The Tour de France is full of stories. Every day we highlight a historical moment that can be linked to the upcoming stage. Today stage 2: the Belgian rider who didn’t wear a yellow jersey while being the leader in the Tour.
After the third stage in 1949, something remarkable happened: the new leader Norbert Callens doesn’t receive a yellow jersey. The car with official leader jerseys had a breakdown on the way to the finish location Boulogne-sur-Mer. The Belgian rider therefore completes the traditional lap of honor in the yellow pull-over of journalist Albert Van Laethem.
The next morning, Callens still doesn’t have an official yellow jersey to wear. Initially, the story is that his caregiver forgot to get a new leader jersey at the mobile Tour shop. Callens completes the fourth stage in his national jersey and the yellow jersey is, for the first time since its introduction in 1919, not to be seen in the peloton.
After the fourth stage, Callens loses the lead in the standings again, so he never rode in an official yellow jersey. The organization also fails to give him the jersey from after the third stage in the rest of the Tour. Only in 1994 follows redress: the Tour finishes again in Boulogne-sur-Mer and Callens finally gets the coveted jersey.
But in 2003, Callens confesses something. “At the start of the stage, the yellow jersey was back, but I refused to put it on. I felt humiliated and cheated. Then Jacques Goddet (the Tour boss, ed.) erupted in a gigantic fit of rage. I just didn’t speak enough French to understand what he was shouting. I got a fine of 3,000 francs.”
Whatever the reason, Callens is still the only rider besides Eddy Merckx who didn’t wear a yellow jersey as leader in the Tour. In 1971, Merckx refuses to start in the jersey out of respect for his Spanish competitor Luis OcaƱa, who had to give up the day before in the yellow jersey after a fall.