Henri Pélissier

Henri Pélissier (22 January 1889 - 1 May 1935) was a French cyclist from Paris who won the 1923 Tour de France. One of four brothers, three of whom turned professional, he began racing professionally in 1911 and won the 1912 Milan-San Remo and three stages of the 1914 Tour before the war, then Paris-Roubaix in 1919 and the Circuit des Champs de Bataille in 1920. He rode the Tour from 1920 for four years and is remembered as much for his long feud with organiser Henri Desgrange and his protests about riders' conditions as for his 29 career wins; Desgrange vowed the brothers would never again appear on the front page of L'Auto after they demanded better pay in 1921, then had to eat his words when Pélissier won the Tour. He was shot dead by his lover with the gun his wife had used to kill herself.