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Rudi Altig (born Mannheim, Germany, 18 March 1937 ) was a professional track and road racing cyclist who won the 1962 Vuelta a España and the world championship in 1966. He is now a television commentator.

Amateur career

Rudi Altig was born in an area which had produced good track riders. He began racing in 1952, following his older brother, Willi. The brothers teamed for madisons and other two-man races, becoming the best in the country. The British promoter, Jim Wallace, booked Altig to ride with Hans Jaroszewicz at a meeting on Herne Hill velodrome in Good Friday in 1956. He said:

Altig became national sprint champion in 1957 and 1958. Then Karly Ziegler, a coach, took over his preparation when he joined the Endspurt Mannheim club and Altig became a pursuiter. He won the 1959 national pursuit championship and won the madison championship with his brother. Later that year he beat many of the world's best pursuiters to become world champion in Amsterdam.

Professional track career

Altig was allowed by the Union Cycliste Internationale to turn professional in 1960 within a year of his world championship. He rode his first professional six-day, in Denmark, that winter. Wallace said:

He won the world pursuit championship in 1960 and 1962 and won 62 races on the track. He won 22 six-day races, particularly in Germany, including four in Cologne and Dortmund. He never rode the Giro di Lombardia because it clashed with the start of the winter season on the track. He said:

Altig, who is 1m 80 tall and weighed 80kg, sprinted on the track on 52 or 53 × 16 and rode pursuits on 52 × 15. "He gave his bikes as hard a time as he gave his adversaries," said the writer, Olivier Dazat.

Road career

Altig started his professional career as a track rider; it was Raphaël Géminiani who persuaded him his future was on the road. Altig agreed because fame on the road would give him better contracts on the track. He won the Vuelta a España and three of its stages in 1962. He was maillot jaune for five days in his first Tour de France that same season, winning three stages and the points competition, and finishing 31st.

He won his first classic in 1964, the Ronde van Vlaanderen after riding 60 km alone and winning by four minutes. In 1965 he finished second to Englishman Tom Simpson in the professional road championship in San Sebastián, Spain. Simpson said:

But the world title was not denied for long: he won the 1966 championship not too far away from his home, at the Nürburgring. There was controversy because Altig had been helped by Gianni Motta, riding that day for Italy but normally Altig's companion in the Molteni team. The concern was quickly overshadowed by the refusal of the first three riders to give urine samples for a drugs check. They were protesting at what they saw was the laxity with which tests were carried out and at what they considered restrictions on the way they prepared themselves. Altig said: "We are professionals, not sportsmen." The three were disqualified and suspended but ten days later the Union Cycliste Internationale allowed the result to stand.

Altig took three stages in that year's Tour, finishing 12th place overall, and two more in the Giro d'Italia, in which he came 13th.

The second and final classic win came in the 1968 Milan-Sanremo. He also took two stages of that year's Vuelta, finishing 18th overall. In 1969 he finished 9th in the Giro, and won the prologue individual time trial of the Tour de France.

Jacques Anquetil

Altig rode his first Tour as a domestique and as team sprinter for Jacques Anquetil. The two developed a rocky relationship in the Tour of Spain that hardened when Altig took the yellow jersey early in the Tour de France. Anquetil criticised him because his team would have to ride at the front and chase every attack to protect a rider too heavy to keep his lead through the mountains. The two never became close until they rode for different teams.

That same year the two were paired for the Trofeo Barrachi, a 111 km two-man time-trial in Italy. The writer René de Latour wrote:

Anquetil reached the stadium where the race finished and hit a pole. He was helped away with staring eyes and with blood streaming from a cut to his head. The couple nevertheless won by nine seconds. Altig said: "Jacques wasn't happy , it didn't please him at all, but I wanted us to win. So I got him by the saddle, I got him by the shorts, and hop! ."

Retirement

Altig became directeur-sportif of the Puch-Wolber team when he stopped racing and worked for five years as national coach. He is now a television commentator. He said of the American rider, Lance Armstrong: "He is a tyrant who exploits his team-mates without leaving them the least initiative." Of his fellow German, Jan Ullrich, he said he would do better to talk less about what he was going to do and get on and do it.

Six-days

Altig won 22 six-days:

Road race victories

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Sporting Cyclist, UK, December 1966
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Coups de Pédales, Belgium, undated cutting
3. ^ Willi had been invited but had fallen ill.
4. ^ Dazat, Olivier; Barrot, Olivier (1987). Seigneurs Et Forcats Du Velo . France: Calmann-Levy. ISBN 2702116159.  
5. ^ Simpson, Tommy (1966). Cycling is My Life . London: tanley Paul. ISBN 0090813510.  
6. ^ ^{a b} Nicholson, Geoffrey (1991, Le Tour, Hodder and Stoughton, UK, p160, ISBN 0340542683
7. ^ de Mondenard, Jean-Pierre (2000). Dopage, l'imposture des performances . France: Chiron. p. 103. ISBN 2702706398.  
8. ^ ^{a b} Mulholland, Owen (2006). Cycling's Golden Age . USA: Velo Press. p. 66. ISBN 139781931382878.  
9. ^ Dazat, Olivier (1987). Seigneurs et Forçats du Vélo . France: Calmann-Levy. ISBN 2702116159.  
10. ^ Journal du Dimanche, France, 27 July 2003

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