The Story

In May 2004, the last items of the estate of Australian Tour de France legend, Sir Hubert Opperman, were offered to the public as part of an auction of significant sporting memorabilia in Sydney.

Together with three cycling friends, six-time Tour de France competitor and Atlanta Olympian, Stephen Hodge, successfully bid for the most significant collection in the auction, 41 photographs of the 1928-31 Tours de France recorded as silver halide positives on glass ‘lanterns’.

The images cover every imaginable terrain, condition and aspect of one of the hardest sporting events in existence. The winners, the losers, the injured and the exhausted. From the coast to the mountains, the photos from Hubert Opperman’s estate are a landmark collection of cycling history…

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