18 JULY 1980
SEAN KELLY TAKES STAGE AT LAST
J.B. Wadley in St Etienne
Sean Kelly has at last won his stage of the 1980 Tour de France. But like a good Irishman he did so in the unexpected way, in the 85-mile run from Voreppe yesterday. Instead of out-sprinting a big pack of riders with a devastating ten-second effort, the County Tipperary star rode a 20-mile individual time trial into St Etienne.
Technically it was a ‘two-up’ time trial since Kelly was accompanied by Ismael Lejarreta, of Spain. But Lejarreta was a passenger nearly all the way. It was not that he would not work. He simply could not follow the fast pace that Kelly was setting. Kelly had reason to be in a hurry because the main pack was closing in fast. Only 20 seconds after he had free-wheeled over the line ahead of a very tired Lejarreta, the sprint for third place was won by the champion of Belgium, Jos Jacobs.
The Irishman’s victory was generally popular. Kelly has narrowly missed winning several times in this Tour, and now he has proved that he is not just a sprinter, but a fine all-rounder. Indeed his winning move included the climb of a difficult second-category hill, the last big obstacle of the Tour.
15 JULY 1981
FINAL TRIBUTE FOR WADLEY
Before the riders in the Tour de France descended the Col de Glandon yesterday, seven British cyclists paid their final tribute to John Wadley, cycling correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, who had followed the race on 23 occasions and who died in April this year.
Complying with the wishes of his wife Mary, his ashes were spread on the route of the Tour at a point where he passed on his 59th birthday. The spot, chosen by Neville Chanin, a renowned long-distance cyclist, was taken from My 19th Tour de France, a book John completed after following the race that year on his own bicycle.
20 JULY 1981
HINAULT’S GLORY UNDIMMED BY MAERTENS’S SPRINT
Phil Liggett in Paris
Freddy Maertens, of Belgium, won the final stage of the Tour de France, but it was Bernard Hinault who earned the cheers of the 500,000 spectators thronging the Champs-Elysées in Paris yesterday.
Hinault, the French world champion, was the overall winner for the third time in his career. He finished a massive 14 m 34 s ahead, and was the fastest winner of all time. Maertens won his fifth stage of the Tour when the 2,424-mile marathon was concluded with the 24th stage from Fontenay-sous-Bois. He headed home a pack of 118 riders.
The last day in the Chevreuse Valley was one of truce, and the field arrived to complete six laps of the Champs-Elysées in a compact bunch. This, at last, gave the sprinters a chance to win, and Maertens made no mistakes, striking the front in the last 100 yards.
Graham Jones, from Manchester, was the only Briton to finish, and his 20th place overall was the best recorded since the late Tom Simpson, who finished sixth in 1962. France had an enviable record of wins since Bernard Thevenet broke the grip of Eddy Merckx in 1975, and Hinault made up for last year when he retired injured.
Peter Winnen, 23, of Holland, who won the Best Young Rider award, finished fifth in his first Tour, and he has all the attributes necessary to win the race in another two years. Hinault showed himself to be fallible in the Alps, where Winnen won the hardest stage, and it was only in the four time trials that Hinault was able to build up such a winning margin.
Next year the organisers must reduce this individual racing, which leans heavily in the favour of Hinault who, as with Jacques Anquetil 15 years ago, has the ability to conserve his gains when the race enters the mountains. An average speed of 23.7 mph beat Anquetil’s record, and the 121 riders who finished were the largest number in the history of the event.
J.B. Wadley, who followed the Tour for 23 years as a journalist for The Daily Telegraph before his death three months ago, was again remembered at the start of the last stage, when Jacques Goddet presented the British journalists with the medal of the Tour for his wife Mary.
24 JULY 1981
FARM-BOY HINAULT REAPS RICH HARVEST
Sporting profile by Phil Liggett
Bernard Hinault, 26, winner of the Tour de France for the third time in four years, is now reaping the rewards throughout Europe. He will, for the next month, race daily and be paid between £2,000 and £2,500 each time.
The dark-haired Breton has made the most of his natural ability as a cyclist but, had he come from Aquitane in the West, the French say his talent would have developed as a champion at tennis or rugby.
As a schoolboy, Hinault dreamt of the day he would move to Paris and earn enough money to return to the farmland and buy his own house. Now, as a millionaire, he has built a property with his petite wife Martine in her village of Quessay, two and a half miles from his own family home in Yffiniac.
Hinault’s requirements from life are simple. When he is not away racing – which means all of the summer – he spends his time in the garden and fields. Married in 1974 at 19, he has two sons, Michael and Alexander, who are still too young to appreciate their father’s achievements.
‘I remember my first race when I was a cadet,’ said Hinault. ‘I promised my mother that the winner’s flowers would decorate the dining table in the evening, and they did because I won the race by eight minutes.’
Hinault has been described as proud, stubborn and solitary, but above all he is supremely confident. ‘I find success natural, but it is still a consequence of hard work,’ he said. ‘My popularity stimulates me in an unbelievable fashion. In my first season I won 12 races from 20 starts, but that was hardly enough to concentrate on a future as a professional. I carried on with my simple life of no smoking and alcohol and turned professional in 1974.’
Until his marriage, Hinault lived with his parents, two brothers and sister in the drab onion-growing village of 3,000 people. His parents were proud to admit that they never owned a car and Hinault used to ride the 757 pedal strokes to St Brieuc, where he studied with average academic ability.
‘My parents were not rich; they are still not and never will be. But we have had everything we wanted by working hard. I remember the days when we had no meat, and we just had cabbage and potatoes for dinner.’ In 1974 Hinault married and turned professional for £110 a month. Now his earnings can be estimated at £25,000 per month, although an electric saw and garden rotovator indicate Hinault’s wants in contrast to a fast car.
Hinault, by his presence, commands attention. During the 1978 Tour de France he was the instigator of the first strike in the event’s history. He led the riders walking across the finishing line in Valence d’Agen, protesting against their use as ‘commercial animals’.
He dislikes comparisons between himself and the great riders. When asked such questions, his enduring smile disappears and his face clouds: ‘I am a stubborn and aggressive Breton, who does not resemble anyone. Certainly, I think of Eddy Merckx and Jacques Anquetil, who have both won the Tour five times, but that ambition is not yet in my order of the day. Merckx and I are made of the same material, but I sincerely do not race to equal his achievements.’
Merckx, who followed the Tour de France as a reporter, said: ‘I have never been surprised by Hinault’s results. He is a complete champion and, although Anquetil and I have our five wins, it is possible he will pass us.’
Hinault’s attitudes to his wife and family have never changed since the day he won his first race. When his career ends in, perhaps, eight years, he will certainly return to Brittany and assume a farmer’s life. When he won his first Tour, his parents travelled to Paris and sat next to the President of France, appearing uncomfortably out of place in new clothes.
Now, with three wins, Hinault is a superstar. Yet, during this year’s Tour, he was visited by the worried mother of a sick boy and asked if he would write a letter to her son who idolised him. Hinault did more than that. He visited the boy in hospital and gave him a Renault-Gitane racing jersey – after racing one of the hardest days of the race.
16 JULY 1982
SEAN KELLY CRACKS MOUNTAIN EXPERTS
Phil Liggett in Pau
Sean Kelly, the Irishman who has failed to win a stage in this year’s Tour de France during his favourite flat terrain, yesterday shocked the mountain specialists with an outstanding victory in Pau after 156 gruelling miles across the Pyrenees from Fleurance.
It was an emotional finish for Kelly, who, after coming second three times, had begun to wonder if he would ever be in a position to try for a win. It was his fifth stage victory since 1978. Wiping away the sweat of almost seven hours’ racing, Kelly said: ‘I told myself this morning that I was strong enough to win, so why not try in the mountains. I owed the victory to myself and my team.’
After crossing the Pyrenees giants – the Col du Souler (4,853 feet) and the Col d’Aubisque (5,607 feet) – Kelly showed determination to remain in contact with the climbers, which marks his progress generally this season. ‘I caught them on the final climb, and although they dropped me slightly, I rejoined on the way down,’ he said. ‘Once away from the mountains I was confident my sprint finish would see me through.’
9 JULY 1983
REFEREES HAIL SHERWEN SHOW OF COURAGE
Phil Liggett in Pontarlier
Paul Sherwen, 29, one of only three British riders in this year’s Tour de France, showed the sort of courage that has endeared the event to the heart of the French for almost a century when he limped in almost an hour and a half behind the rest of the field yesterday.
The Frodsham professional, who has lived in France for almost ten years, crashed and suffered a back injury immediately after the start of the 127-mile tenth stage from Epinal to Pontarlier. After finishing 23 minutes outside the time limit he resigned himself to elimination, but his determination impressed the normally immovable international referees, who after an hour’s deliberation reinstated him.
Raphael Geminiani, the normally gruff La Redoute team manager, waited for more than an hour for Sherwen to arrive at the ski resort finish, gave him a dry undervest and said: ‘Paul, this is your leader’s yellow jersey for courage.’
Sherwen’s French team-mates, Alan Bondue and Régis Simon, had tried to nurse him back to the field but, also fearing elimination, left him alone after 50 miles. ‘I had to tell my team-mates to go on but I didn’t want to give up what may be my last Tour,’ said Sherwen, who understandably wept on hearing of his reinstatement, which was against the wishes of Felix Lévitan, the Tour director.
The referees considered his ‘show of courage’ and a high speed of 25 mph through the Jura mountains. Later they had no mercy for Didi Thurau, of West Germany, who was disqualified and fined £100 for grabbing and shaking the chief referee before the morning start in Epinal. Thurau was still annoyed at being penalised a minute for taking pace during Saturday’s time trial from Charly Mottet, the French rider.
11 JULY 1983
KELLY IN YELLOW JERSEY – AND WHITE FOR ROCHE
Phil Liggett in Pau
Sean Kelly, 27, yesterday became the first Irish leader of the Tour de France for 20 years when he finished third at the end of the ninth stage from Bordeaux to Pau to take the lead by one second – the narrowest margin possible.
Kelly, who also increased his overall lead of the race on points, needed to finish third and win a ten-second time bonus to take the leader’s yellow jersey, and in a confident sprint he beat 115 riders with apparent ease. ‘It wasn’t my intention to try for the yellow jersey, but when I knew that third place would be enough, I felt I had to do it for the publicity for my sponsors. You don’t get two chances like this in a lifetime,’ said Kelly.
It was an historic day for Ireland, who have only two professional cyclists, and Stephen Roche, 22, in his first Tour de France, moved to sixth place overall and into the lead of the white jersey competition for the best newcomer. Shay Elliott, who came from Dublin, is the only other Irishman to have worn the yellow jersey since the race began in 1903. Elliott took the lead at Roubaix and survived for three days before losing it at Angers.
Kelly, who claims to be concentrating on the green jersey as points leader, will not predict what will happen during the final two weeks, but he has proved before – by his stage victory in Pau last year – that he can climb the high mountains.
12 JULY 1983
MILLAR TRIUMPHS OVER PYRENEES AS KELLY LOSES LEAD
Phil Liggett in Luchon
Robert Millar, from Glasgow, yesterday scored Scotland’s first-ever stage victory in the Tour de France, after a magnificent ride across the Pyrenees between Pau and Luchon enabled him to finish alone. Behind him lay a trail of exhausted riders and more than a dozen retired, while Sean Kelly, of Ireland, lost the overall lead he had held for a day.
Millar, 24, who has never before seen the Pyrenees, spent six hours at the head of the attacks until finally he crossed the top of Col de Peyresourde with ten miles to go. A professional for three years, this is Millar’s first Tour de France and he has waited with controlled enthusiasm for the mountainous stages. At the start of the day in 83rd place overall, he climbed to 27th.
‘I have been disappointed with my race so far, but now I’m delighted. This is my first professional victory and to win a stage here is unbelievable,’ said Millar, who rode for more than 30 miles with Patrocinio Jimenez, a Colombian amateur.
Kelly, the overnight leader, was never in a position to defend his yellow jersey, which passed to Pascal Simon, a team-mate of Millar’s, after the Frenchman finished third, 1 m 13 s behind. Kelly fell back soon after the stage started on the Col d’Aubisque and finished 18th, more than ten minutes behind. But the Irishman was not disappointed, especially as the mountains claimed two of Kelly’s rivals for his lead in the points classification.
15 JULY 1983
RIDERS STAGE A GO-SLOW IN DOPE PENALTY PROTEST
Phil Liggett in Aurillac
During the past two days four riders in the Tour de France have been penalised for failing routine dope tests, and concern about the use of medicaments almost brought yesterday’s stage of the 2,400-mile marathon to a premature end. The riders, in protest during the 130-mile 13th stage, from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon to Aurillac, continued for some time at only six miles an hour, and the organisers threatened to cancel the event.
Before the start, the 112 riders were annoyed that Patrick Clerc, a young French rider who was declared ‘positive’ on Wednesday evening, might not be able to complete the event. It was his second doping offence within 12 months, thereby invoking a month’s ban previously suspended.
As the race moved off this attitude met with a terse response from Felix Lévitan, 72, the race co-director: ‘Gentlemen, if you stop this race today, then I will stop the Tour de France and it will be finished for this year.’ However, Mr Lévitan added that Clerc would be allowed to continue to Paris and that any discussion about his suspension would be between the French Cycling Federation and the world governing body (ICU) after the race.
It soon became clear as the field meandered through the picturesque Auvergne and the Massif Central that the stage, which should have proved decisive, was to be ruined by a go-slow situation.
The slowdown started after Patriocini Jimenez, a Spanish-speaking amateur rider from Colombia, had attacked on the ten-mile climb of the Col de Montjaux, where he hoped to out-manoeuvre Robert Millar, his nearest challenger for his King of the Mountains jersey.
Immediately the Colombian was joined by Gilbert Duclos-Lasalle, a team-mate of Millar’s, and with the help of Marco Franceshini, of Italy, the amateur was persuaded to return to the field. Later the Italian was penalised ten seconds and fined £88 for touching Jimenez.
Now, thoroughly displeased by the action of the professional riders, Mr Lévitan said: ‘Mr Duclos-Lasalle, I ask that you honour your profession and allow the race to develop in a correct and proper manner.’ This request had no effect for some miles until Henk Lubberding, of Holland, and Régis Clere and Hubert Linard, of France, went ahead, after 50 miles, to gain the day’s major prizes.
This excellent race could be further marred by doping problems for rumour was rife last night that ten more riders, having given positive samples, are now awaiting results of second tests. It is thought that among these are some of the leaders.
The four riders penalised so far have all claimed that the products they used were prescribed by their family doctors for general health. Riders usually follow general courses of vitamins and receive regular medical examinations. Joop Zoetemelk, 36, the Dutchman, was found to have used an anabolic steroid called nandrolone, a substance that was found in athletes during the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games but, at that time, was not on the prescribed list. It is the first time the control centres on the Tour de France have tested for this product.
‘We lose so much weight in a race like this and you can’t put it back on with just food,’ said Millar in defence of the Dutchman. ‘Look at Zoetemelk, does he seem like a man full of steroids? He only weighs ten stone.’
Unfortunately, there does seem to be a grey area in the method of dope testing and the race’s overall leader, Pascal Simon, who has passed all the tests so far in this event, was penalised last month in the Dauphiné-Libéré race. On that occasion he had claimed to have used a product which was suitable for administration to a nine-month-old baby.
25 JULY 1983
FAIRYTALE VICTORY FOR FIGNON
Phil Liggett in Paris
Laurent Fignon, 22, became one of the youngest winners of the Tour de France when it ended on the Champs-Elysées yesterday after the final 122-mile stage from Alfortville had been disrupted by a number of pile-ups in the final mile.
After three weeks of hot sunshine, the first rain fell soon after the field came on to the Champs-Elysées and as the riders negotiated six 3½-mile laps a number of them slipped and slid into barriers. It was a tense, almost fitting ending to one of the most unpredictable races for years, and though no riders were seriously injured it caused a number of anxious moments for the overall leaders.
Sean Kelly, 27, who won the points classification for a second year, was denied his stage victory when Gilbert Glaus, the Swiss former world amateur champion, beat him by half-a-wheel in the final sprint. Kelly was disappointed at not having won a stage after finishing in the first six on ten occasions. ‘Fignon spoiled it for me,’ said Kelly. ‘He attacked as we came into the finish and I had to chase him, otherwise he would have won, so when Glaus went I couldn’t follow.’
Waiting to welcome Fignon after he had finished fourth on the last stage were his proud parents, who had sat in the Presidential Tribune. Also watching nearby was Bernard Hinault, winner four times in the previous five years. Fignon, a blond Parisian, gave the race a fairytale ending, because he lives only a few miles from the finish. In Hinault’s absence through injury the French were expected to do poorly in their 80th year, but the opposite was true.
‘I am incredibly happy, but now my quiet life is over,’ said Fignon as he was being mobbed by autograph hunters. He no longer has any regret at giving up his studies as a veterinary surgeon to become a professional rider.
Cyrille Guimard, his Renault manager, who has an amazing record in the Tour de France, has now been behind three different winners. He managed Lucien van Impe, of Belgium, when he won in 1976. Van Impe may have finished better than fourth this time if he had not been in a rival Italian team.
Guimard, in steering Fignon to victory, has produced a winner that was never foreseen. His main problem now will be to integrate Fignon and Hinault when they continue together as team-mates. ‘Well,’ said Guimard, ‘you must admit that if you have a wife and a mistress then you will always have problems.’
23 JULY 1984
FIGNON WINNER FOR SECOND YEAR
Phil Liggett in Paris
Laurent Fignon, 23, yesterday returned to Paris after 2,400 miles in the Tour de France as the winner for the second successive year. Fignon, the French champion, who lives in the city, set off on 29 June to face one of the most difficult routes for years, and in glorious sunshine, he was welcomed back with a time ten-and-a-half minutes better than the runner-up, Bernard Hinault.
Robert Millar, from Scotland, was fourth overall and the first Briton to win the King of the Mountains competition. Millar, 25, from Glasgow, said: ‘I know it was my ambition but now I’ve done it I can’t tell you how I feel. Next year, though, I know I want to do it again.’
Millar is the first British rider to break into the top five, and his fourth place was gained by extraordinary ability in the Alps, supported by a good defence against the challengers in the time trial. His fourth place, 14 m 42 s behind Fignon, bettered Tom Simpson’s sixth 22 years ago. Simpson dedicated his life to the race in which he died in 1967.
Fignon’s victory was, he said, ‘the finest of my career because I beat Hinault, and to make me feel even better he still finished on the podium below me’. The two former team-mates openly dislike one another and have daily attacked each other in the press and on television. Hinault, 29, did not possess the ability, despite four Tour wins, to win. But he warned that next year Fignon’s form might be different.
22 JUNE 1985
MILLAR – 5,000 CALORIE MAN
Michael Calvin
The hardy holiday-makers hunched against the wind which buffeted the Isle of Man yesterday paid no attention to the deceptively slight figure of Robert Millar. There was the occasional stir when an aide carried his bicycle into the hotel lobby with an incongruous sense of reverence. But passers-by continued their struggle along the seafront in blissful ignorance of the presence of one of the emerging stars of European sport.
Millar, in his fifth year as a professional cyclist, accepts his anonymity in his native Britain. Yet the shrewdest judges in his sport suspect that his appearance in the British Professional Championship on the island tomorrow will mark the end of an era. Next Friday, Millar, 26, will embark on the Tour de France, a classic test of athletic endurance which begins in Brittany and, some 4,000 km later, climaxes on the Champs-Elysées to the type of reception accorded to the liberation forces in 1945.
Millar was fourth overall on the Tour last year – the best performance by a Briton – and if he wins in 1985 he will be thrust into a millionaire lifestyle beyond the imagination of the friends he left behind in Glasgow’s Gorbals. No one will ignore him again.
Although the financial rewards are spectacular, they must be earned with the acceptance of pain throughout 23 days of racing. A rider’s robotic devotion to duty must combat excruciating saddle sores, aching limbs and insidious mental pressure. Millar, a vegetarian, who, paradoxically, is considering investing in a franchise for McDonald’s hamburgers in his adoptive homeland of France, has wanted nothing else since, at the age of 16, he glimpsed the Tour on television. His store of physical energy is stocked by the consumption of 5,000 calories a day, and he admits that his ration of ten hours’ sleep a night will be insufficient.
‘People in Britain cannot relate to the style of the Tour,’ he tells you without a trace of reproach. ‘But for three weeks it is the most important thing that is happening in France. When you are racing for that length of time you forget what real life is like. There are times when, quite literally, you do not know what day it is. There’s a certain relief when you race down the Champs-Elysées at the end. But there’s also a great sense of anti-climax. You wonder what on earth you are going to do with your time.’
The winner will consult his agent, and count his winnings. Other survivors – and only half the field completes the Tour – will reflect on the cruelty of one of the most physically demanding sports.
Millar, so aware of the need for prime fitness that he sends a monthly blood sample to a specialist in Bordeaux for analysis, has an intimate knowledge of such disappointment. He was manoeuvred out of winning this year’s Tour of Spain because other teams, persuaded of the necessity of producing a home triumph, openly conspired against him.
‘Alliances will always be made when teams want something badly enough,’ he says in a gentle Franco-Scottish accent which testifies to the complete success of his resettlement south of Paris. ‘I have learnt that cycling is basically an individual sport where no one can trust anyone else.’
Riders make – and break – promises to one another on the road, and Millar, acknowledged climbing expert who won the polka dot shirt given to the Tour’s King of the Mountains last year, exhibits an animal’s instinct for weakness. Cocooned in concentration, he listens to every breath of his rivals, and studies whether their faces are flushed with fatigue. Then, banking on the value of surprise, he suddenly strains every sinew and sustains a 30-second burst of killing speed.
‘The thing that gives me greatest pleasure in cycling is still feeling the wind in my face on a sunny day,’ he reflects with a half-smile. ‘But the inner satisfaction when you leave people gasping behind you is enormous. You glance over your shoulder and see them suffer. But you are also suffering yourself. You can’t laugh or even smile with pleasure because of the physical effort you have put in, but inside you feel very excited.’
Millar, a self-confessed introvert, relaxes by listening to music, and lives with his girlfriend, a canteen worker in the town of Troves in the south-east of the French capital. He learnt the language on a cassette course and, as he studies Dutch to become a more complete European, he concedes that he has no affinity with Glasgow.
He cannot, however, escape the lessons of his background. He still remembers the drudgery of an abandoned apprenticeship in engineering, which remains a powerful force of motivation. The stark features of his face, soothed by a sun tan, are emphasised when he considers the enormity of the opportunity which awaits him.
He knows that cycling legends like Hinault and Fignon occasionally struggle when confronted by mass adulation and admits: ‘That sort of thing worries me. When I see the big guys having trouble dealing with all the questions and all the supporters, I know I’m not prepared for life at that level. But if I have to, I will cope. Let’s face it, I’m being paid to do something I would do for nothing. I know what it’s like to work in a factory, so I can put up with not being just another rider.’
22 JULY 1985
HINAULT TRIUMPHS FOR FIFTH TIME
Phil Liggett in Paris
Bernard Hinault, 30, smiled for the first time in three weeks when he was duly crowned as winner of the 2,500-mile Tour de France on the Champs-Elysées for a record-equalling fifth time yesterday.
Hinault finished safely in the main pack after the 122-mile final stage from Orléans, which was won by Belgium’s Rudy Matthijs. The Breton, who equalled a record held by Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx, was cheered to the podium by the thousands of spectators who packed the capital’s most famous boulevard. He had led the race since the ninth day.
In the final sprint yesterday, contested by all 144 survivors, Sean Kelly was again beaten into second place – his fifth runners-up position of the Tour, and his 14th second place since he last won in 1982. Even so it was Ireland’s most successful race and Stephen Roche and Kelly produced their country’s best performance by finishing third and fourth overall, with Kelly also winning the race on points. Greg LeMond, of the United States, became the highest-placed English-speaking rider when he finished second, 1 m 42 s behind Hinault.
Hinault’s victory is a personal triumph after a successful fightback from a knee injury which forced him to give up in the 1980 Tour when leading at Pau. Since then few have believed he had the resources to return to the top, though he always said he would. While Hinault was injured, France produced a new star in twice Tour winner Laurent Fignon, who pushed Hinault into second place last year.
The victory is also a credit to a dedicated La Vie Claire team formed by young millionaire Bernard Tapie, a health food chain owner. Tapie tempted Hinault away from his former team, Renault, and then weakened Renault further by offering Greg LeMond $1.5 million over four years to leave also.
Only 36 retirements in the marathon indicates an easier than usual passage for most – the organisers had anticipated about 65 – but after Hinault won the lead at Strasbourg on day nine of 22, the race centred on only a handful.
22 JULY 1986
LEMOND TAKES CONTROL AS MILLAR FADES
Phil Liggett at Alpe d’Huez
Three giant Alpine climbs were all that Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault needed to put their final stamp on this year’s Tour de France, and when they reached the finish of the 18th stage at Alpe d’Huez yesterday, the pair had spread-eagled the field over almost an hour.
The riders spend their only rest day at the ski station today, licking their wounds before facing the final 500 miles to Paris, after Hinault and LeMond had proved themselves to be the most outstanding riders.
LeMond, the first American to lead the race, spent his first day in the yellow jersey on the attack with Hinault, his French team-mate, and together they finished over five minutes ahead of Urs Zimmermann, who slipped back to third overall. With a piece of showmanship never before seen in the 83 years of the Tour, the Vie Claire colleagues linked arms and came up the last half-mile together. Hinault was awarded the stage – the 26th such victory of his career – and LeMond was content with second place.
Robert Millar, the Panasonic rider from Glasgow, was the main casualty of another most gruelling day and, after crossing the 8,000-feet summit of the Col du Galibier in fourth place, he faded rapidly, losing over 19 minutes and dropping back from fourth to eighth overall.
Only Hinault remains within three minutes of LeMond after yesterday’s escape by the pair, which started on the rapid descent of the Galibier. Hinault was doing the aggressive work and with over 60 of the 101 miles still to go – and, more importantly, the 6,000-foot climbs of the Col de la Croix Fer and Alpe d’Huez – he attacked again, taking with him Canadian Steve Bauer, another team-mate, LeMond and Ruiz-Cabestany, from Spain.
The Spaniard and Bauer fell back as the narrow ascent of the Croix Fer began, and from this point, Hinault nursed LeMond over the mountains without requiring him to share the pacemaking.
Hinault, being denied an historic sixth overall victory by LeMond, seemed to have come to terms with the great disappointment, and together they pulled clear of Zimmermann, who, LeMond felt, must have been asleep when they began their attack.
25 JULY 1986
LEMOND MUST TRIUMPH NOW SAYS HINAULT
Phil Liggett in St Etienne
Bernard Hinault, the defending champion who has won the Tour five times, was ready to concede victory to the American Greg LeMond last night, despite winning the 36-mile time trial at St Etienne by a scant 25 seconds yesterday.
‘I have attacked since the start of this race but, although I intend to race all the way to Paris, I have lost it now,’ said Hinault, after his third stage victory of the Tour, which kept him in second place, 2 m 18 s behind, with three days to go.
Hinault recorded 1 h 15 m 36 s for the hilly circuit, which included the 600-foot climb of the Côte de Rochetaillée. LeMond, as last to start, then came home 3 m 25 s after with 1 h 16 m 41 s for second place. But there was considerable doubt that Hinault would have won if LeMond had not fallen and changed bikes, losing perhaps 30 seconds.
LeMond overshot a right-hand bend after 20 miles, and fell without injury, quickly remounting. As he restarted, he noted his front brake was broken, and he stopped again to change his cycle. At the finish line, there were emotional scenes as, on hearing news of the crash, LeMond’s family burst into tears. They even accused LeMond’s rivals of sabotaging his machine; there was no proof of this.
With three days left, LeMond is unlikely to concede much more of his 2 m 18 s advantage; and even with today’s climb of the giant Puy de Dôme mountain outside Clermont Ferrand, he will remain confident of victory. The Californian is climbing well, and after venting his anger at the finish yesterday – which was exacerbated when he cut his finger opening a soft drink can – he is likely to be suitably conditioned emotionally for a final day of attacking riding before the flat roads to Paris this weekend.
28 JULY 1986
LEMOND RIDES TO GLORY AFTER LATE ACCIDENT
Phil Liggett in Paris
Greg LeMond fulfilled all his promises yesterday by becoming the first American to win the Tour de France when the 2,500-mile race ended its lap of the country on the Champs-Elysées. He was only 44th in the final scramble to the line by the 132 survivors, but after a crash entering the city and two bicycle changes, he finished more than three minutes clear overall.
Perhaps the thousands who lined the gentle incline between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe reserved their loudest cheers for the losing Frenchman, Bernard Hinault, but there was no doubt about the strongest rider after almost 23 days of the most open racing. LeMond, 26, from California, duelled with his La Vie Claire team-mate for 2,250 miles, and it was only after Friday’s time trial at St Etienne that Hinault conceded the race.
LeMond is two years older than Hinault was when he won his first Tour in 1978 almost four minutes in front of Joop Zoetemelk, of Holland. Yesterday the Dutchman, now 39, created his own piece of history when he completed his 16th Tour. The blond American, who was welcomed by his wife Kathy and baby son Jeffrey and both sets of parents at the finish line, never doubted his ability to win. He predicted his victory even before the start in Paris on 4 July, and always refused to be second best to Hinault, five times a winner of the race, even though the Frenchman did try to unnerve him.
LeMond, who lives in Kortrijk, Belgium, is already a millionaire, yet is still comparatively unknown in the United States.
23 JULY 1987
ROCHE BATTLES TO BRINK IN CHASING LEADER DELGADO
Phil Ligget at La Plagne
The finest sporting duel the Tour de France has witnessed for many years almost ended in disaster yesterday when Stephen Roche, the Irishman in second place overall, pushed himself to the limits of endurance and collapsed after he crossed the finish line at La Plagne. Minutes before his collapse at the 6,400-feet ski station on the Italian border, Roche had produced the most unbelievable fightback after Pedro Delgado, his only rival for the race’s overall victory, had led all the way up the last mountain. Delgado, who started the day 25 seconds ahead of Roche, was hoping to gain at least three minutes yesterday, and halfway up the climb he had made almost one and a half when Roche fought back.
At the line Delgado finished fourth and Roche, who closed 45 seconds in the last three kilometres, finished fifth, losing only four seconds to the Spaniard, although he was later penalised ten extra seconds for feeding outside designated zones.
Immediately after crossing the line Roche fell into the arms of helpers and then two race doctors lowered him to the floor, where he was wrapped in silver foil against the cool air and given oxygen for 15 minutes. Roche was taken by ambulance to his hotel but not before he forced a smile and gave the ‘thumbs up’ sign after the most extraordinary effort the race has seen. He was later reported to be sleeping normally and will be at the start again today.
It was an act of desperation on Roche’s part for, with six miles to climb to the finish, he seemed to be losing any chance of victory in the Tour after Delgado launched his calculated attack. Ahead of both was Laurent Fignon, who won the 115-mile Alpine stage from Bourg d’Oisans in a sprint finish from Anselmo Fuerte, but this was a supporting role in the real race for the leader’s yellow jersey.
Fignon, who won the same stage in 1984 when he also won the Tour, also avoided disaster by inches yesterday when he crashed on the descent of the Col de la Madeleine at 40 mph. Fignon landed over a crash barrier but his bike disappeared high into a tree, from where mechanics rescued it as he shrugged off the incident with a smile.
This race has built into a battle between Delgado and Roche, with the last mountain stage to come today. The efforts by both riders so far now leave a question mark over how much strength they have left. Delgado, who saw Roche lying on the road, said: ‘I tried to get three minutes today, and all I got was four seconds.’
27 JULY 1987
TRIUMPH FOR ROCHE BY 40 SECONDS
Phil Liggett in Paris
Stephen Roche showed the first signs of emotion in 26 days when he mounted the podium to stand alongside the Prime Ministers of France and Ireland on the Champs-Elysées, after winning the Tour de France by 40 seconds.
His eyes filled with tears as he was hugged by the Irish Taoiseach Charles Haughey, who was among the first to congratulate Roche, the first Irishman to win the Tour. ‘It’s hard to believe it,’ said Roche. ‘There are so many people responsible, all I did was ride the bike.’
Roche’s margin of 40 seconds was only two seconds away from the smallest ever, in 1968, but there was never any danger of an attack by his shadow, Pedro Delgado of Spain, who raced himself out of the picture in Saturday’s time trial. Delgado was a magnificent adversary for Roche, and it was with more than just relief that Roche lifted Delgado’s arm in the air after he stepped up on the podium.
Roche’s prize of £75,000 is made up of an apartment, a Peugeot car, cash and a map of the route traced in diamonds. Most of his winnings will be split among his team-mates, who guided him through from West Berlin to Paris.
There were many highlights in a marvellous race, but one of the great sadnesses was the late retirement on Saturday of Sean Yates, who had finished every Tour ridden. A week after a crash, the injury turned septic and he was forced to give up his fourth Tour.
Before the race started in anger yesterday, Roche stopped by the roadside to embrace Jacques Goddet, the co-director of the race following his 52nd and last Tour de France. Mr Goddet, 82, is still an active director of the sponsoring newspaper L’Equipe, and has witnessed every major happening in the Tour since he followed it for the first time in 1928.
27 JULY 1987
IRISH EYES SMILE FOR ROCHE
PETER BYRNE REPORTS FROM DUBLIN ON THE MAN WHO WON THE TOUR DE FRANCE CYCLE RACE
Larry Roche packed an extra item into his bags when he left for work as a security man in Dublin on Saturday morning. While all Ireland and much of Europe prepared to follow the penultimate stage of the Tour de France live on television, Larry was content to monitor the progress of his son Stephen by means of a tiny transistor radio.
One of sport’s most alluring individual awards might have been about to fall to a member of the family but Larry Roche had other priorities and other business to settle. In a fashion, it fitted the mood of improbability as Stephen Roche, a 27-year-old Dubliner, achieved a special place in sporting history when he crossed the finishing line in the Champs-Elysées yesterday at the end of a punitive journey of 4,200 km.
In winning the Tour de France, Roche became only the second rider from the English-speaking world to invade the territory which mainland Europe has long regarded as its own. No less than the achievement of America’s Greg LeMond a year ago, victory had come only grudgingly.
‘These last three weeks have been among the hardest and most delightful of our lives,’ said Larry Roche as the general classification table confirmed that his son had finally put himself beyond reach of the pursuit. ‘The pressures on the family back in Dublin were considerable. God knows what they were like in the closing stages of the Tour for Stephen.’
Roche senior need scarcely have worried about the son who has matured considerably since he left home in search of fame and fortune and settled in Paris seven years ago. In June, Stephen fell foul of the partisan Italian crowds after a controversial spill had left his Carrera team-mate, Roberto Visentini, writhing on the roadside during the Tour of Italy. The Irishman was accused of sacrificing his colleague in the pursuit of his ambition. For much of the next ten days he was punched and spat at by crowds lining the mountain passes and generally vilified in a section of the Italian sporting press.
‘It’s at times like these that you discover how badly you want to win races,’ said Roche. ‘I had waited seven years for this hour – nothing and nobody was going to deter me.’
A month earlier, Ireland had followed the exploits of another of its cyclists, Sean Kelly, who led the Tour of Spain until illness put him out of the race with only days to go. That the Irish should produce two riders like Roche and Kelly was as astounding as contemporary milers of the quality of Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe emerging in British athletics in the Seventies.
A colourful Irishman, Shay Elliott, later to die tragically, had once flirted with success at a time when professional cycling was viewed merely as a curiosity by Britain and Ireland some 30 years ago. Yet history was scarcely reassuring when Kelly, senior to Roche by some four years and later to claim a place among the ten most successful riders in history, took the emigrant boat to France in 1977. In time the two Irishmen, from widely divergent backgrounds, were to conquer Europe with their remarkable performances.
Kelly, acknowledged as one of the hard men of a sport in which courage is paramount, has headed the points table for consistency in each of the past four years. Roche learned the rudiments of the sport in the foothills around his native Dublin; yet, no less than Kelly, from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, his competitive instincts are finely honed.
‘In the situation in which Sean and I found ourselves when we first set foot in Europe, you tend to grow up pretty fast,’ he said. ‘For all the exploits of Shay Elliott in another era, there weren’t too many clubs ready to offer professional contracts to Irish riders ten years ago. I’d like to think that between us, we have changed all that and opened a few doors for the young people coming up behind us.’
The people who package Roche commercially contend that, even at the summit of Barry McGuigan’s popularity, their man is more marketable than was the former world featherweight champion. ‘He’s a lad who has never lost sight of his origins and that counts for much around here,’ said his Dublin agent Frank Quinn.
Modern sport treats its favoured sons like kings, and the certainty is that victory in the Tour de France will bring the Irishman close on £1 million in sponsorship, product endorsement and appearance money over the next three years. It contrasts starkly with the days when the personable Dubliner earned his living as a maintenance fitter and spent every available penny on ‘bikes and biking gear’. Today he lives with his French-born wife, Lydia, and their two children just outside Paris, is fluent in four languages and enjoys the lifestyle of the famous.
There had been occasions when he felt neglected by his fellow countrymen at a time when he was a cult figure in Europe. That, one suspects, will change irrevocably this afternoon when the young man, who left almost unnoticed, returns to the applause of the masses for a civic reception in Dublin. Stephen Roche has, at last, come of age.
19 NOVEMBER 1987
ANQUETIL, A CYCLING COLOSSUS
OBITUARY
Phil Liggett
Jacques Anquetil, who died yesterday aged 53, was one of the greatest cyclists in the history of the sport. His death has robbed France of its best-known sportsman of the 1950s and 1960s.
Anquetil was the first of only three men to win the Tour de France five times – at his first attempt in 1957 and then each year from 1961 to 1964 – and was the finest ever rider of time trials. He never, however, excelled at single-day road racing and failed to win the world championship.
The first Frenchman to win the Tour of Italy, in 1960, he matched a feat previously achieved only by Italian maestro Fausto Coppi when he completed the Italian and French Tour double in 1964.
Some felt Anquetil was strongest in adverse conditions. In the 1964 Tour de France, sapped by his efforts in Italy, he lost four minutes on an agonising climb of the Envalira mountain in the Pyrenees, only to pull back a huge amount with a daring, headlong charge down the mountain in thick mist.
For a decade he engaged in intense rivalry with another Frenchman, Raymond Poulidor, and although Anquetil clinically beat Poulidor on each occasion, it was Poulidor – nicknamed the Eternal Second – who received more public affection. ‘He won races. I got the applause,’ said Poulidor.
Anquetil never again rode a bicycle following his retirement in 1969, but he retained a direct interest in the sport. He was a regular and respected commentator for radio and television on the Tour de France and he directed the Paris-Nice race, which he won five times.
This summer Anquetil insisted on reporting the Tour even though he had been advised to enter hospital. His death, at a Rouen clinic, was a result of cancer of the stomach.
A Normandy country boy whose father grew strawberries, he returned at the end of his career to cultivate the land once more, this time as a gentleman farmer and owner of a vast estate.
9 JULY 1988
YATES SPRINGS SURPRISE FOR EMPHATIC VICTORY
Phil Liggett in Wasquehal
Sean Yates, 28, from Sussex, yesterday surprised the more famous names in the Tour de France when he won the 32-mile individual time trial between Liévin and Wasquehal to become the first English rider to win a stage since 1975.
Yates, who has been enjoying his best season since turning professional in 1982, was the fastest rider at every check point except the first, which came after ten miles, and he finished a difficult course in 1 h 3 m 22 s to beat Roberto Visentini, the former Tour of Italy winner, by 14 seconds.
It was a stunning performance over roads which Yates came to know well when he lived and trained near Lille three years ago. His victory is the first for England since Yorkshire’s Barry Hoban won a road race stage at Bordeaux 13 years ago.
23 JULY 1988
RIDERS DELAY START IN PROTEST OVER DRUGS CONTROVERSY
Phil Liggett in Chalon-sur-Saone
The remaining 152 riders in the Tour de France ignored the starter’s flag yesterday and sat on the line for ten minutes in protest against the manner in which drug control tests have been conducted.
The riders, angry over the handling of Tour leader Pedro Delgado’s controversial test, timed their protest to match the time penalty imposed on Gert-Jan Theunisse, the Dutch PDM rider. Theunisse was also fined £600 because the second analysis of his drug test proved positive, but the president of the international jury is refusing to tell the Dutchman which illegal substance he had been found guilty of taking.
The decision further aggravated the riders, already annoyed that the result of Delgado’s test was leaked to the media and that the laboratory involved, because of a misunderstanding, pronounced the test positive. That finding was then changed to negative because the drug, Probenecid, will not be on cycling’s banned list until next month.
25 JULY 1988
VAN POPPEL SPRINTS IN AS DELGADO FULFILS GOAL
Phil Liggett in Paris
Jean-Paul van Poppel, from Holland, brought the Tour de France to a stylish end on the Champs-Elysées yesterday by out-sprinting the 151-rider field to win his fourth stage of the race. Malcolm Elliott, from Sheffield, gained his best finish of the race in fourth place.
But the cheers were largely reserved for Pedro Delgado, of Spain, who took the lead at Alpe d’Huez on 14 July and never looked like losing it. He was clearly the best rider in the 2,050-mile race, having made victory his only target of the season after losing narrowly to Ireland’s Stephen Roche last year. Delgado won the race with the biggest margin since Laurent Fignon four years ago and, because of the shorter daily stages, the fierce pace set the fastest average in the race’s history.
In the eyes of many, Delgado’s victory will always be tarnished by the ‘positive’ dope test he gave in the Alps. The test was later deemed negative because Probenecid, despite being on the International Olympic Committee’s outlawed list, does not become a banned substance in cycling until next month.
The Spaniard vehemently denied he had used the drug to mask the use of steroids, which is one of the properties of Probenecid. He has taken a dope test every day since the Alps stages, and, so far – some have still to be analysed – all are negative.
30 JUNE 1989
‘FANAS’ LOOK FORWARD TO GREETING THEIR HEROES
JACQUES GODDET, WHO DIRECTED THE TOUR FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS, LOOKS BACK TO ITS ORIGINS AND GREATEST PERFORMERS
A talented French writer, Tristan Bernard, wrote at the beginning of the century: ‘France is on its doorstep, watching the Tour go by.’ Since then, the Tour de France has become a much bigger event. Now people leave home to see the cyclists pass. They come from far and wide, crossing frontiers and seas, to join French country folk who leave their fields, children grouped round a priest on a jaunt from their summer camp.
Between 12 and 15 million people line the French roads, good-hearted people, excited and happy to be there to support the cyclists, struggling on their bicycles, dripping in sweat in the very image of modern heroes. Hundreds of thousands of fanas cross the Alps, Pyrenees, Auvergne and the Vosges, camping out at night by the side of the road in a narrow human corridor, cheering with enthusiasm and admiration.
Television found the Tour a perfect subject. Indeed, it would appear that the Tour de France and television were made for each other. Those coloured live images, sent throughout the world from the very moment battle commences, were previously only seen by the very few – the organisers, and now and then journalists, though they were often kept at a distance from the action so as not to get in the way.
Television has emphasised the greatness and indeed the cruelty of the effort demanded. It has also enabled us to double-check any exaggerated praise by writers. In return, the Tour has brought television a spectacular, live subject, in the varied, often grandiose setting of the French countryside.
I have followed 53 Tours de France, having lost seven during the years 1940–47. I have participated in the organisation since 1929 and have taken part fully since 1947. I have directed 42 of them. I have never tired of working on the Tour. Henri Desgrange, my mentor, created the Tour in 1903 for the daily sports newspaper L’Auto, founded by my father, Victor Goddet.
Thus I have known, both on the road and privately, the greatest cyclists of all time. I appreciated their athletic qualities and above all, their will-power. I daresay that the Belgian Eddy Merckx was the greatest of all, reigning undisputed on the Tour: an exceptional superiority continuously shining out. But the legendary post-war Italian Fausto Coppi was certainly the most dazzling: a morphological phenomenon with his unending legs and heron’s chest, he almost seemed to have superhuman take-off capacity.
I have for long been eager to expand the area of international road racing: it has been for too long enclosed within Western Europe. For this reason, and in the tracks of the Tour de France, I created the Tour de l’Avenir. From this preparatory formation test for new and young cyclists alike, the strength of Colombian, American, Soviet and Scandinavian cycling developed and the structure of British cycling was reinforced, going back to its foundation at the beginning of the century.
Stephen Roche, Sean Kelly, Robert Millar, Phil Anderson, Greg LeMond and Steve Bauer are today among the world’s leading cyclists – not forgetting Tom Simpson, who died in my sight on the overheated gravel on Mont Ventoux because he did not know how to limit his great ambition.
This precisely sums up the great step forward in world cycling, propelled by the galvanising force of the Tour de France.
30 JUNE 1989
FAME IS THE SPUR – PAIN THE LIKELY RESULT
AUSTRALIAN ALLAN PEIPER, A VETERAN OF THREE TOURS, GIVES A RIDER’S VIEW OF THE RACE’S GLAMOUR AND GRIND
I’ve ridden the Tour de France three times in my seven-year career as a professional cyclist. I wore the white jersey for the best young rider for six days during my first attempt in 1984. My second Tour was in 1985, and my last in 1986 – when I swore, ‘Never again’.
My first two Tours, both of which I finished, pushed me to extremities. At that time I was with the French Peugeot team and had no specific task except to sacrifice myself to my leaders. The pressure of riding for the Dutch Panasonic-Isostar team in the 1987 Tour became so overwhelming that four days from the finish I pulled out.
What caused my surrender was an upset stomach, diarrhoea, headaches and a congested chest. The night before I stopped, I spent the whole night in bed crying. I was so broken in mind and body I just couldn’t face any more pain. Admittedly, I’m not a top rider and for people like me the Tour pushes the rider to the limit from start to finish. After the 1987 Tour my health was in pieces for six months.
For a professional cyclist the Tour is the big race. Just to get into it is a challenge. The fight to get the results to gain team selection can prove exhausting before the event begins. Once the rider makes it into the Tour, a good result or a stage win is lucrative. It can mean a bigger pay packet and better appearance money in the annual post-Tour show races. Foremost in the rider’s mind is the knowledge that the eyes of the world are watching so, in basic terms, fame is only a good ride away.
For the cyclist, the build-up is exhilarating. After the presentation of teams and the handing out of new bikes and clothing, everyone is anxious to start the suffering. But once the gun fires, the enjoyment quickly ends.
The cyclist is locked inside his own world of being woken up at 7 a.m., shovelling muesli and spaghetti down his throat for breakfast, followed by a car ride to the start of the day’s race. After the daily torture it’s time for the journey to the hotel for a shower, a wash of your clothes and then a massage before dinner at seven-thirty – and bed by ten.
Day after day for three weeks it is the same routine, as the legs get sorer and the mind weakens. All you can look forward to is the hope that you won’t let the team down. There is nothing worse after a bad day, when you want to ring home, than to find that you can’t get a line because there are six teams in the hotel and only two telephone lines. It seems everyone wants to seek the support of their family.
The vast majority of Tour cyclists do not see the glamour or the publicity of this three-week extravaganza. They are just fighting their own private battle to make it to Paris.
So if you are watching the Tour on television – or follow it every day in the newspaper – try to imagine what it’s like to be one of a hardened, exhausted bunch of 200 men summoning up their last reserves of energy and courage to keep with the pack in a 50 mph sprint finish.
Do not be fooled by the glamour of shining bicycles, sun-tanned bodies and the array of coloured team jerseys and massive crowds. The teeth-on-edge scraping of metal against Tarmac or cobbles as the bunch slide into a mass crash, with the riders lying higgledy-piggledy, will provide subtler reminders of the Tour’s basic realities.
They are the quest for victory, or more likely the heavenly relief of just getting to the finish line, of this, the race of races.
13 JULY 1989
DELGADO’S COMEBACK PROVES HIS FITNESS TO BE CALLED A CHAMPION
MICHAEL CALVIN ANALYSES THE REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE OF A RIDER DETERMINED TO SHOW HE WAS WRONGLY ACCUSED OF DRUG ABUSE
Pedro Delgado, cheat or champion? The question will probably never be adequately resolved in sport’s new climate of secrecy and suspicion. But, by completing the most astonishing comeback in the history of the Tour de France, Delgado has at least provided his critics with evidence that his win last year was not attributable to the black arts of medical science – as some have claimed.
After making a powerful statement of intent in the Pyrenees he was content to recuperate on yesterday’s stage to Blagnac, an industrial suburb of Toulouse. With his favourite challenge in the Alps to come, he is in fourth place, 2 m 53 s behind race leader Laurent Fignon.
He remains insistent that he does not deserve the stain on his character left by last summer’s revelation that traces of probenecid, a drug on the IOC’s list of banned substances, were found in a urine sample. Probenecid has been used in other sports, notably athletics, as a masking agent for steroids. Delgado continues to claim he accepted it from his team doctor only to reduce levels of uric acid in his muscles. He justifies himself by reminding the world that, at the time, its use was not prohibited by the cycling authorities.
This year’s Tour incorporates the most extensive drug-testing system. Every day samples taken from the overall leader, the first two riders in the stage and two other competitors chosen at random, are flown to Paris and analysed overnight.
The esteem in which Delgado is held by his public, ironically, has never been higher. Spectators wave Basque flags in his honour along the route, chant his name and scrawl promises of their support on the road. When he returned to his home in Segovia he was welcomed by 350,000 people. The town’s mayor announced: ‘Pedro gives so many of our people a reason to live.’
The cyclist remains a turbulent figure. His victory in the Tour of Spain earlier this year was accompanied by unsubstantiated accusations that he had bribed a Russian rider to help him win. However, Delgado’s strong sense of regional identity makes him a man of real social and political influence. He is an intense, emotional individual whose essential humanity makes a deep impact on those around him.
He regards the Alpe d’Huez as a shrine to his mother, who died while he was riding it during the 1986 Tour. He dedicated his victory in the stage over that famous climb to her the following year and many feel it is his destiny to reclaim the yellow jersey there in 1989.
That achievement would embellish his legend. For no one has come from 198th and last, the position he occupied after he reported late for the opening day’s Prologue. A mixture of embarrassment and mental turmoil is thought to have accounted for his performance on the second day, when he was in some distress and left himself a deficit of 7 m 20 s to make up on his principal rivals.
An unprecedented comeback would honour the traditions of an event that prides itself in remaining close to its roots. With its roadside parties and hordes of schoolchildren lining the lanes it continues to be an essential reflection of French life. That was especially so yesterday when the residents of Martres-Tolosane, a village that constituted the 1,789th kilometre of the race, turned out in French Revolution dress to welcome the Tour’s survivors.
Yet, slowly, the character of the event is changing. It has, thanks to the patronage of American TV and such multinational companies as Coca-Cola, become even more aware of its commercial value. The prize fund of £800,000 has increased the stakes for the riders, a majority of whom are convinced that Delgado will be taking the salute, and the first prize of £150,000 on the Champs-Elysées. He will be able to claim that as a victory with honour.
24 JULY 1989
LEMOND STEALS VICTORY WITH BRILLIANT TIME TRIAL
Phil Liggett in Paris
Greg LeMond produced the finest finish seen to the Tour de France yesterday when he won the final time trial from Versailles to the Champs-Elysées to turn an overnight deficit of 50 seconds into a remarkable victory by just eight seconds.
It was the closest finish in the 76 years of the race, bettering the finale 21 years ago when Jan Janssen beat Herman van Springel by 38 seconds. Laurent Fignon was desperately disappointed as the American flag flew near the Place de la Concorde. He was unable to smile after he lost 58 seconds to LeMond in yesterday’s time trial, collapsing as he finished in a time of 27 m 55 s.
LeMond set off two minutes in front of Fignon, needing to make up about two seconds per kilometre to win the race. It would normally have been an impossible task. Instead the American, who still carries pellets from the hunting accident which nearly killed him in 1987, produced the fastest time trial in race history to win his third stage of the race and the most important with 26 m 57 s.
The route from the chateau was the reverse of that taken 200 years ago when revolutionaries marched on the monarchy, but the inspired ride by LeMond made its own slice of history as he took on the Parisians in the biggest head-to-head the race has ever known. LeMond set the standard at half-distance with 12 m 8 s and as he sped along the banks of the Seine, he stayed on his schedule. When he entered the Champs-Elysées with just two miles to go, he led Fignon by 48 seconds – just three more required on the ride down from the Arc de Triomphe. After 2,000 miles the race was decided in the last 300 yards.
LeMond said: ‘I just had to produce something special to win and I had a fantastic day. At the finish line, I was just so surprised to win. This victory will mean more in the States than my 1986 win. A lot of people said then that [Frenchman Bernard] Hinault let me win but this time I did it all on my own.’
He also felt that his unusual triathlete’s handlebars had played a part in his success. ‘I think they gave me something like a 12-second advantage in the time trial,’ LeMond said of the loop fitted on the front of his bike, allowing him to crouch into a better aerodynamic position.
Fignon, who won the Tour of Italy before this race began, nursed a saddle boil over the last few days. He was not making any excuses, but said afterwards: ‘I didn’t even think I would be able to start today it was so bad.’