Joël Pelier

Joël Pelier is a French former professional road cyclist, born on 23 March 1962 in Valentigney. His career is remembered for two episodes at the Tour de France. After the final climb of stage 17 in 1986 he collapsed from exhaustion and fell into a coma that lasted seven hours. In 1989, as a 27 year old domestique, he won stage 6 after a long lone breakaway of about four and a half hours through wind and rain, covering 102 of the stage's 161 miles, and he won by 1 minute 34 seconds. His parents, who cared for a severely disabled sibling, had never before seen him race in the Tour and were at the finish line, and he was in tears on the podium. This entry records him as a male French road cyclist.