Sport: Border Incident

In Western Europe, nearly everybody catches at least a glimpse of the Tour de France. Since 1903, with wartime lapses, the 5,000-kilometer, month-long bicycle race, starting and ending “in Paris, has been the big bang of the summer. Tempers often run high, temperament even higher among partisans and competitors. This year things got out of hand entirely.

Last month, when no cyclists from six countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland) gathered at the Paris start, 36-year-old Italian Veteran Gino Bartali was the obvious favorite. The Italian team captain, he had won in 1948, placed second a year ago. Italian strategy called for his younger teammates to carry the burden of the sprints, while Bartali saved, his sinewy legs for the rugged climbing over the Pyrenees and Alps.

As the cyclists swung through the tip of Luxembourg and Belgium, then down the French coast, Italian tactics seemed to be paying off. Bartali was close to the leaders, and the Italian team had won five of the first nine laps. The French team had won only one lap, and French partisans began to get restless. When Italian Alfredo Pasetti won the ninth lap, Bordeaux fans greeted him with shouts of “Macaroni” and “Dirty Fascists.”

The tenth lap was quiet enough (the French won it), but as the cyclists began the eleventh-lap climb into the Pyrenees, name calling turned to violence. Bartali, fighting for the lead, was knocked from his bike by a boisterous Frenchman, crashed into a heap with three other cyclists. French police restored order temporarily as Bartali remounted, but his teammates behind were pelted with stones and tomatoes when they pumped to the scene. Farther on, Bartali was nearly edged over a precipice by a speeding car. He won the lap, but he had had enough. He withdrew from the race and took his 16-man team with him.

In Italy last week, sport fans roared of an affront to national dignity. In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry tendered its regrets to the Italian embassy. At week’s end, the French Tour director announced a slight detour: the last half of the race will bypass Italy.