Bernard Thevenet

The Burgundy farm boy who ended Merckx's reign in 1975.

Bernard Thévenet (born 10 January 1948) is a retired French cyclist and two-time winner of the Tour de France, remembered above all for ending the reign of five-time champion Eddy Merckx. He won the Tour in 1975, after taking the lead from Merckx in the mountains, and again in 1977, when he held off Hennie Kuiper and the rest by the smallest margin since 1968; he later admitted using steroids during his career. He also won the Dauphiné Libéré in 1975 and 1976. Thévenet came from a farming family in Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, in a hamlet called Le Guidon, and first saw the Tour in 1961 on a stage from Nevers to Lyon while a choirboy in the village church. His career began with the ACBB club in Paris.