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Joël Pelier

road bicycle racer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 29, 2025
Entity authorityQ958472 ↗
Source-derived summary

Joël Pelier (born 23 March 1962, in Valentigney) is a French former professional road bicycle racer.

After the final climb of stage 17 in the 1986 Tour de France, Pelier collapsed from exhaustion and fell into a 7-hour coma.

In the 1989 Tour de France, then 27-year-old domestique had never been watched in his pro career by his parents who were dedicated to caring for Pelier's severely disabled sibling who needed constant attention. His parents made arrangements to watch stage 6 from near the finish line to which he responded with an attempted lone breakaway, and held out to win the stage by 1 minute and 34 seconds. He rode on his own for 4 and a 1/2 hours through wind and rain for 102 of the stage's 161 miles. It was the then second longest breakaway in Tour de France history after Albert Bourlon in 1947 and since surpassed by Thierry Marie. On the podium for the day's presentations a tear drenched Pelier was seen on television saying, "Mon per, mon per". and "This win is so special to me because today is the first time that my mother and father have seen me in the Tour de France".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Joël Pelier” is road bicycle racer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Joël, Pelier and road, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1962, 1986, 1989, 1947—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1962-03-23. For this dossier, Joël, Pelier and road is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “road bicycle racer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q958472. VIAF identifies the subject as 1691153532453848820009. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1986, 1989 and 1947.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joël Pelier”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joël Pelier primary sources, Joël Pelier archive and Joël research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Joël Pelier”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Joël Pelier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.