François Faber
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François Faber (26 January 1887 – 9 May 1915) was a Luxembourgian cyclist. He was born in France, but because his father was a Luxembourger, he was able to receive Luxembourgian nationality.
In 1906 he participated in the Tour de France for the first time. He didn't finish. The next year, he was 7th and in 1908 he took second place and won two stages. In 1909 he dominated the Tour. He won five consecutive stages, a record that went unbroken for almost a century.
He won 19 Tour de France stages, Paris-Brussels, Bordeaux-Paris, Sedan-Brussels, Paris-Tours (twice), Paris-Roubaix and the Giro di Lombardia.
When the First World War broke out Faber joined the French Foreign Legion. On May 9, 1915 at Carency near Arras he received a telegram saying his wife had given birth to a daughter. One story says that, cheering, he jumped out of the trench and was killed by a German bullet. Another, more commonly accepted, is that he was shot while carrying an injured colleague back from no-man's land during fighting at the Chemin de Dames battlefield near Lens, France.
The GP François Faber, a small race in Luxembourg, is named after him. There is also a plaque in his memory in the church of Nôtre Dame de Lorette in the French national war cemetery near Lens.
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| Preceded by Lucien Petit-Breton |
Winner of the Tour de France 1909 |
Succeeded by Octave Lapize |
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