La Grande Duchesse – How Luxembourg's Elsy Jacobs became the first-ever women’s World Champion

When Alfredo Binda led home an Italian 1-2-3 to win the first official men’s Road World Championships in Germany in 1927, it marked a brave new world for the sport. But that brave new world was one only for men, in a world where women’s sport was completely ignored rather than merely marginalised, there was no women’s race, and nor would there be for more than 30 years.

Of course there is a fair argument that World War Two delayed the appearance of a first women’s Worlds, but the counter to that is that hostilities had been over for 12 years before the UCI finally accepted the worthiness of a women’s race. And when finally it happened in Reims in 1958, Luxembourg rider Elsy Jacobs was ready to write her name in the history of women’s sport.

Born the youngest of nine children into a farming family in the tiny Luxembourgish village of Garnich, close to both the Belgian and French borders, Jacobs was used to competing with her siblings for everything, and she developed a fierce competitive nature and sharper sense of determination. If that alone was never enough to create a world-conquering athlete, helping out on the family’s farm certainly helped toughen her physically. According to Herbie Sykes’ feature in the sadly defunct Procycling magazine, legend has it that she once harvested 250kg of potatoes in one day, such was the strength of the young Elsy.

For Jacobs, cycling started as it does for many of us, a method of transport, and she’d borrow bikes from around the house, especially those of her brothers who were keen racers. And when she heard that women could race just across the border in France Belgium, she was sold.

However, with no support whatsoever for women’s racing from the Luxembourg federation, she was unable to get a race licence. So rather than be deterred, she’d arrive at races across the border, plead ignorance, tell organisers she’d ridden there from Luxembourg, then ride off and win the race.

In 1953, aged 20, Jacobs was riding under a French licence for a Parisian club, but with her brothers kicking up a storm on the Luxembourg scene, she returned to ride under the banner of the Luxembourgish club in Dippach, which provided her with a bike and a jersey, the club director recognising a star in the making.

Over the next few years, Jacobs established herself as one of the big names, as the women’s sport began to gain popularity. She finished 17th at the first ever women’s Tour de France in 1955, behind Millie Robinson, who led a dominant British team. With a coach now guiding her, Jacobs began to flourish.

Starting to understand that there was a way to realise her dream of riding professionally, Jacobs moved back to Paris, rejoining the CSM Puteaux club she’d represented a few years before. There she continued her progression, though despite the advice of her coach, she was never the greatest tactician, continuing to win races by simply riding the rest of the field off her wheel. And when that didn’t work she was still able to bag top results. This did wonders for her value, and as a canny negotiator she was able to demand excellent appearance fees.

On the back of her success and the general expansion in the women’s sport, in 1957 the Luxembourg federation finally recognised women’s racing, and she was finally able to obtain a home race licence. And just in time too.

Jacobs sparkles in Champagne

For a couple of years the federations of Great Britain, France, Belgium and the Soviet Union had been pressuring the UCI for a women's race at the World Championships. They nearly got it in 1956, but the following year the governing body finally gave in, agreeing to host the race at the 1958 Championships in Reims, France. And when it happened, Jacobs was ready.

The Champagne city of Reims is not much more than halfway between Jacobs’ home in Garnich and Paris, where she was based, and a month before the vines surrounding the city were finally ready, a cold, wet spring delaying the harvest, it hosted the Road World Championships.

On a scorchingly warm final weekend of August, just a few months after he won the Giro d'Italia, Italy's Ercole Baldini took his only professional world title, while the amateur event was taken by East German Täve Schur. But the day before, the women finally had their moment in the spotlight.

Run over 59km, the route consisted of just three laps of the circuit the men were to ride 14 times. It was short, but it was something – something the women's peloton had never had before.

The only rider from Luxembourg among the 29 starters, Jacobs was on her own against the might of the strong six-woman teams sent by those countries which had lobbied so hard for the race to happen in the first place.

On the first lap she was part of a seven-woman move. The second time round, knowing no other way, the diminutive Luxembourger attacked on the circuit’s main climb. And, as in so many races before and after, she was never seen again, crossing the line 2:51 ahead of the Soviet pair of Tamara Novikova and Mariya Lukshina.

She might have known only that way, but Elsy Jacobs was no one-trick pony. Just over two months later she headed to Milan where, on the Vigorelli Velodrome, she set a new hour record, her distance of 41km 347m beating the record set by Millie Robinson – the same woman who had won the Tour de France three years before. That record stood until Maria Crassari beat it in 1972.

It’s no surprise that when there was finally a Luxembourg National Championships the following year, Elsy Jacobs won it. Indeed she won it in all but one year until 1974. Between 1955 and 1978 when she eventually retired, she competed in 1,059 races, won 301 and was on the podium 339 times.

Though Elsy Jacobs died in 1998, her name lives on in the form of the Festival Elsy Jacobs, a recreational randonnée ride and a women’s professional race which bases itself in her hometown of Garnich.

Headstrong, ambitious but charming, Elsy Jacobs was a force of nature, and even had she not won the Worlds in 1958, she would have been a pioneer for women’s cycling, and for women’s sport in general. At home her achievements – not just her rainbow jersey – meant she was feted as a national hero, and in her, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg will forever have its Grande Duchesse.

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