# Maurice De Waele

Maurice De Waele (pronounced; 27 December 1896 – 14 February 1952) was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer.
De Waele placed second in the 1927 Tour, an hour and fifty eight minutes behind Nicolas Frantz, and third in 1928, again won by Frantz. However, he is most famous for winning the 1929 Tour de France. He led the Tour until stage seven when two punctures on the way to Bordeaux cost him the yellow jersey to no less than three other riders on the same time in the general classification, Frantz, Andre Leducq and Victor Fontan. Fontan was the sole leader of the race when a broken bike led to his retirement, leaving De Waele in the lead, seventy five seconds ahead of Frantz. However, punctures to De Waele gave the lead to his nearest rival until he too suffered the same problem. With Frantz out of the running for the title, sickness in Grenoble nearly cost him too but with help from his teammates, he was led to victory.
After winning the 1929 Tour, the organiser, Henri Desgrange despaired so much of the trickery that he thought had let such a minor rider succeed that he abandoned commercially sponsored teams and ran the Tour for national teams for two decades. Desgrange had until then insisted that while riders could compete in the name of their sponsors, cooperation or tactics between those riders was not allowed. They were to consider everyone their rival and ride against them whether they had the same sponsor or not.
De Waele was sponsored by the French bicycle company, Alcyon, whose ability to employ many of the leading riders gave it a dominant place in the sport. Clashes between Alcyon and Desgrange were frequent and came to a head when De Waele won the Tour with the illegal help of other Alcyon riders even though he was ill.
"My Tour has been won by a corpse," Desgrange complained and from the following year denied entries to commercial teams and accepted national teams instead.
De Waele finished 5th in 1931. Other notable wins include the 1928 and 1929 Tour of the Basque Country.

## Career achievements
### Independent
#### 1921

    1st Overall Tour of Belgium Independents

#### 1922

    1st National Cyclo-cross Championships
    1st Bruxelles-Luxembourg-Mondorf
    1st Bruxelles-Liège (fr)
    2nd Belgian National Road Race Championships Independents
    2nd Overall Tour of Belgium Independents
       1st Stage 3
    2nd De Drie Zustersteden
    3rd Grand Prix François Faber

### Professional
#### 1923

    1st Overall Le Havre-Rouen-Le Havre
       1st Stage 2
    1st Arlon-Oostende
    2nd Belgian National Road Race Championships
    2nd Paris–Brussels
    2nd Scheldeprijs
    3rd National Cyclo-cross Championships
    4th Overall Tour of Belgium
    5th De Drie Zustersteden

#### 1924

    1st Overall Circuit des villes d'eaux d'Auvergne (fr)
       1st Stage 1
    1st Overall Grand Prix Alceida
       1st Stage 1
    1st Stage 2 Tour of Belgium
    2nd National Cyclo-cross Championships
    2nd De Drie Zustersteden
    3rd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen
    6th Liège-Bastogne-Liège
    6th Paris–Brussels
    7th Paris–Roubaix
    8th Tour of Flanders

#### 1925

    1st Kampioenschap van Oost-Vlaanderen
    1st Balgerhoeke
    2nd Overall Tour of Belgium
    2nd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen
    3rd Circuit du Massif Central
    6th Tour of Flanders
    7th Paris–Roubaix

#### 1926

    1st Paris-Menin (fr)
    1st Circuit Vosges-Alsace
    1st Saint-Brieuc-Brest-Saint-Brieuc
    1st Grand Prix Alceida
    2nd Paris-Saint-Étienne (fr)
    3rd Paris-Longwy (fr)
    5th Scheldeprijs
    6th Paris–Brussels

#### 1927

    Tour de France
       2nd Overall, @ + 1h 48' 21"
       1st, Stage 2 (Dieppe - Le Havre), 103km
       1st, Stage 13 (Perpignan - Marseille), 360km
    1st Paris-Menin (fr)
    3rd Tour of Flanders
    3rd Paris–Brussels

#### 1928

    Tour de France
       3rd Overall, @ + 56' 16"
       1st, Stage 8 (Bordeaux - Hendaye), 225km
       1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 271km
    1st Overall Tour of the Basque Country
       1st Stage 2
    2nd Bordeaux–Paris
    6th Paris–Brussels

#### 1929

    Tour de France
       1st Overall, 5254km in 186h 39' 16" (28.319km/h)
       1st, Stage 20 (Charleville - Malo-les-Bains), 270km
    1st Overall Tour of the Basque Country
       1st Stage 3
    2nd Paris–Brussels
    2nd Overall Tour of Belgium
    3rd Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen
    7th Paris–Tours

#### 1930

    4th Tour of Flanders
    6th Paris–Roubaix

#### 1931

    1st Overall Tour of Belgium
    1st Lebbeke
    5th Overall Tour de France
    9th Road race, UCI World Championships

### Grand Tour results timeline

| | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 |
| Giro d'Italia | DNE | DNE | DNE | DNE | DNE |
| Stages won | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tour de France | 2 | 3 | 1 | DNE | 5 |
| Stages won | 2 | 2 | 1 | — | 0 |
| Vuelta a España | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Stages won | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Legend :
| 1 | Winner |
| 2–3 | Top three-finish |
| 4–10 | Top ten-finish |
| 11– | Other finish |
| DNE | Did not enter |
| DNF-x | Did not finish (retired on stage x) |
| DNS-x | Did not start (not started on stage x) |
| HD | Finished outside time limit (occurred on stage x) |
| DSQ | Disqualified |
| N/A | Race/classification not held |
| NR | Not ranked in this classification |