Jacques Marinelli (15 December 1925 - 3 July 2025)
Jacques Marinelli was the oldest living malliot juane.
After the death of Emile Idee (1920 - 30 December 2024). I think Jacques was the last man alive who raced the Tour de France in the 1940's.
Born the same year as Louison Bobet and Raphael Geminiani,
Jacques finished an unexpected 3rd in the legendary 1949 Tour - behind Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali no less.
Marinelli's wore yellow for a week. Marinelli's team manager was so surprised that he said famously said "Our budgerigar has transformed into a canary" . The Budgie nickname stuck and Marinelli who stood 5'3" embraced it.
Later in life he became a mayor and ran a electrical appliance retail business.
Marinelli never rode at his 1949 Tour level again and
never won a Tour stage despite being second four days.
His best wins were two Dauphine stages 1950.
fr.wikipedia.org
Jacques Marinelli (born 1925-12-15 in Le Blanc-Mesnil, passed away 2025-07-03) was a former professional road racing cyclist from France, active between 1948 and 1954. His best results are 2 stage wins in Critérium Du Dauphiné Libéré and 2nd place in stage Tour de France.
www.procyclingstats.com
In 1949 Fausto Coppi was finally making his Tour debut aged 29.
Yellow jersey Marinelli and Coppi crashed in a break on stage 5 (to St. Malo!). Marinelli
was OK but Coppi was badly injured. Coppi lost 18+ minutes on the stage.
Fausto wanted to quit during the stage and later that night when he
was 37 minutes down on Marinelli on GC.
Team manager Alfredo Binda (best pre war rider winning 5 Giros (41 stages) and 3 Road World Champs) had to use huge persuasion to stop Fausto going home; basically- "Your rival Bartali will win his 3rd Tour and the great Fausto Coppi will have nothing in France".
Binda's plan worked: As Coppi recovered he won a TT and went on the rampage in the mountains pulling back vast amounts of time, Italy's other great Fiorenzo Magni took yellow and then Coppi worked his way up to 2nd behind Bartali. Gino suffered a crash on stage 17 when Coppi took yellow after winning in Aosta.
Fausto had turned a 37 minutes deficit into a 25 minutes gap on 3rd place Marinelli in Paris.
Fausto Coppi became the first rider to win the Tour / Giro double in same year and only the second rider after Gino Bartali to win both the Tour and Giro.
It was perhaps the greatest moment in the history of Italian sports and a huge personal triumph for Alfredo Binda who masterminded it.
fr.wikipedia.org
Also RIP Emile Idee whose death I missed:
Multiple French National Champion won Tour stage in 1949
www.cyclingnews.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.procyclingstats.com
