Joël Pelier

Joël Pelier
Personal information
Full name	Joël Pelier
Born	(1962-03-23) 23 March 1962 (age 62) Valentigney, France
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Professional teams
1985	Skil–Sem–Kas–Miko
1986	Kas
1987–1988	Système U
1987–1988	BH

Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 1 individual stage (1989)

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.^[1]

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.^[2] It was the then second longest breakaway in Tour de France history after Albert Bourlon in 1947 and since surpassed by Thierry Marie.^[3] On the podium for the day's presentations a tear drenched Pelier was seen on television saying, "Mon per, mon per".^[4] 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".^[3]