Jacques Goddet

Who was Jacques Goddet?

Jacques Goddet was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1986.

His father, Victor Goddet, was co-founder and finance director of L'Auto, the newspaper that organised the first Tour in 1903. When Jacques Goddet had ended his studies in 1931, he became editor-in-chief of L'Auto. In 1932, he covered the Olympics in Los Angeles.

In 1924 Jacques Goddet went to work for his father's paper in the rue du faubourg-Montmartre, Paris. Four years later he followed his first Tour de France and sat spellbound as he watched riders struggle for more than 16 hours on cols "that were no more than mediocre earth paths, muddy, stony". Goddet returned the following year and followed every Tour until 1989, with the exceptions of 1932 when he went to the Los Angeles Olympics and 1981 when he was too ill.

He became chief reporter at L'Auto and took over organisation of the race when the director, Henri Desgrange, became too ill to continue in 1936.