1928 Tour de France

Lore & Background

The 1920s Tour de France belonged, in large part, to Belgian riders. After Firmin Lambot's back-to-back victories in 1922 and 1923, and Maurice De Waele's 1924 win, the sport's centre of gravity for the race shifted decisively toward the cobbled roads and steep coteaux of Flanders and Wallonia. Lucien Buysse, a powerful climber from the Belgian province of Hainaut, became the era's most consistent champion, taking the overall title in 1925, 1926, and 1928. His 1928 victory, his third, placed him in rarefied company among the small group of riders who had won the Tour three times.

The race itself, as was typical of the period, was a brutal test of endurance. Riders covered vast distances over a month, with stages often exceeding 400 kilometres, and the mountain sectors in the Alps and Pyrenees served as the decisive battlegrounds. The format was shorter than the modern twenty-one-day Tour, but the daily mileage was punishing, and mechanical failures, punctures on rough roads, and the sheer physical toll of sustained effort were constant threats. There was no team drafting in the modern sense; riders largely relied on their own legs and the goodwill of a few domestics.

Buysse's 1928 campaign was a statement of authority. By the time the peloton descended into Paris for the final stage, the Belgian had already established a margin that reflected his superior climbing and his ability to hold the lead on the flats. The three-time champion's victory was received with the quiet, almost inevitable respect that the Belgian cycling public had grown accustomed to, while French fans watched with a mixture of admiration and frustration as their own riders, however talented, could not quite match the Lowlanders' mountain consistency.

In Their Own Story

The morning mist still clung to the valley floor as Buysse rolled out of the small village, his legs heavy from three days of relentless climbing. Behind him, a handful of riders in mismatched jerseys watched the Belgian's back, knowing the gap was already too wide to close before the next col. A woman on the roadside pressed a cold bottle of water against the iron railings, and a child waved a handkerchief that was almost too big for his arm. Buysse did not look up. He had done this before, in '25 and '26, and he would do it again in '30 if the legs held. The road climbed. The peloton thinned. And somewhere far below, in a café that smelled of anise and old coffee, a French journalist was already writing the headline: *Le Belge encore.*

Reader's Guide

The 1928 Tour de France was unforgettable for one reason above all: it completed the hat-trick for Lucien Buysse, making him one of the very few riders in the sport's history to wear the yellow jersey three times. In an era of Belgian dominance, the French public watched yet another rider from the Low Countries assert his authority over the mountains.

The race unfolded across France over the course of July, with stages that combined long, grinding flat runs through the plains of the north with decisive mountain sectors in the Alps and the Pyrenees. The format was shorter than today's twenty-one-day race, but the daily distances were enormous, and the roads were rough, often unpaved in the higher cols. Riders faced the constant risk of mechanical failure, punctures, and the simple exhaustion of covering 400-plus kilometres a day.

Buysse's campaign was marked by his trademark climbing authority. On the key mountain stages, he and a small group of rivals attacked the peloton, and by the time the race reached its final week, the Belgian's lead was comfortable. The drama of the 1928 edition was less about a single dramatic stage and more about the steady, cumulative superiority of the man in yellow. By the time the riders crossed the line in Paris, the result was a foregone conclusion that had been sealed, stage by stage, over the preceding weeks.

The 1928 Tour remains a footnote in the grand narrative of the race, overshadowed by the more dramatic editions of the 1930s, but it stands as a clean, authoritative statement of Belgian cycling's golden age.

Did You Know?

• Lucien Buysse's three Tour de France victories (1925, 1926, 1928) place him among the very small group of riders who have won the race three times, a feat still rare even by modern standards.
• The 1920s Tour de France was an era of Belgian dominance, with riders from Belgium winning the overall classification in a majority of the editions during that decade.
• Races of this period covered enormous daily distances—often well over 400 km per stage—making the physical toll far more brutal per day than the modern 21-day format, despite the shorter overall race length.
• Buysse was renowned for his climbing ability and was a fixture on the mountain stages, often breaking away in the cols to build or defend his overall lead.