Photographing the Tour de France for 40 years

A former society photographer in London, Graham Watson began photographing cycling in 1977 during a visit to see the Tour de France end in Paris. He went on to become the main supplier of cycling images to magazines like Cycling Weekly (UK), Velo News (USA), and New Zealand Road Cyclist (now called New Zealand Cycling Journal). He photographed the 1987 Tour de France for Sports Illustrated, and was commissioned by Newsweek to photograph the comeback Tour de France of cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in 1999. Watson became the first-ever official photographer for the governing body of cycling, the Union Cycliste Internationale, in 1998, a role he kept for almost 20 years until his retirement in 2017. Watson now lives in Nelson and speaks to Noelle as this year's Tour de France competition kicks off, with a record four New Zealanders in the starting line-up.