Albert Baker d'Isy (b. Paris 18 April 1906, d. 20 May 1968) was a French cycling journalist and author and the founder of the Grand Prix des Nations international time-trial.
In 1934, he became one of its main cycling writers, along with René de Latour, who was also foreign correspondent of the British monthly, Sporting Cyclist.
[4] Paris-Soir created both races in competition with L'Auto, the national sports daily which ran the Tour de France.
Rivalry between the publications was so intense that Henri Desgrange, the organiser, changed the time of race finishes so to make them too late for Paris-Soir to report.
[2] Baker d'Isy and Bénac got the idea of an international time-trial after watching the world championship road race in Copenhagen in 1931, which unusually had been run that way.
[2][3][5] The two decided that the novelty would ensure their paper publicity and that running a time-trial would cost less than a conventional road race.
Baker d'Isy moved after World War II to another Paris evening paper, Ce Soir.
Baker d'Isy also wrote for monthly papers, Sports and Miroir, which had been started by the Communist Party.
Pierre Chany wrote of him that he had "a high forehead, a faintly projecting jaw, the dry face of a Breton sailor, a felt hat pushed back to his neck.
At the Courrier de Lyon, a restaurant run by Aimé and Lucette Savy, those wonderful people, they kept an open table.
I remember that Jacques Couvrat, who started the Super Prestige Pernod, a man who was always very attentive to others, he urged him to write a book.