In 1984, road racing cyclist Marianne Martin became the first and so far only American to win the women’s equivalent to the Tour de France. The first version of this type of race for women had been held in 1955. The version introduced in 1984 was named Tour de France Féminin. In the years since then, this competition has also been staged under such names as Tour of the EEC Women, Tour Cycliste Féminin, and Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale.
Martin, a longtime resident of Colorado, was born in the city of Fenton, Michigan, on November 1, 1957. While attending the University of Colorado Boulder, she began cycling extensively both for fun and to help stay fit. Eventually, however, Martin decided to also compete in races. “I ended up doing really well,” she said while recalling her first race in a 2016 interview with the London-based Guardian. “It was an uphill climb and I found that cycling came pretty naturally to me.”
In 1984, Martin very much wanted to be part of the American team competing in the Tour de France Féminin and she successfully pleaded with the coach of that team to be allowed to fill its last remaining spot. At this time, Martin was trying out for the U.S. Olympic cycling team and had already completed three of the four trial races for this process. She decided to pursue the Tour de France Féminin, however, rather than undertake the final trial race.
Martin discussed this decision during a 2022 interview with National Public Radio (NPR). “I was really excited about [the Olympics], but if I would have made the team, I still would have gone to France,” she explained. “I mean, it’s like a whole month versus one day, and it’s in France. You know, I just can’t think of anything that’s better than the Tour de France.”
That year’s 18-stage Tour de France Féminin covered 670 miles (1,080 kilometers) altogether and Martin finished first in the race by completing it in 29 hours, 39 minutes, and two seconds. Her victory was all the more amazing and unexpected because she was a late addition to the American team and did not have a lot of time to train for this specific race. In addition, Martin had struggled mightily against anemia earlier in the year. She took time during her NPR interview to describe the strategic edge that boosted her fitness and allowed her to overcome those daunting obstacles.
“My theory about training, and I’m pretty opinionated about this, is that every time you’re on the bike, there should be a specific reason,” Martin noted. “When I’d go out on the bike, I went really, really hard — really hard. And then I went really easy. Sometimes I’d need two days of easy to completely recover. And unless I was completely recovered, I would not go hard on my bike. And I never went medium on my bike, never. I was just really scientific about [it].” Martin was inducted into the Boulder Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and the California-based United State Bicycling Hall of Fame (USBHOF) in 2020.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
Additional information on Marianne Martin is available at https://www.npr.org/2022/08/01/1114521372/tour-de-france-women-marianne-martin
For more information on USBHOF inductees, please check out https://usbhof.org/inductees/
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