Editing Hubert Opperman (section)

==1928 Tour de France==
The ''Melbourne Herald'' and ''[[The Sporting Globe]]'' in Australia and ''The Sun'' in New Zealand started a fund in late 1927 to pay for an Australasia team to the [[1928 Tour de France|Tour de France]].{{sfn|Kennett et al|2006|p=32}} Opperman went to Europe in April 1928<ref name="ReferenceB">de Latour, René, This Aussie Was a Bonza, Sporting Cyclist, UK, undated</ref> with [[Harry Watson (cyclist)|Harry Watson]] of New Zealand and [[Ernest Bainbridge|Ernie Bainbridge]] and [[Percy Osborn]] of Australia.{{sfn|Kennett et al|2006|p=32}} He went to the six-day race at the [[Velodrome d'Hiver]] in Paris, where he met an Australian participant, [[Reggie McNamara]]. The Franco-American writer [[René de Latour]], who was working for McNamara at the six-day, wrote:

:A marked difference between Oppy and his team-mates was that they did not all regard the journey to Europe in the same light. While the others looked on it more as a trip in which to collect a few souvenirs to take home, to the eager Oppy it was a wonderful chance to reach the top in international competition... His arrival in France had been announced with some scepticism: ''Un beau mentir qui vient de loin'' is a French saying. (A good lie comes from a distance.) His outstanding wins in Australia did not mean anything to the French riders, and even less to the Belgians.
:
:'Whom did he beat over there, anyway?' they would say. 'Let's see him on the road, then we'll know. We've yet to see any classy Australian road rider.'<ref name="ReferenceB" />

Opperman joined a training camp run by Paul Ruinart, trainer of the Vélo Club Levallois, on the outskirts of Paris. Ruinart and the VC Levallois were at the peak of French cycling and took in Opperman and his team. They rode Paris-[[Rennes]] as their first race. A report says:

:The 32 riders assembled at a small Parisian café at midnight. On the street outside, torrential rain alternated with freezing hailstorms. When called outside for the 2am start, the riders kept warm by running on the spot and flapping their arms. The Australians amused the others with a game of leapfrog followed by a sparring match between Watson and Bainbridge.{{sfn|Kennett et al|2006|p=60}}

[[Nicolas Frantz]] of [[Luxembourg]] won and Opperman came eighth. Opperman then came third to [[Georges Ronsse]] of Belgium and to Frantz in Paris-[[Brussels]].

The Tour de France started one month later. The shortest day was 119&nbsp;km and the longest 387&nbsp;km. Other teams had 10 riders but the Australasia squad had four, plans to increase the team with Europeans having failed. Their position was worsened by [[Henri Desgrange]]'s plan to run most of the race as a team [[time trial]], as he had the previous year. Teams started at intervals and shared the pace until the end. Desgrange wanted to stop riders racing casually for all but the last hour. The American historian Bill McGann wrote:

:Desgrange... wanted the Tour de France to be a contest where unrelenting individual effort in the cauldron of intense competition resulted in the supreme test of both the body and will of the athlete. Desgrange was convinced that the teams were combining to fix the outcome of the race. At the very best, even if they were honest, they helped a weaker rider do well. He also felt that on the flat stages the riders did not push themselves, saving their energy for the mountains.<ref>McGann, Bill and Carol (2006), The Story of the Tour de France, Dog Ear, USA, p. 84</ref>

With four rather than 10 riders to share the pace, Opperman and his team were handicapped. De Latour wrote:

:Even if I live to be 150 years old, there is one picture I am sure I shall never forget. It is the sight of the poor lonely Opperman being caught day after day by the various teams of 10 super-athletes, swopping their pace beautifully. The four Australians {{sic}} would start together. Bainbridge would do his best to hang on, but even though he may have been a good rider in the past, the passing years had taken most of his speed, and he would generally go off the back after 50 miles or so... That left three Aussies against the trade teams' 10. Then, inevitably, if it was not Osborn it was Watson who would have to quit at the 100 miles mark.<ref name="ReferenceB"/>

Opperman was often swept up by the French [[Alcyon]] team. Its manager, Ludo Feuillet, adopted him and helped with advice and tyres. Opperman finished the Tour 18th. He said of the long stages and the hours of darkness that riders endured:

:As the bicycle banged and jolted over uneven ground, one yearned for company, for another human whose conversation would share the anxious misery of those uncertain hours. Yes, there it was, a vague outline of a hunched figure swinging and swaying in an effort to find a smooth track. French is the [[Esperanto]] of the cycling fraternity, so I ventured some words in that tongue. ''C'est dur'' ("It is hard"), but only a grunt came back. For a mile we plugged in silence, then again in French, I tried: 'This Tour – it is very difficult – all are weary.' Once more only a snarling noise returned. 'The boorish oaf,' I thought, 'I'll make the blighter answer.'

:'It is very dark, and you are too tired to talk,' I inferred, sarcastically. The tone touched a verbal gusher as a totally unexpected voice bawled, 'Shut up, you Froggie gasbag – I can't understand a flaming word you've been jabbering,' and then I realised that I had been unwittingly riding with Bainbridge.{{sfn|Kennett et al|2006|p=60}}

===After the 1928 Tour===
In 1928 Opperman won the [[Bol d'Or cycle race|Bol d'Or 24-hour classic]], paced by tandems on a 500m [[velodrome]] in Paris. Both his bikes had been sabotaged by the chains being filed so they failed.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> His manager had to find a replacement, his interpreter's bicycle which had heavy mudguards and wheels and upturned handlebars. Opperman rode the bike for 17 hours without dismounting. He was 17 laps of the track behind the leader but after 10 hours rose to second place to Achille Souchard, who had twice been national road champion.

Opperman punctured after 23½ hours and got off his bike for the first time since the broken chain. "He had met Nature's lesser calls as he pedalled, to the roar of the indelicate crowd", said a report.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Opperman won by 30 minutes to the cheers of 50,000 yelling "''Allez Oppy''". His manager suggested he continue to beat the 1000&nbsp;km record. Opperman declined but his trainer and the crowd persuaded. He cycled 1h 19m more alone to beat the record.

He became enough of a hero in France that "a [[Gendarmerie|gendarme]] in [[Montmartre]] held up the traffic and waved him through in solitary splendour with the cry: "''Bonjour, bonne chance, Oppy!''"<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Opperman had a hero's welcome when he returned to [[Melbourne]].