Federico Bahamontes has died at the age of 95. He became the first Spanish winner of the Tour de France in 1959, but his renown and impact could not be confined to one country or limited to one line of his palmarès. His extravagant gifts as a climber made sure of that.
Born in Toledo in 1928, the young Bahamontes first began cycling as a means of transporting black market goods in a country ravaged by the Civil War and the Francoist regime. In 1947, he was encouraged to compete in his first bike race, placing second after reportedly eating only a banana and a lemon for sustenance.
Although Bahamontes’ burgeoning amateur career was interrupted by a spell of national service, he turned professional in 1953 and quickly announced himself by claiming the king of the mountains title at the Volta a Catalunya, then the biggest race in Spain.
A year later, and despite his own misgivings, Bahamontes was selected for his Tour de France debut and he made an immediate impression, winning the first of six king of the mountains titles.
His first stage wins at the Tour would come in 1958, when he claimed the mountainous legs to Luchon and Briançon. That same year, Bahamontes won the Spanish national title as well as his lone Giro d’Italia stage at Superga.
Bahamontes’ greatest triumph would come in 1959, when he won overall title at the Tour ahead of Henry Anglade.
His victory in the mountain time trial up Puy de Dôme – where he was quicker than Michael Woods last month – put him within touching distance of the yellow jersey, and Bahamontes moved into the lead in Grenoble after escaping with the era’s other great climber, Charly Gaul.
Illness cut short Bahamontes’ title defence in 1960, and the image of the Spaniard sitting dejectedly on his suitcase waiting for a train home would enter Tour lore. So too would Bahamontes’ apparent fear of descending, but it was his grace when the road climbed that cemented him as the ‘Eagle of Toledo.’
Bahamontes would finish twice more on the podium of the Tour, placing second behind Jacques Anquetil in 1963 and third in 1964, and he would bring his total number of stage wins to seven.
As well as his six king of the mountains titles at the Tour, he claimed the competition at both the Giro and the Vuelta a España, although he was doomed never to win his home race, placing second overall behind Jesús Loroño in 1957.
Bahamontes retired in 1965 to run a bike shop in Toledo, but his place among the great climbers remained unquestioned. When Lucien Van Impe later equalled his record of six king of the mountains titles at the Tour, he made a point of not surpassing his idol by trying to claim a seventh.
“It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of Federico Martin Bahamontes, the Eagle of Toledo, a benchmark in sport who has taken the name of our city to the very top,” the mayor of Toledo Carlos Velázquez said on Wednesday.
Alasdair Fotheringham wrote a detailed biography about Bahamontes called 'The Eagle of Toledo." Click below to read an extract.
Book Extract: The Eagle of Toledo
Federico Bahamontes was born in Santo Domingo-Caudilla on 9 July, 1928. He died in Valladolid on 8 August, 2023.
