Rudi Altig, Germany’s last men’s road world champion, dies aged 79

Rudi Altig, Germany’s last men’s road world champion, has died from cancer at the age of 79.

In a professional career that spanned the entire decade of the 1960s, he combined road racing in the spring and summer months with track racing in the winter.

The winner of 22 Six Day events and a hugely popular star on the circuit, he was also twice world individual pursuit champion.

On the road, he raced for some of the biggest teams of the era including Saint Raphael, Molteni and Salvarini.

Besides his world championship win in 1966, he won two Monuments – the Tour of Flanders in 1964, and Milan-San Remo in 1968 – as well as the 1962 edition of the Vuelta a Espana.

A winner of stages in all three Grand Tours, Altig wore the leader’s jersey during three separate editions of the Tour de France including his debut in the race in 1962.

Taking the yellow jersey on the first stage – one of eight he would at the race win in his career – did not sit well with his team leader Jacques Anquetil, however, since it meant the team had to defend the jersey for the five days that Altig, who would win the points classification that year, spent in it.

His world championship win came on home soil at the Nurburgring in 1966. The previous year, he had been runner-up to Great Britain’s Tom Simpson.

Altig’s win was a controversial one for two reasons. First, he had been helped in the race by Italy’s Gianni Motta, a team mate of the German at Molteni.

Secondly, Altig and the other two riders who made up the podium refused to provide urine samples in protest at what they saw as inadequate testing and restrictions on how the could train.

Initially the UCI disqualified the trio and suspended them, but 10 days later the governing body decided the result should stand.

Exactly 50 years on from Altig’s world championship win, Germany will head to this year’s edition I Qatar CHECK with high hopes of ending that long drought, with Andre Greipel, Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb all likely to feature in what should be a sprinter friendly race.