Countdown to the Tour de France: 2 days | Fausto Coppi vs Gino Bartali in 1949

2 days. That’s all we have to wait until the 2025 Tour de France gets underway. Finally the moment we’ve all been waiting for is nearly here, In today’s Tour de France countdown article, we turn the clock back over 75 years to revisit one of cycling’s most legendary rivalries: the epic duel between Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali at the 1949 Tour de France.

These two Italian icons, one an established champion, the other a rising superstar, transformed the 36th Tour into a thrilling internal battle that captivated fans and transcended the sport. Bartali and Coppi’s confrontation in 1949 remains one of the most celebrated episodes in Tour history, with a clash of styles, generations, and relentless determination unlike anything before it.

Let’s dive into how this rivalry shaped the 1949 Tour, and find out why it is still a beloved chapter in cycling to this very day.

By 1949, Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi were already national heroes in Italy. Bartali, five years older, was a devoutly religious Tuscan famed, and he had won the Tour de France twice (1938 and 1948) and was revered for his role in lifting Italian morale after World War 2.

Coppi, in contrast, was the lean, modern champion from Piedmont, nicknamed “Il Campionissimo” for his elegance on the bike, and prior to 1949 he had won the Giro twice already, but had yet to prove himself in the Tour.

Despite their common success, Bartali and Coppi embodied different ideals. Bartali was seen as traditional and steadfast, while Coppi represented innovation and a new era breaking through. Their rivalry had been building through the 1940s, from Coppi’s breakout Giro win in 1940, and by the late 1940s, Italy was split into two camps of fans: “Bartalisti” and “Coppisti,” each fiercely loyal to their man. This competitive fire came to a head on cycling’s grandest stage when both riders lined up for the 1949 Tour de France.

Unlike modern Tours, the 1949 race was contested by national teams, meaning Bartali and Coppi had to ride together on Italy’s squad. This arrangement was fraught with tension from the start. Bartali was the defending Tour champion (having won in 1948) and expected to lead the team. Coppi, however, was fresh off victory in the 1949 Giro d’Italia and was aiming to complete the Giro-Tour double.

The Italian team management, led by legendary ex-rider Alfredo Binda, faced a dilemma: two superstar captains and only one yellow jersey. During the team selection, Coppi nearly refused to participate at all, so reluctant was he to defer to Bartali. Binda brokered a fragile truce just weeks before the start, convincing the proud rivals to “join forces” for Italy’s sake.

Even so, the question of leadership loomed large once the Tour began on 30 June 1949. Binda declared that ‘the road would decide’ the winner, letting Bartali and Coppi sort it out through performance. In theory this made sense, but in practice it only heightened the internal competition. Neither man was willing to sacrifice his own ambitions, and it seemed like the alleged truce would shatter at any point.

The opening week of the 1949 Tour did not go smoothly for either Italian star. Both Bartali and Coppi lost time in the flat stages and hovered well down the general classification. The simmering tension erupted into crisis on Stage 5, when midway through that stage, Coppi leapt into a breakaway with race leader Jacques Marinelli, eager to claw back time.

But disaster struck when Coppi crashed heavily, shattering his bike. As Marinelli remounted and carried on, Coppi stubbornly refused a replacement bicycle from the team car, he insisted on waiting for his own spare bike, wasting valuable minutes. His frustration grew to the point that he threatened to quit the race on the spot.

Bartali eventually arrived on the scene to find Coppi stranded. In an extraordinary show of sportsmanship, Bartali stopped and waited for his teammate, despite their rivalry. When team manager Binda finally arrived with Coppi’s spare bike, the pair set off together, trying to limit the damage. But Coppi was shaken and exhausted from the crash, and he soon began to fall away.

After riding slowly for some time, Bartali made the hard choice to leave Coppi behind. With Binda’s permission, Bartali rode on ahead to avoid sacrificing his own Tour chances.

The fallout from Stage 5 was severe. Coppi limped to the finish a staggering 18 minutes behind the leaders, an eternity in Tour terms. He fell over half an hour down in the overall standings and was utterly dejected. That evening, an enraged Coppi felt the team had failed him, why hadn’t the Italian support car stayed closer when he was in a crucial break?

To Coppi, it seemed proof that the team prioritized Bartali as leader. Feeling betrayed, the proud campionissimo talked of abandoning the Tour altogether, and it took all of Alfredo Binda’s managerial skill and persuasion to calm Coppi down and keep him in the race.

Yet, over the next few weeks, it became clear that Fausto Coppi’s Tour was far from over. Slowly but surely, he started chipping away at the time, and managed to win stage 7’s 92km time trial (yes 92km) to La Rochelle.

The 1949 Tour’s decisive battles unfolded in the Alps during the third week, where the Coppi, Bartali rivalry reached its dramatic peak. By Stage 15, Bartali had climbed to 2nd overall and Coppi 3rd, both within striking distance of the yellow jersey. Stage 16, on July 18, was a monster alpine stage from Cannes to Briançon (275 km), and this was terrain Bartali knew well, he had triumphed on Izoard in his 1938 and 1948 Tour wins, but now Coppi was equally poised to attack.

Sure enough, on the barren slopes of Izoard, Bartali made his move. The 34-year-old champion surged ahead in a bid to drop all rivals. Only one man could answer: Coppi. Urged on by Binda to cooperate, Coppi bridged up to his teammate, and together the two Italians rode away from the fieldIt was a devastating tandem display, the rest of the peloton, including the race leader, was left far behind on the climb.

Bartali and Coppi reached Briançon hand in hand, having gained over 20 minutes on everyone else. In an iconic gesture, Coppi allowed Bartali to cross the line first as a birthday gift, it was Bartali’s 35th birthday, and Coppi gave him the stage win. This show of respect amid rivalry delighted the Italian fans and highlighted the complex mix of competition and camaraderie between the two.

If Stage 16 was a triumph for Bartali, Stage 17 (Briançon to Aosta, 257 km) would prove to be Coppi’s crowning glory. This route took the riders over the Alps into Italy, including the towering Col de l’Iseran at 2,770 m, the highest point of the 1949 Tour. Bartali and Coppi once again rode clear of all rivals in the mountains, continuing their private duel.

But about 40 km from the finish, misfortune struck Bartali. He punctured a tire on a rough descent. As he stopped to fix the flat, Coppi exhibited true sportsmanship, he sat up and waited for Bartali to rejoin. The Italian tifosi lining the roads roared in approval seeing their two heroes back together. Yet only a few kilometers later, Bartali’s luck turned again: he crashed on slippery rocks, taking a hard fall.

This time, Coppi’s patience waned. With Bartali slow to remount, Binda finally gave Coppi the signal to ride for himself. The younger Italian seized the moment, he attacked solo, flying up the road in a blur of determination.

Coppi’s solo ride into Aosta became the decisive act of the 1949 Tour. Free of team orders, he stormed ahead over the remaining climb and down into the finish, winning Stage 17 by several minutes over a battered Bartali.. In one fell swoop, Coppi erased his deficit and claimed the maillot jaune.

Bartali limped in behind, physically and emotionally drained, his hopes of consecutive Tour victories dashed on the roads of his home country. As Coppi pulled on the yellow jersey that day, many sensed a symbolic changing of the guard in Italian cycling. The younger champion had risen to the occasion and supplanted the older legend.

Italian fans, thrilled by Coppi’s triumph but still devoted to Bartali, were euphoric. In fact, so many Italian tifosi had swarmed into Aosta to celebrate that some unruly incidents occurred: partisan crowds smashed the windows of French team cars and hurled insults at French riders.

With the Alps conquered and the team leadership question definitively resolved, Fausto Coppi rode confidently in yellow through the final stages back into France. There were still a few challenges left, including an unprecedented mountain time trial on Stage 20, but Coppi was untouchable.

Fittingly, he hammered the Stage 20 time trial (137 km from Colmar to Nancy) for his third stage win of the Tour, putting another 7 minutes into Bartali. By the time the race reached Paris on July 24, 1949, Coppi had amassed a commanding lead of 10 minutes 55 seconds over Bartali in the final general classification. Italy finished 1st and 2nd, with Coppi also seizing the King of the Mountains title to cement his dominance of the race.

Fausto Coppi’s victory in the 1949 Tour de France was historic on multiple levels. At 29, he became the first cyclist ever to achieve the Giro d’Italia–Tour de France double in the same year, a feat that highlighted his all around brilliance. For Coppi, this Tour marked the definitive arrival of “Il Campionissimo” on the world stage, confirming his status as one of the sport’s all-time greats.

As we reflect on that summer of 1949, we see more than just a winner and a runner-up, we see two legends whose duel on the road became the stuff of cycling legend. Their sportsmanship and tenacity left an indelible mark on the Tour de France. In the end, Fausto Coppi rode into Paris in triumph, but it was the electric rivalry with Gino Bartali that truly defined the 1949 Tour. More than seven decades later, their battle in the Alps and beyond still echoes through history, a shining example of the Tour’s most dramatic and unforgettable rivalries.