Marseille and cycling

The city of Marcel Pagnol and Zinedine Zidane has always been part of the Tour de France history. Already on the map of the first Tour de France in 1903 as the finish of a 374-kilometer stage from Lyon, it was also included on the map of the 50th anniversary (1953), of the centenary in 2003 and, more recently, on the route of the 100th edition in 2013. 2017 is also meaningful as Marseille has been named the European capital of sport for the year. A football town, with local club Olympique Marseille the only French team to have won the most prestigious of the European Cups, Marseille can also boast a true cycling tradition. Every season, the European calendar takes off from Marseille with the Grand Prix d'Ouverture and the city has hosted the Tour de la Provence for the past two years. France's second largest city also has a professional team, Delko-Marseille-Provence.
Countless riders hailed from Marseille, the most famous being Gustave Ganay, Roger Chaussabel, Louis Aimar, Raoul Rémy, Louis Rostollan, Georges Chappe, Guy Sibille, Marcel Tinazzi, Rémy di Grégorio or Maxime Bouet.
But its is a rather unheralded fact that the one and only Marseille-Paris race organised in 1902 was the event that gave Geo Lefevre the idea of ​​organising a Tour de France the following year.