Wervik (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Tobacco Museum in Wervik showcases how tobacco brands once dominated professional cycling through sponsorships and global marketing power.
Racing and smoking may seem like a bad combination, but things were different a century ago. The Tobacco Museum in Wervik, Belgium, is hosting a unique exhibition about it that opens today.
“Tobacco brands gratefully exploited the image of cyclists.”
Today, we think of top athletes as living a healthy lifestyle, but in the 1920s, tobacco brands were very interested in the world of cycling.
“It was still a decidedly male-dominated world back then,”
says coordinator Bo Decramer, who developed the exhibition specifically for the Tobacco Museum.
“Tobacco manufacturers were eager to associate themselves with that tough image. That’s how legendary brands like Boule d’Or and Belga started hijacking the cycling scene: they created posters and brochures and designed fantastic victory trophies.”
The advent of television in the 1950s further strengthened the ties between the tobacco industry and cycling. Fiorenzo Magni, a three-time Tour of Flanders winner, had just started riding for the skincare brand Nivea. He was no longer riding for a cycling brand, as was the custom at the time.
“Tobacco brands saw this and understood the enormous opportunity: being on screen, free advertising, reaching a wide audience,”
says Decramer.
“The Dutch were pioneers in this, but Belgian brands quickly followed. For example, Boule d’Or, which had been visible along the roadside for decades, found itself at the heart of the peloton.”
Even as society became increasingly critical of tobacco consumption, tobacco brands remained inventive. In 1983, Boule d’Or was initially banned from the Tour de France due to stricter French laws on stimulants.
“But team director Lomme Driessens came up with a solution: he quickly found a cheesemonger who provided a Boule d’Or cheese. ‘We’re coming to the Tour with our cheese,’ Driessens said, but everyone knew it was about the cigarette brand. With today’s strict laws, you’d need an army of lawyers to sell a story like that,”
says Decramer.
Because smoking is more of an enemy than a friend to a healthy lifestyle these days, the Tobacco Museum wanted to include that aspect in its exhibition. They collaborated with pulmonologists from AZ Delta to achieve this.
“We’re linking smoking to today’s elite sports and focusing on the impact of tobacco on your health. What we’re doing isn’t promoting smoking. We want to show how cleverly and cunningly the tobacco lobby has infiltrated sports. Not just cycling, but later also football and motorsports,”
concludes Decramer.
‘From Filter to Finish’ is still available to view through November 27.
Which tobacco brands sponsored pro cycling teams in Belgium?
A Belgian tobacco brand that had a professional cycling team sponsorship called Boule d’Or in the 1970s and 1980s. The cycling team was a significant player in the world of cycling, taking part in many of the biggest races in the world.
Tobacco brands have occasionally participated in sponsoring cycling teams or events across the world, although, because of repeated restrictions on advertising, tobacco sponsorships have recently diminished.
In Belgium, the relationship between cycling and sponsoring tobacco brands was prevalent in the mid-20th century because tobacco companies were capitalizing on the extensive popularity of cycling for marketing purposes. The sponsorship movement has diminished, due to regulations, but it remains a notable issue in the history of cycling.
