Shane Meadows hopes to make film about Tom Simpson

8 comments
By BikeRadar UK | Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011 10.00am

This is England director Shane Meadows wants to make a film about Tom Simpson, the British cycling champion who died of exhaustion on Mont Ventoux while taking part in the 1967 Tour de France.

Meadows, who grew up in Simpson's home county of Nottinghamshire, told the Associated Press: "He's a Nottingham guy and it's just one of those legendary stories that feels like a Hollywood movie script, though I wouldn't treat it like that."

The film director, who hasn't yet bought the rights to the story, said he wouldn't gloss over Simpson's use of amphetamines while racing because "it was very different then". No casting decisions have yet been made.

Simpson, born in Haswell, County Durham in 1937, was Britain's first road world champion (in 1965) and won several other major races, including the 1961 Ronde van Vlaanderen, 1963 Bordeaux – Paris, 1964 Milan – San Remo and 1965 Giro di Lombardia, In 1962, he became the first Briton to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France and finished sixth overall (the best placing by a Briton until Robert Millar's fourth in 1984).

He was looking strong at the start of the 1967 Tour, having won that year's Paris – Nice and two stages of the Vuelta a España. But 3km from the summit of Mont Ventoux during the 13th stage he began to wobble. After another kilometre he fell off his bike and had to be pushed back on by spectators. He made it a further 300m before collapsing again, this time losing consciousness. A post mortem found drugs and alcohol had combined with the heat, the hard climb and a stomach complaint to cause his death.

The memorial to tom simpson on mont ventoux: the memorial to tom simpson on mont ventoux

This granite memorial to Tom Simpson on Mont Ventoux was paid for by fellow British cyclists

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User Comments

There are 8 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 8 of 8 comments

  • I can't express how disappointed I am with Meadows comments about glossing over the drug use.

    I know his job is not to resolve cycling's ills, but if we can't face up to drug use in the peloton almost 50 years ago what hope is there for resolving the current problems.

    Plus, to me then the film wouldn't be realistic. The story is enhanced because he died young, did a James Dean etc., and the drugs are crucial to the death.

  • Sorry, ignore the above comment on re-reading the article.

  • Tough task - take a good cyclist now well-known as a drug cheat who possibly died from drug use - especially in the current climate of trying to topple giants suspected of the same thing.

    "This is England" was a good flick and showed 2 sides of skinhead culture: inclusion, identity, and sense of family on one side versus rampant bigotry and violence on the other.

    If Simpson is portrayed along the lines of Othello (fatal flaw) or even Gordon Gekko (greedy to his own detriment) then he'll have done a good job. If he's portrayed as Forest Gump I'll get up and leave...

  • That would be sweeeeeeeeeeet!

    Paddy Considine would make a good Tommy too.

  • I already want to see this film.

  • Paddy Considine is about a foot shorter than Simpson was!

  • Maybe Paddy will have to wear a pair of large cuban heels to the audition!

  • Let’s hope the boy makes a better job of Tom Simpson's story than the load of rubbish that was made of Graham Obree’s story in film.

    ps. could the editorial please get there stories proof read before they go up on this site, I write my replies in word do the 'spelling and grammar' check then paste it in (not rocket science).

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