Alex Virot

Alex Virot’s skills as an artist were discovered by the Olympic medallist turned journalist Géo André who employed him to provide illustrations for “Miroir des Sports”. It was whilst covering the Amsterdam Games for “Miroir des Sports” that he submitted a series of sketches consisting of 10 drawings for the Olympic art contests and was awarded a silver medal.

Soon after the Games he joined “L’Intransigeant”, firstly as a cartoonist but he quickly graduated to writing articles for the magazine. In 1929 he pioneered radio commentary of the Tour de France, a role that he continued for the rest of his life. Throughout the thirties he reported both for radio and newspapers on sport and as a general news correspondent . He covered both the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the Spanish Civil War. In 1938 he was covering the World Skiing Championship when he was diverted to Vienna where he escaped Nazi censorship to provide reports on the German invasion of Austria.

Virot joined the French Resistance in 1942 and escaped capture by taking refuge in the mountains of Eastern France until liberation. After the end of the war he joined RTF, the French national broadcaster, as head of the news department but a series of disputes with his staff meant that his stay was a short one. Virot then joined Radio Luxembourg to present a popular weekly radio sports program.

In 1957 Virot was reporting on the Tour de France when a motorcycle on which he was a passenger left the road and crashed down a ravine near the town of Ax-les-Thermes. Virot was killed instantly.