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}} Raymond Poulidor (born 15 April 1936), nicknamed "Pou-Pou", is a French former professional bicycle racer, who rode for Mercier his entire career. His career was distinguished, despite coinciding with two great riders - Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx. This underdog position may have been the reason Poulidor was a favourite of the public.He was known as the "The Eternal Second", because he never won the Tour de France despite finishing in second place three times, and in third place five times (including his final Tour at the age of 40). Despite his consistency, he never even wore the Yellow Jersey in 14 Tours, of which he completed 12. ==Early life and amateur career== Raymond Poulidor was the son of Martial and Maria Poulidor, small farmers outside the hamlet of Masbaraud-Mérignat, where the Creuse region east of Limoges meets the département of Haute-Vienne. He was born in the same year that his eventual directeur sportif, Antonin Magne, became world road race champion. Poulidor began working on the farm where, he remembered, "the soil was poor and we had to work hard; farming incomes were poor."〔Colin, Jacques (2001): ''Paroles de Peloton'', Éditions Solar, France〕 The need for working hands on the farm meant he left school at 14 even though he wanted to continue his studies. Local entertainment went little further than village fairs, with coconut shies, sack-races, competitions for bottles of home-made jam... and inter-village cycle races.〔 Poulidor rode on a bike given to him by André Marquet, who ran a cycle shop in nearby Sauviat-sur-Vige. Marquet took Poulidor to his first races by motorcycle. Success on a local level came quickly and Poulidor added the money he won — which he said could be considerable at the time because the crowd put up prizes all through the race — to the family's income. He acquired his first racing licence when joined La Pédale Marchoise at La Forêt-Montboucher when he was 17. He came seventh in his first race, at St-Mareil. He wanted to ride the local round of a national youth competition called the Premier Pas (Step ) Dunlop. It fell in the middle of harvest, however, and Poulidor could train only at night after 15 hours in the fields. He raced for three years as an amateur, once beating Louison Bobet. It was only when Poulidor was taken into the army for compulsory national service in 1955 that he first travelled in a train. Pierre Chany, a French reporter who followed 49 Tours de France, drew the comparison with Poulidor's eventual rival, Jacques Anquetil: by the time Poulidor first stepped into a train, Anquetil had already been to Helsinki, ridden the Olympic Games, won a medal for France, turned professional and won the Grand Prix des Nations. Yet there was less than two years between them.〔Penot, Christophe (1996), ''Pierre Chany, l'homme aux 50 Tour de France'', Éditions Cristel, France〕 The army sent Poulidor to the war then going on in Algeria, where he worked as a driver and put on 12 kg through lack of exercise. In 1960 he dedicated himself to cycling again and lost the weight in a month.〔 He won his first race after army service by six minutes. When he then came second in the GP de Peyrat-le-Château and won 80,000 old francs, he calculated that he had won more in one race than he would have earned in six years on the farm. His farming background went before him and whenever he won a prize, other riders would laugh: "Hey, Pouli (original nickname ) can buy himself another cow!" Poulidor referred to his background throughout his career, once remarking: "No race, however difficult, goes on as long as a harvest." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Raymond Poulidor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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