This afternoon, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) and Le Coq Sportif officially announced that the French brand will be back on the shoulders of the riders of the Tour de France from 2012. Indeed, from the 99th edition, the small French rooster will be on all leader's jerseys of the different classifications of the Tour de France and all other cycling races organised by A.S.O. (like for example Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaix, the Critérium du Dauphiné, etc.).

Le Coq Sportif makes it's comeback

At the occasion of the 130th anniversary, Le Coq Sportif will make it's comeback on the shoulders of the best riders of the Tour de France. Comeback indeed because the French brand already proudly manufactured the jerseys of all riders of the Tour de France in the 50's when the Tour was done with national teams which all received the same equipments (bikes and jerseys). In May 1951, just after the introduction of the brand (before 1950 known as Bonneterie sportive Romillonne but already with a rooster as it's logo), Le Coq Sportif gets the official order and starts working on the creation of the jerseys for 12 team of 10 riders. The small rooster will however not yet be visible on the first jerseys because it gets embroidered on the inside of the collar of the jerseys.

By chance, the last stage, towards Paris, makes the peloton cross through Romilly sur Seine, they city which gave it's name to the Bonneterie sportive. The people working for the company thus see the riders in their Le Coq Sportif ride this stage.

In 1966, Le Coq Sportif gained a much better visibility in the Tour de France because the organisor of the Tour accepted to show the rooster and its triangle, the logo of the French brand, embroidered on the chest of the yellow jersey. With a French winner (Lucien Aimar), the brand thus rapidly gained in popularity!

Even though the brand disappeared from the Tour de France in the mean time, it never really left cycling and even emphasized its presence in the last few years with for example it's sponsoring of L'Eroica, the introduction of the Training line of garments using the colours of the World Champion rainbow (or of the UCI), it's sponsoring of cycling teams like Quick Step and Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team for example and also the Caisse d'Epargne team.

The end of Nike's sponsoring?

So far, and since many years already, the American supplier Nike was responsible for the distinctive leader's jerseys.

Since from 2012, Le Coq Sportif will supply the yellow jersey, the green jersey, the polka dot jersey and the white jersey, the partnership between ASO and Nike will most logically also come to an end at the end of this cycling season ... no one knows whether this is related to the second end of the career and/or the recent doping accusations of Lance Armstrong or not ... Anyway, when Armstrong initially stopped in 2005, Nike decided to continue its sponsoring anyway ...

As we know that the French brand is particularly fond of it's vintage or rétro style ... we could hope the jerseys will adopt a more vintage design than the straightforward jersey Nike delivers us since a few years! We'll only know for sure in October when the new jerseys will be presented during the official presentation of the Tour de France 2012.

La Caravane du Coq par lecoqsportif
© photo background illustration of this article : magiccyril / Cyril Gravelier sur Flickr

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Tour de France | Tour de France 2012 | Marketing

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