycle manufacturer Elswick Hopper invited him to join their British-based team, but Benny Foster advised him to continue with his plans to move to France.
Move to Brittany
In April 1959, Simpson left for France with £100 savings and two Carlton bikes, one road and one track, given in appreciation of his help promoting the company. His last words to his mother before the move were, "I don't want to be sitting here in twenty years' time, wondering what would have happened if I hadn't gone to France". The next day, his National Service papers were delivered; although willing to serve before his move, he feared the call-up would put his potential career at risk. His mother returned them, with the hope they would understand this.
He applied to local cycling clubs, and joined Club Olympique Briochin, racing with an independent (semi-professional) licence from the British Cycling Federation. When settled with the Murphy family, 21-year-old Simpson met 19-year-old Helen Sherburn, an au pair from Sutton, Yorkshire. Simpson began attracting attention, winning races and criteriums. He was invited to race in the eight-day stage race Route de France by the Saint-Raphaël VC 12e, the amateur club below the professional team . Simpson won the final stage, breaking away from the peloton and holding on for victory. After this win, he declined an offer to ride in the Tour de France for the professional team. Simpson had contract offers from two professional teams, and , which had a British cyclist, Brian Robinson; opting for the latter team, on 29 June he signed a contract for 80,000 francs (£80 a month).
On Simpson's return to Harworth for Christmas, the RAF were notified and the press ran stories on his apparent draft avoidance. He passed a medical in Sheffield, but history repeated itself and the papers arrived the day after his departure for his team's training camp in Narbonne in southern France. The French press, unlike the British, found the situation amusing.
Professional career
1959: Foundations In July, four months after leaving England, Simpson rode his first race as a professional, the Tour de l'Ouest in west France. He won the fourth stage and took the overall race leader's jersey. He won the next stage's individual time trial, increasing his lead. On the next stage he lost the lead with a punctured tyre, finishing the race in fourteenth place overall.
In August Simpson competed at the world championships in the 5000 m individual pursuit at Amsterdam's large, open-air velodrome and the road race on the nearby Circuit Park Zandvoort motor-racing track. He placed fourth in the individual pursuit, losing by 0.3 seconds in the quarter-finals. He prepared for the road race, eight laps of the track. After a ten-rider breakaway formed; Simpson bridged the gap. As the peloton began to close in, he tried to attack. Although he was brought back each time, Simpson placed fourth in a sprint for the best finish to date by a British rider. He was praised by the winner, André Darrigade of France, who thought that without Simpson's work on the front, the breakaway would have been caught. Darrigade helped him enter criteriums for extra money. His fourth place earned Simpson his nickname, "Major Simpson", from French sports newspaper L'Équipe. They ran the headline: "Les carnets du Major Simpson" ("The notes of Major Simpson"), referencing the 1950s series of books, Les carnets du Major Thompson by Pierre Daninos.