What a Ride: An Aussie Pursuit of the Tour de France

‘What a Ride is a real look into what happens behind the scenes at the Tour de France by Australia’s most experienced cycling journalist.’ Michael Rogers, Tour de France 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 ‘Since my first Tour de France as a young, wide-eyed Aussie back in 1997 to today, Rupert Guinness has been there for every stage, every up and every down. He has been there as the Australian riders have taken on the toughest of human athletic challenges. He has been there throughout the non-stop three-week circus for our yellow jerseys, our stage wins, our crashes, and the doping scandals. He has seen it all. What a Ride is a real insider’s journey of the Tour de France.’ Stuart O’Grady, Tour de France 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 ‘The mateship of the Aussie Tour riders—especially in the early days when we were just a handful—helped us make it through the highs and the lows of the race. Rupert Guinness has been with us every step of the way and What a Ride is a priceless record of some of the unique experiences we all shared.’ Stephen Hodge, Tour de France 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995 ‘Like “The Devil”, who is an icon of the Tour de France to the spectators, Rupert Guinness is an icon to the riders. Dressed in his crazy Hawaiian shirts, he is there every day of the Tour keeping check on the Aussie riders. This book offers some of his great insights and stories about us, the Australians racing around France each July.’ Simon Gerrans, Tour de France 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 ‘I know you will enjoy this book about Australia’s journey through the Tour de France since 1987. From the odd pioneer who dared take on the Europeans at their own game to the current generation who now dominate en masse and as a nation, Australians are a force to be reckoned with. By reading What a Ride you will be able to share the ups, the downs and all that comes in between in the world’s most beautiful annual sporting event.’ Matt White, Tour de France 2005 ‘Australians have a history of fighting in France. During both the World Wars last century we made our mark there. The same “Aussie battler” spirit that earned so much respect then has carried on into the world’s greatest cycle race, the Tour de France. There is no better Aussie than Rupert Guinness to write about the history of his compatriots battling in “Le Tour”.’ Allan Peiper, Tour de France 1984, 1985, 1987, 1990, 1992

To my parents Daphne and Perry

R U P E R T

G U I N N E S S

WHAT aRIDE

From PHIL ANDERSON to CADEL EVANS AN AUSSIE PURSUIT OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE

First published in Australia in 2009 Copyright © Rupert Guinness 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com The Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia ISBN: 978 1 74175 837 5 Typeset in 12/16 pt Garamond by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS Foreword by Simon Poidevin

vi

Introduction

ix

Prologue

1

1987

7

1988

22

1989

32

1990

43

1991

54

1992

63

1993

73

1994

81

1995

91

1996

102

1997

112

1998

121

1999

136

2000

153

2001

163

2002

180

2003

196

2004

208

2005

224

2006

240

2007

257

2008

271

Epilogue

290

Acknowledgements

293

Foreword It is an amazing facet of humankind that an extraordinary experience or an inspirational person can forever change the course of our lives. During Stage 6 of the 1981 Tour de France a relatively unknown Australian called Phil Anderson provided that moment of inspiration for an Australian journalist sitting on the other side of the world. Sydneybased Rupert Guinness read of the titanic battle between Anderson and Bernard ‘le Blaireau’ Hinault on the climb to the summit of Pla d’Adet in the Pyrenees. Hinault was at the peak of his fabulous career and was in no mood to succumb to a rider from a country that had little history and no success in the world’s greatest cycling race. The Australian beat Hinault to the summit that day, which was enough to put Phil Anderson into the Tour leader’s Yellow Jersey. Six years later, in 1987, Anderson’s heroic ride still sat vividly in Rupert Guiness’ memory and he decided to move to Europe to immerse himself in the world of professional cycling. In all, Rupert spent nine years working as the European correspondent for various Australian newspapers and the cycling magazines Winning and then VeloNews covering the classics, stage races, the Grand Tours and of course the grandest Tour of all, the Tour de France. The cycling bug had latched onto the Australian journalist in a big way propelling him to the status of one of the most respected cycling writers in the world, culminating in a presentation at the 2008 Tour de France of a medal honouring his twenty years coverage of ‘le Tour’—the Trophee de la Fidelite. Making the presentation that day were two legends of French cycling, Bernard Hinault and Bernard Thevenet. Rupert’s cycling odyssey had turned full circle. vi

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My own cycling odyssey really began with a visit to world-renowned knee surgeon, Merv Cross, in 2004. His diagnosis of an arthroscope he performed on my right knee was typically straightforward. My running days were over and the best way to keep fit was to get on a pushbike and start clocking up some kilometres. I was no stranger to cycling, growing up as a kid belting around the farm and country roads and then using a bike as a cheap means of transport through my university days. But there was another influence in the cycling world at that time that was so profound to even the most ignorant observer of sport—Lance Armstrong. The 2004 Tour de France saw him destroy his opponents with his incredible mental toughness and legendary fitness to win a record-breaking sixth consecutive Tour. Australians were also spoiled as they were able to gain a deep insight into the tactics and the riders of the Tour de France through the expertise in commentary of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. Then, in early 2005, a call out of the blue from the famed bike builder Paul Hillbrick really drew me into the cycling camp. Paul, Noel Lowy and a group from the Macathur Collegians cycling club had embarked on reviving the famous Goulburn to Sydney bike race that had been first held in 1902 and had such riders as Sir Hubert Opperman and Dunc Gray stitched into its rich history. Given that I had spent the first seventeen years of my life growing up in Goulburn, Paul and his team wanted to know if I would consider becoming an ambasador for the race. The answer was yes, but only if I could precede the race with a charity ride with a few mates. Like Rupert I was now hooked on the amazing sport of cycling and the core principles it represents. To me cycling has a number of distinct similarities with rugby union and it was not until I began training with Frank Conceicao and his squad in Sydney’s Centennial Park that these similarities started to hit home. Both sports are built on a team ethos. Rugby teams do not win games unless all fifteen players perform their specialist tasks with total commitment and focus to the team outcome. Likewise, a cycling team will not get their leading rider across the winning line without totally fulfilling their role within the team.Both sports are highly competitive,

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but rugby teams and cycling teams are embedded with a code of respect for the opposition that short circuits potential energy sapping conflict. The camaraderie and humour within a peloton is not that different to what you will find in a well functioning rugby team. So, it is appropriate that Rupert, a top class rugby and cycling journalist now on the Sydney Morning Herald, writes a book that records the exploits of our Australian riders in the Tour de France over the 22 years that he has covered the race. In that period the Wallabies have won two Rugby World Cups and Cadel Evans has twice come within seconds of winning the most legendary cycling title in the world. Australian cycling is within sight of the Holy Grail of victory in the Tour de France and Rupert will tell you in this book how our amazing cyclists took our ‘New World’ cycling nation to this position. Simon Poidevin, former Wallabies captain, and a team member from 1980 to 1991

Introduction I first met Bernard Hinault at the London bike show in 1987, four months before covering my first Tour de France. As I shook the French five-time Tour champion’s hand, I never would have imagined that 22 years later I would be on the receiving end of the proud Breton’s firm grip once again—but this time he presented me with the Trophee de la Fidelite, awarded by the Tour organisers for having covered twenty editions of the great race. It was 17 July in the small town of Lavalenet just before the start of Stage 12 of the 2008 Tour. Hinault was on my right, and to my left was another French Tour champion, Bernard Thevenet, who was equally as enthusiastic in his handshake. I would be lying if I said I had thought little about the moment as it neared, but when I first covered the Tour in 1987 I had no inkling of just how important the race would be in my life. Naturally, I was honoured to be the first Australian to receive the medal—although the pioneering Sir Hubert Opperman, who rode the 1928 and 1931 Tours, did receive the Medaille de la Reconnaisance in 1965 for services to cycling. But it was more than that, it was a sense of belonging to the Tour family. And like all families, there have been highs and lows. But somehow, families weather the storms and learn to appreciate the good with the bad and get on with life. Such has been my experience on the Tour. Each of the Tours I have covered has been different. Each has had its own character. Each has had stars and villains—sometimes the stars were the villains. And inevitably, some Tours were better than others. But none were bad. I left Australia in 1987 in the hope of one day seeing an Australian ix

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win the race and had been lucky enough to be appointed editor of the UK edition of the now-defunct cycling magazine Winning Bicycle Racing Illustrated published in Brussels. Winning was a respected magazine, setting the pace for the dozens of cycling titles that exist around the world today. Even though it would take six months to get a copy in Australia, the magazine was full of interviews with the stars, in-depth features and beautiful colour pictures that brought the great races, legends and all their romance to life: from the Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Fleche Wallonne and Liege–Bastogne–Liege one day classics to the Vuelta a Espana, Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. There were also the legends Eddy Merckx, Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali, Jacques Anquetil . . . And then there was Phil Anderson, who in 1982 became the first Australian to don the Tour’s yellow jersey and planted the seed of my love for the sport. Winning magazine was my lifeline to this world, so when the chance came to join the publication I leapt at the opportunity. One day I was swimming in the surf off Palm Beach in Sydney’s northern beaches wondering what to do with my life, twenty-four hours later I was in wet and cold London. The weekend before my arrival, the Swiss rider Eric Maechler had stunned the cycling world by winning the first major one-day classic of the spring season, the 300 km Milan–San Remo after dropping an equally surprising Australian named Allan Peiper. I may have missed Peiper’s ride, but I was soon to meet the stars of European cycling who, until this point, I had only read about. And it was Bernard Hinault who I first interviewed. My first Tour was in 1987, and from that moment I learned you can never take the race for granted. From Phil Anderson to Cadel Evans— the two Australians who have come closest to winning the Tour—the journey I have followed has been one of surprises. And, after reading this book, I hope you will understand why the Tour de France is still the greatest sports event in the world. Rupert Guinness

Prologue Staring up at the steep pitch of road a few metres in front of me, it is clear there is no return on my plan to run up the famed Tour de France icon, l’Alpe d’Huez, on the southern face of the Grande Rousses range in the French Alps. The long, straight and wide bitumen road rises at a 10.5 per cent gradient. It is more like a wall than a road. I know the gradient will vary for bad and worse from between 5 and 11.5 per cent on a climb made up of 21 hairpins (each bearing the name of a stage winner there) that will rise by 1054 m over 13.8 km by the time I reach its summit at a 1860 m. I had studied the mountain profile so many times, but the sight of this first 800 m stretch is all I need for an inkling of what those Tour cyclists must really feel after another hard day’s slog in the saddle as they ‘enjoy’ those last few metres of relatively flat road before starting the climb and the pinch of muscle and lactate acid and the heavy rasp of burning lungs takes over within a dozen pedal strokes. The purpose of running up l’Alpe d’Huez was not to be able to say I had done so—as anyone who cycles up its slopes is entitled and in return receive a certificate of merit. This was a chance to reflect on the Tour and what it has meant to me since I first embarked on the ascent of l’Alpe during Stage 20 of the 1987 race in the relative comfort of the Winning magazine media car when Spaniard Federico Echave won the stage from Frenchman Laurent Fignon. It was an ideal opportunity to reminisce about the spectacular landmark that overnight can convert into a natural 1

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grandstand for the exciting sporting theatre that is the Tour. It was also a chance to experience a little of the suffering that must be felt by Tour riders who have raced up the mountain 26 times since it first appeared on Stage 10 of the 1952 Tour. The difference in the atmosphere as I warmed up for my run to my Tour debut could not have been starker. Besides having only two feet to get me to the top, also absent was the excitement, especially the frenzied crowds in their hundreds of thousands lining the road who part miraculously seconds before the Tour vehicles—and then the riders—plough their way to the summit finish. One of the ironies of the Tour is that despite its status and standing as a place of pilgrimage for so many cycling fans, as a stand-alone climb l’Alpe is not the hardest mountain for a Tour rider. Its reputation has more to do with it coming at the end of a stage and the accumulated fatigue felt by riders after racing over two or three mountain passes beforehand. I didn’t need those two or three mountains. • • •

Whether it is apprehension or plain old lack of condition, the road feels dead on the one kilometre approach to the foot of the mountain from the town of Bourg d’Oisans. I try to imagine the tightening knot in the stomach and shortness of breath riders feel as l’Alpe comes into sight and they realise the race is about to explode one more time in a day that most likely has already seen the peloton splintered by many attacks. As steep as the rise to the first switchback is, an early distraction from the pain emerges after 30 m. Two giant yellow signs painted on the road provide a reminder of the very purpose of this book. One reads ‘OUR CADEL’, referring to Cadel Evans, who finished runner-up in the 2007 and 2008 Tours. The other reads ‘C’MON AUSSIES’. I have never seen either sign before, and considering the speed at which the race hits this first but still backbreaking stretch and the thickness of crowds that line the road, chances are that the riders haven’t either. But the existence of those signs reflects the long journey Australian cycling has taken since 1914 when Victorians Don Kirkham and Iddo ‘Snowy’ Munro became the first Australians to ride the Tour. Munro

Prologue

3

and Kirkham were mere curiosities to the Europeans. They also lived in relative anonymity back home unlike today’s Australian Tour riders, who are not only becoming household names in Europe but are also the raison d’ être for thousands of Australians to travel to France every year to follow the Tour. Through my increasing pants of exhaustion I think of those Australians who followed Kirkham and Munro: Sir Hubert Opperman, who rode the Tour in 1928 and 1931, and his teammates Ernie Bainbridge and Percy Osborne in 1928, then Richard Lamb, ‘Ossie’ Nicholson and Frankie Thomas in 1931. I think of John Beasley in 1952 and 1955, Russell Mockridge in 1953, Bill Lawrie in 1967, and Don Allan in 1974. Then of the man who ignited my love of the Tour, Phil Anderson, a five times top ten finisher who in 1981 was the first Australian to claim the yellow jersey and who won a stage in 1982 and 1991. Anderson’s era ended with his retirement in 1994, but this period also saw Allan Peiper, Michael Wilson, Omar Palov, Shane Sutton, Neil Stephens and Stephen Hodge emerge followed by Scott Sunderland and Patrick Jonker. The next generation included Stuart O’Grady, who in 1998 was the second Australian to wear the yellow jersey, and Robbie McEwen, who won his first Tour stage in 1999 in Paris and then in 2002 became the first Australian winner of the sprinters’ green points jersey. I think about Henk Vogels, Jay Sweet, Baden Cooke, Brad McGee and Matt Wilson, and the more recent names of Allan Davis, Simon Gerrans, Brett Lancaster, the NSW–German Heinrich Haussler and, of course, the two riders who emerged as potential Tour winners, Cadel Evans and Michael Rogers. As I run up l’Alpe I think . . . and think . . . It becomes harder. The pain. It is already excruciating. No wonder even the hardiest of l’Alpe d’Huez stars struggle when they are pressed on this first stretch, as Lance Armstrong was in 2003 when his Spanish teammate Manuel Beltran bolted away at such pace when he hit the first stretch that even the Tour champion had to call out to him to ease up. • • •

Passing the first kilometre mark on this second stretch, reality sets in. This is difficult. Possibly too difficult. My lungs and throat are parch dry.

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The heaving is already straining on my shoulders. It continues to hairpin 20 when I stop and think of Cadel Evans and his response whenever he is asked why he doesn’t attack more on the mountains: ‘If you can’t, you can’t. You keep your pace. I only have one pace. My own.’ Allan Peiper once told me he would only look two metres in front when climbing and never, ever look up to the top of a mountain. Doing so, he warned, will only cruel the spirit. I dare to do otherwise. I wish I hadn’t. Peiper is right. My spirit, this early in the climb, isn’t ready for the daunting view above me. The weight of my head is already a burden. It drops. I pant. I continue . . . flat footed, stopping intermittently for the next five stretches until I reach hairpin 14, where I see through my blurred vision the grey marble monument erected by the Sporting Club du Portugal on 18 July 2006 in memory of the great Portuguese cyclist Joachim Agostinho, killed in 1984 in a race crash in Portugal. One of the most popular riders of the Tour, he placed third in 1978 and 1979 and won stages in 1969, 1973, 1977 and 1979. I think about Fabio Casartelli, the Italian 1996 Olympic road champion who was tragically killed in the 1995 Tour. But unlike Agostinho, he had not won a stage in the Tour. He had never even finished the Tour—although he was just days away from that breakthrough result when he crashed on the Col de Portet d’Aspet in the Pyrenees on 18 July 1995. The memory of Casartelli’s death still hurts, as do recollections of the next day’s stage when the peloton rode like a funeral cortège across the Pyrenees to the finishing town where his American Motorola team was beckoned to ride ahead over the last 200 m and Casartelli’s Italian roommate Andrea Peron was first to nudge his wheel across the finishing line in his honour. I think of the ultimate price that has been paid by riders in pursuit of a sport they love. The doomsayers are wrong when they say the Tour is just a platform for drug abuse. Sure, doping on the Tour has been a problem—it still is. L’Alpe is even a testimony to that shady history. In 1978 the Belgian champion Michel Pollentier placed first on the mountain, but was later stripped of the stage win and kicked out of the race when he was caught at the dope control kitted up with a rubber bottle that contained clean urine. While not condoning the use of drugs, skulduggery and cheating have been a part of the Tour since its inception in 1903 as a publicity

Prologue

5

stunt for the French newspaper L’ Auto. In fact, in 1904 the first four riders, among others, were disqualified for tackling parts of the distance by train! • • •

Passing hairpins 13, 12 and 11, the plaques with the names of the 1983, 1984 and 1986 stage winners catch the corner of my eye—Peter Winnen of The Netherlands, Luis Herrera of Colombia and Bernard Hinault of France. On hairpin 10 is the 1987 winner’s name—Federico Echave, the Spaniard who beat Fignon for the stage win. In a silence interrupted by the odd bird tweeting and my heavy breathing, I turn to look at the fantastic view of the Oisans Valley glowing in the autumn sun and usually blocked for several days before the race arrives by a wall of fans, campervans and tent villages. How taken aback I was by the frenzied spectacle and the cacophony of noise from the crowd, officials and police, the blare of car sirens and motorcycle horns as we followed Echave’s winning break on my first ‘ascent’ in 1987. Three more switchbacks. Already I have been running for more than 60 minutes when I reach one of the most famous and popular switchbacks—hairpin 7. Whenever the Tour visits l’Alpe d’Huez this switchback becomes known as the ‘Dutch corner’, awash as it is in the bright orange of Dutch fans cheering for another stage win by one of their own riders. At 1553 m, my breath and heart rate increase with the altitude. A few stretches offer some relief. At the start of the rise to hairpin 4, the sight of a painted yellow Boxing Kangaroo provides a little lift. The end seems to be nearing but the pain in my legs, hips and shoulders and my increasing shortness of breath hint otherwise, especially when forced to a walk 100 m to hairpin 3 and then again to hairpin 2, named after Marco Pantani, Il Parata, who won at l’Alpe d’Huez in 1995 and again in 1997. A tragedy in the waiting, Pantani was the most beautiful climber. Despite winning the 1998 Tour and Giro d’Italia he wrestled with his fame and doping allegations, only to become a recluse and die on 14 February 2004 in a dingy hotel room in the Italian coastal town of Rimini from cerebral edema and heart failure caused by cocaine use.

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• • •

The sight of l’Alpe d’Huez—the village—is deceiving. The run to the finish is still some way off. How this must cruel the spirit of Tour riders, from the winners to the stragglers fighting to finish within the time limit. Entering the village, I soon get lost. The green plaques directing the media that I am accustomed to are nowhere to be seen. There is no corridor of crowds. No fanfare. Just a biting summit wind, barren roads and the turning of the heads of a few workers using the off-season to tinker with broken down ski facilities. All I hear are my footsteps. Then nearing the final corner as I pitch up to the finish, images of the past winners I have seen triumph here come to mind. It is like running through an imaginary hall of fame: Echave (1987), Dutchmen Steven Rooks (1988) and Gert-Jan Theunisse (1989), Italian Gianni Bugno (1990, 1991), American Andy Hampsten (1992), three more Italians in Conti (1994), Pantani (1995, 1997) and Giuseppe Guerini (1999), then Lance Armstrong (2001, 2004), the Spaniard Iban Mayo (2003) and Luxembourg’s Frank Schleck (2006). The 2008 winner Carlos Sastre of Spain, who ended Evans’ dream of winning the Tour, had yet to have his name put up on one of the famous switchbacks. I think also of riders who lost their crack at bagging one of the most prestigious stage wins, or who won private battles to finish within the time limit, avoid elimination and get to race another day. The finish finally arrives. I stop and bend over, then stand upright to take several deep breaths before looking down at the view of solitude and calm from l’Alpe to the valley below . . . then turn and run back down. I wanted reflection and got it . . . now I just wanted a beer!

1987 General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! —President Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate,West Berlin, 12 June 1987 1 July–26 July (4331 km): Berlin–Berlin (Prologue, Stage 1, Stage 2 team time trial), Karlsruhe–Stuttgart (Stage 3), Stuttgart–Pforzheim (Stage 4), Pforzheim–Strasbourg (Stage 5), Strasbourg–Epinal (Stage 6), Epinal–Troyes (Stage 7), Troyes–Epinay sous Senart (Stage 8), Orleans– Renaze (Stage 9), Saumur–Futuroscope (Stage 10 individual time trial), Futuroscope–Chaumeil (Stage 11), Brive–Bordeaux (Stage 12), Bayonne– Pau (Stage 13), Pau–Luz Ardiden (Stage 14), Tarbes–Blagnac (Stage 15), Blagnac–Millau (Stage 16), Millau–Avignon (Stage 17), Carpentras–Mont Ventoux (Stage 18 individual time trial), Valreas–Villard de Lans (Stage 19), Villard de Lans–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 20), Bourg d’Oisans–la Plagne (Stage 21), la Plagne–Morzine (Stage 22), Saint Julien en Genevois–Dijon (Stage 23), Dijon–Dijon (Stage 24 individual time trial), Creteil–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 25)

It is 28 June 1987, the eve of my first Tour de France. The sight below as our plane circles to land is sinister: the wall that has separated West and East Berlin since 1961. I was not the only one who was peering anxiously out of the window. ‘Mate . . . that says something,’ said Shane Sutton, who was one of four Australians among the 207 riders from 23 teams competing in that year’s Tour. The three other Australians were Victorians Phil Anderson and Allan Peiper, both on the powerful Dutch Panasonic team, and the Czech-born but recently qualified 7

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Australian citizen Omar Palov of New South Wales, who was also on Sutton’s ANC-Halfords team. Sutton’s remark was not aimed at anyone in particular. He could have been talking to himself, although his words brought home how far our lives had come. For Sutton, who was raised in the New South Wales sheep farming capital of Moree, this was the chance to compete in the world’s biggest bike race. For me, it was a chance to follow it as a journalist. And while we both had different goals, challenges and responsibilities, we knew that at least we were able to choose our respective paths. The same could not be said of those who were living in Communist East Berlin. Our dreams started to become real the moment we landed in West Berlin. Suddenly, the murmurs were no longer of democracy and freedom, but of the Tour: the route, the favourites, the hotels, the transfers and even what was on the menu for dinner. Walking the streets of West Berlin that night, the bars, cafes and restaurants were full with people from the Tour—journalists, photographers, officials, sponsors, police and fans. Everybody had something to do with the Tour and everybody seemed to know everybody else. I felt like a very small fish in a very big pond. As free and vibrant as the city was, we were still several hours’ drive away from West Germany. All that was connecting us with Karlsruhe in the West and the start of Stage 3 was ‘the Corridor’ through East Germany—an autobahn where everyone would be warned several days later not to stop, no matter what the reason, at the risk of being arrested. The reason we were in West Berlin was simple: to celebrate its 750th birthday. The city had paid US$1.5 million to host the ‘grand depart’— the teams presentation, a prologue time trial, one stage and then the Stage 2 team time trial. Banter among the Tour entourage may have been about the race. However, as we collected our accreditation and tested our cars and race radios, and while riders underwent medical check-ups and fine-tuned their preparations with analysis of the race route, there was a feeling that the Tour had been the subject of blatant politicisation. Press photos were taken of teams, including the American 7-Eleven team—in its second Tour after a debut in 1986—posing before Check Point Charlie and with US Marines, or against a backdrop of the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate, the latter visited 18 days earlier

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by United States President Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, East German guards in helmets and with rifles peered from their posts on the other side of the Wall at the building commotion. The Tour, I realised, was not just a sporting event, but a political platform; and West Berlin was happy to pay to hold it on the doorstep of a regime that would deny it. • • •

It was inevitable that the 1987 Tour would have an enormous impact on me. It was my first. There is still much I can’t recall because there was so much to take in from the unexpected circumstances of my arrival in Europe from Australia, to flying in to West Berlin, and to settling into the day to day routine of following the race. There was really only one person who left an indelible mark on me in the 1987 Tour—the winner, the Dublin-born Irishman Stephen Roche. In the weeks that led up to the start many names were spoken of as likely contenders, but Roche emerged with a string of top results and an aggressive racing style. It was also fortuitous that months earlier he had agreed to let me write his Tour diary for Winning magazine. Incredibly, he committed on the strength of his word alone. No fee. No signed contract. No manager involved. Roche had won Paris–Nice, a one week stage race then regarded as one of the pearls of the spring racing season. Dubbed the ‘Race to the Sun’, the race winner was traditionally seen as a Tour favourite. Roche’s win was all the more impressive considering his recovery from an off-season knee operation that could have ruined his career had it not been successful. Paris–Nice flagged his return. But long before the Tour got under way, my main inspiration was Phil Anderson and the hope he could live up to the potential he had shown from 1982 to 1985 before a chronic back injury stalled his career. Anderson was not the first Australian to race the Tour—twelve others had done so before him, including Victorian Don Allan in 1974 and 1975, the last Australian to race before Anderson’s debut in 1981. But Anderson was a modern day pioneer for Australian riders. In 1981 he became the first Australian to claim the yellow jersey at a time when only a handful of English-speaking riders were racing in Europe. When

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he blasted onto the scene, he dismantled many of the cultural and social barriers that hindered Australian cycling, and it was largely due to his efforts that today’s riders enjoy the success they do. Anderson’s career became the template for others to follow. And for him the door opened in late 1978 after he won the Commonwealth Games road race at Edmonton and the Dulux Tour of New Zealand. It was at the Noumea Six Day race that Micky Weignant, manager of the Paris-based amateur Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt (ACBB) cycling team, met Melbourne restaurateur and expatriate Frenchman Gerald Georges, who had taken Anderson under his wing. Weignant had seen Anderson race at the world championships in Germany and didn’t waste any time telling Georges that a place was available for Anderson on his team, which was one of the best in France and the feeder club to the professional Peugeot team. Anderson promptly accepted the offer, but initially saw it as an adventure that would help prepare him for the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. All this changed, however, as he and the handful of English-speaking riders on ACBB adapted to a very different life where very few people spoke English and they constantly faced the barriers of nepotism. But rather than throw in the towel, Anderson drew strength from the loneliness, the suspicion of local riders and the inevitable frustrations of language. And soon he was winning races. By the end of 1979, Anderson was offered a professional contract with Peugeot for 3750 francs a month—an offer that increased to 4250 francs when he told Peugeot he had heard another team, Mercier, was willing to pay him 5000 francs a month. Anderson signed with Peugeot and his progression was rapid. He was part of a new wave of English-speaking riders who graduated from the ACBB to Peugeot, including Hawthorn Cycling Club teammate Allan Peiper and Roche. These riders forged bonds that would last throughout their career and see them collectively known as the ‘Foreign Legion’. Anderson’s ignorance at the time of the traditions and customs of European cycling was an asset. He was unafraid to race aggressively— despite what the established local stars felt. Anderson’s 1981 ride against the eventual five times Tour champion Bernard Hinault on Stage 6 of the Tour from Saint Gaudens to Pla d’Adet in the Pyrenees is now folklore.

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Unsure of how to race his first mountain stage, Anderson decided to follow a rider who climbed with a steady pace rather than try and match the accelerations of the pure climbers such as the Belgian Lucien Van Impe, who eventually won the stage. The rider he opted to follow was Hinault. On the final climb to the finish, the pair engaged in a titanic tussle that saw them finish 27 seconds behind Van Impe and Anderson take the yellow jersey. As Anderson stood on the podium in yellow, Hinault showed nothing but contempt towards the Australian for ‘daring’ to challenge him. This contempt was made even worse when earlier Anderson had sat on Hinault’s wheel waiting for instructions when his leader Jean Rene Bernadeau had been dropped. It was just as well the order came allowing Anderson to work in the break with Hinault as ‘Hinault was going off his block’. Hinault fired up again when Anderson then offered him a swill from his drink bottle on the climb. For Hinault it was an insult and he swiped the bottle from Anderson’s hand. ‘I figured something was really up with him when he hit it away. I suppose I should have been intimidated by it all but I wasn’t. Heck, I was Australian and couldn’t even spell Hinault, let alone know who he was,’ Anderson remembers. Unwittingly, a rivalry had been created although this did not deter Anderson from becoming a superstar. He lost the yellow jersey after one day, but finished tenth overall, and returned in 1982 to wear it for nine days, win a stage and take fifth place overall. In the 1983, 1984 and 1985 Tours, he placed ninth, tenth and fifth respectively, but by the end of 1985 his career hit a crisis when he was struck down by a hereditary rheumatic back ailment—sacroiliitis. It cost him a world No. 1 ranking and saw him miss half of the 1986 season—he rode that year’s Tour, finishing in 39th place, in preparation for a successful comeback in the second half of the year. In early 1987 poor form and the rigours of a divorce from his first wife Anne at the end of 1986 resulted in his slide in the rankings once again. Peter Post, sports director at Panasonic (the team Anderson joined in 1984), was a hard Dutchman known for his uncompromising views. Rapidly running out of faith in Anderson, Post capriciously changed his once glowing public view of the Australian, even though he picked

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him for the 1987 Tour. Many European journalists were also singing off the same hymn sheet. When I spoke optimistically on the eve of the 1987 Tour of Anderson returning to the top they responded with winces, frowns and shakes of the head that worried me. Maybe I had missed the boat. Maybe Anderson’s best days were behind. Maybe there would be very little to write about on the Tour from an Australian perspective. Sure, there were three other Australians—Peiper, Sutton and Palov—but they were domestiques, riders who do the grunt work and rarely get on the podium. Their role would be to drop back and fetch drinks, food or clothing from the team car, give up their bike or wheels in case of a mechanical breakdown, ride in front or to the side of their leader to protect him from the buffeting effects of head and cross winds and provide an energy saving slipstream, race at the front of the peloton at an agreed tempo to limit the chances of a rival attacking, or chase dangerous moves. A domestique’s job is to make sure his leader stays as fresh and rested as possible so he is ready to strike or react at the critical point of the stage. The role was admirable and crucial, but domestiques were not the winners editors wanted to read about. Anderson was a winner, and with his form in doubt I feared I had left my run too late. • • •

My Tour commitments were primarily for Winning magazine and included filing a daily stage report and Stephen Roche’s diary entries for the special weekly Tour issue. But to my pleasant surprise, the moment the Tour got under way with the 6.1 km Prologue time trial on a circuit along West Berlin’s Kurfurstendamm, I had a lead for Melbourne’s Sun News Pictorial. It was before my eyes moments before the Prologue began when Sutton mounted his bike in readiness for the five second countdown as the first of the 207 riders to start the race. His race time was quickly bettered by all but five riders, although for a minute or two as Sutton raced around the course he actually led the Tour. His name and Australia were the first points of reference for anyone following the 74th Tour. His mask of pain, bike position, pedal cadence and race time were the first against which the thousands of spectators lining the route—and the millions who were watching on television—judged the riders who followed. It

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was instant, albeit fleeting, fame for Sutton and he knew it. ‘I actually knew I would be the first to go as our team was the first in alphabetical order. It was great to be the first. You get recognition as you are the first one everyone looks to in the Tour.’ The other Australians reaped better, but still modest, outcomes. Anderson was best among them, finishing in 63rd place—hardly a result to silence his doubters. Looking good for the overall title though was Stephen Roche, who placed third at 7.07 seconds to Dutchman Jelle Nijdam in the humid 35˚C heat. In his first diary entry, Roche wrote: ‘I was surprised. I didn’t think I would have beaten a lot of the riders who should have been up there. At the start I did go out very quickly, but then I felt the legs went a bit flat. I couldn’t use the big gears.’ The next days went relatively smoothly for Roche. Then after a 750 km transfer from West Berlin to Karlsruhe, through the corridor where East German border guards were eager recipients of any Tour paraphernalia on offer, his Swiss Carrera teammate Erich Maechler took the yellow jersey for an eight day spell. One week down, Roche was feeling a little out of sorts in 24th place overall and asking himself if he had dug too deep in the Giro. ‘Perhaps I have not yet fully recovered from the Tour of Italy.’ Roche’s Carrera team worked hard to defend Maechler’s yellow jersey. The riders were also prompted into a celebratory chorus of cheers and back slapping in Troyes after Stage 7 when their sprinter Jorge Manuel Dominguez won in a bunch sprint that saw Anderson figure for the first time with an eighth place. Carrera defended the yellow jersey, but it was not to Roche’s liking: ‘I always thought it would be a risk. The defence was made though and people will be looking for us to make a move. The pressure is now on us, which is not what I wanted.’ Roche had a point. To assume the lead so early can come at a high price. It risks exhausting the team’s riders for the crucial last week of a Tour, and allows other teams to ride within themselves. The yellow jersey team not only uses up resources by physically defending the jersey in chasing down attacks that may just be aimed at forcing a reaction, but also the mental energy that comes with it. Roche’s worries didn’t pass. The 8th stage to Epinay sous Senart was

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a quiet one for Carrera, but Roche again questioned the team’s tactics: ‘The plan is to keep it [the yellow jersey] until tomorrow. [Charly] Mottet should take it for System U before or during the [Stage 10] time trial.’ At least Roche’s doubts about his recovery from the Giro d’Italia were laid to rest two days later when he won the 87.5 km time trial from Saumur to Futuroscope. He clocked 1 hour 58 minutes and 11 seconds to move to sixth place overall behind Mottet, who took the yellow jersey from Maechler as Roche predicted. ‘I knew I was on a good ride, but not a winning ride because I couldn’t get time checks on Charly Mottet as he started after me,’ Roche said, although he was still uncertain as to when he would launch his first strike for the yellow jersey. ‘I will just follow and watch the groups don’t get away with people like Laurent Fignon. I might just see how Mottet goes, see how he goes under pressure.’ Meanwhile, on the night before the crucial time trial, Anderson said that the stage had long been pencilled by him as one on which he wanted to resurrect his waning leadership and the confidence of the Panasonic team: ‘The team hasn’t got a lot of confidence in me at the moment. The time trial is very important for that. I will be looking for a good time there.’ But Anderson’s ambitions ended with the hard-nosed Post telling one Belgian journalist that the Australian had ridden like a ‘retarded human being’. Anderson did not deny his time trial result was poor. How could he, really, after all, he finished 10 minutes 22 seconds behind Roche and dropped from 56th to 61st place overall. ‘I just didn’t have it. I don’t know what happened. I guess you could say it was the worst time trial I have ever done. I am as fit as I have ever been and my training has been good. I am just not getting the results I need.’ The distress on Anderson’s face as he spoke was not just from the physical rigours of the time trial, but also the mental torment he had been wrestling with since the Tour began. Roche began to feel better after Mottet lost the yellow jersey on the 11th stage from Futuroscope to Chaumeil to French teammate Martial Gayant: ‘I am coming around now. I am pretty happy. I am hoping, in the mountains, it will be a process of elimination. I will move up as people drop back. Then I won’t have to attack.’ He also conceded that

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he was now the Tour favourite, but joked: ‘I suppose I am favourite, but we all like to say each other is the number one. That puts the pressure on them. Mottet will say I am, I will say he is, it works that way.’ Roche was playing mind games. By talking up Mottet he hoped to deflect the attention of opposing riders, the media and fans. With the Pyrenees coming, he wanted as little pressure on him as possible—and he welcomed the ease of pace he got on the 228 km 12th stage from Brive to Bordeaux and the official rest day that followed. American Davis Phinney won the 12th stage in a sprint, but the real story of the day was the crashing out of one of the toughest of riders, Irishman Sean Kelly. The pain of riding 20 km with a suspected broken collarbone—later diagnosed as torn ligaments—sustained in a crash of about fifteen riders after 57 km was all too much for him, and he ended his Tour in tears with his head on the shoulder of Kas sports director Christian Rumeau. This injury was another of his misfortunes in the grand tours—he missed the 1986 Tour with a knee injury and pulled out of the 1987 Vuelta a Espana while leading because of a boil. The day was also memorable because of the arrest of two suspected Basque terrorists for allegedly planning to attack the Tour on 14 July—Bastille Day—when the race passed the French–Spanish border. The drama certainly heightened anticipation for the first day in the Pyrenees, the 220 km 13th stage from Bayonne to Pau where Mottet took back the yellow jersey. It also introduced a 25-year-old Frenchman, JeanFrancois Bernard, whose sudden rise to second place overall ignited local hopes that he would be a future French star. This was fine for Roche who slipped into third overall. One peak too high—Sutton abandons Shane Sutton was on the official start line in Bayonne, his body straddled over the bike, his head hung low, elbows on his handlebars. There was still twenty minutes to go before the bell tolled to herald riders to the start line. Sutton was the only rider in position under the burning sun. The others were still sitting in team cars, in the shade, taking on last drinks, readying their nerves for the first mountain stage. With Sutton starting the day placed last overall and having struggled thus far, it was as if he wanted to get the torture that awaited him over and done with. He didn’t need to look up. He knew

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WHAT a RIDE what was in front of him—giant Pyrenean mountains and the sinewy, steep and lumpy passages up to their summits. Although, right now, he was not thinking of how many mountains, just the first. Get over that, then he would start thinking about the second. Get over that, then he would contemplate the third, and so on . . . such is the way most riders in the Tour tackle the mountain stages. I approached Sutton with a g’day and a soft pat on his shoulders. He looked up and managed a smile, but his hollow eyes and gaunt face showed he was on the brink of exhaustion . . . Would he even make it over the first mountain? After almost two weeks of trying to finish within the time limit on the flatter stages, he looked as if he was thinking exactly the same thing. It wasn’t long before the rider who, for a few minutes in West Berlin led the Tour, pulled out . . . before he reached the mountains. Sutton’s first and only Tour was over. It was the right decision.

• • •

Dag-Otto Lauritzen was a former Norwegian policeman who took up cycling as rehabilitation for a knee injury suffered in a parachuting accident. With this background, he should have been the last person to expose himself to the theft of his stage winner’s medal after the 166 km 14th stage from Pau to the summit of Luz Ardiden. The popular 7-Eleven rider was a worthy winner, but amidst the celebration someone had got their hands on his medal, which he had inadvertently left on the dais. It was only as he prepared to join his teammates that he realised it was gone. Left without his medal, he still had his winner’s smile. The same, however, could not be said of Roche. After narrowing his margin on Mottet’s lead and with all the overall contenders in the top ten, Roche became frustrated with how the peloton split between the mountains and then regrouped near every summit: ‘There is no real tactical battle. It is getting frustrating. There needs to be a team strong enough to dominate the race. There isn’t, though.’ The 164 km 15th stage from Tarbes to Blagnac was to have been a quiet day for Roche, and it appeared to be heading that way until a break allowed German Rolf Golz to claim the stage win. This was Roche’s first tactical hiccup. When the peloton behind Golz’s group suddenly split in two Roche found himself in the second group, losing valuable time he

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had fought so hard to get the previous day. He remained in third place overall, but was angry after slipping behind Mottet. ‘We were all one group and all of a sudden a big gap opened up. Before we knew it we were 400 metres behind. A lot of my guys were mucking around up the back. Yesterday, most of them finished around half an hour down, so there was no excuse to have sore legs. What upsets me so much is that I worked so darn hard yesterday to gain it [time] on Luis Herrera [eighth overall] and then I lose it so stupidly.’ Roche cut his deficit back on the 16th stage from Blagnac to Millau, won by Frenchman Regis Clere in a brave solo attack. However, it was not Clere everyone was talking about, but the battle between Roche, JeanFrancois Bernard, Spaniard Pedro Delgado, American Andy Hampsten and Mexican Raul Alcala. Roche’s fourth on the stage helped soothe his frustration for losing time to Mottet at Blagnac: ‘I was happy that when the crunch came I was with them.’ He was not as exhausted at the summit finish as at Luz Ardiden and bluffed to cover his pain on the last climb. ‘For Hampsten, Delgado and all that, I am their strongest rival, I have to show them I am not weak, that I am strong. I can’t let them know when I am feeling weak.’ With Delgado now fourth overall, Roche started to dream of the yellow jersey: ‘There is no point in taking it now. We just have not got the team to defend it that long. When I take it I don’t want to let it pass back to someone, but I’ve been thinking about the right time.’ Roche welcomed two days of virtual recuperation before the 36 km 18th stage time trial up the gruelling slopes of Mont Ventoux where he tipped the French revelation, Bernard, as the rider to watch: ‘My main aim is to not let Bernard gain any time on me.’ And Bernard lived up to Roche’s expectations with a stage win that also handed him the yellow jersey. Roche admitted he ‘would have preferred to have gone faster at the start but I was afraid of blowing up’. In the aftermath, he committed to an aggressive last week of racing: ‘From now on I will attack. I feel fresh and I feel less tired than I usually do after a time trial. I have noticed Bernard is always less tired than us on the last climb. So perhaps I will have to attack early in the race and surprise him.’

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• • •

No mountain on the Tour is more feared by riders and more loved by fans than Mont Ventoux. Not that I knew this as the 1987 Tour edged closer to the much anticipated Stage 18 time trial from the town of Carpentras to Bedouin and the final 21.5 km climb to the mountain’s 1912 m summit. I knew that British cyclist Tom Simpson had died on the mountain in the 1967 Tour, but I had no idea that the climb would be so torturous, despite its average gradient of 7.8 per cent and the heat and suffocating humidity of the day. There was much resting on this second time trial, known as the ‘race of truth’ because it is just one rider against the clock. Expectation was especially high for Jean-Francois Bernard, who had been anointed as a champion in the making by the just retired five-times Tour champion Bernard Hinault. To savour my first Mont Ventoux experience, I decided to do what I have not done enough since—sit amidst the crazed folie of cycling fans on the roadside and watch the riders race past one by one and savour the Tour at its atmospheric best. Joining me was a fellow Australian, and seasoned Herald-Sun reporter, Trevor Grant. We spent the day sitting in the sun on the barren scree slopes of Ventoux drinking beers. The view, despite the summer haze, was magnificent from our position two kilometres out from a stone memorial erected for Tom Simpson. Below we could follow the road from Bedouin to the foot of the climb where it winds up Ventoux’s southern flank through a pine forest to the Chalet de Reynard, after which it is exposed to the heat and sun for six kilometres to the top. The imminent arrival of the riders as they emerged from the forest was heralded by the sound of cheering fans. Holding their beers or baguettes in one hand, they would glance down at the start lists published in the local newspapers and debate riders’ form and possible impact on the race. But no matter how the argument ended, the fans cheered and chased any rider with a winning chance for as long as they could keep up. Bernard won spectacularly, taking the yellow jersey. He also sent all of France into a frenzy. Had a successor to Hinault possibly been found?

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But this tonic French cycling so badly needed was short-lived. In the 185 km 19th stage from Valreas to Villard de Lans, the first in the Alps, Bernard surrendered his lead to Roche. The stage also set up the final week’s battle between Roche and Delgado. They had formed a winning two-man breakaway from an earlier attack group after Bernard suffered an untimely puncture. And while Delgado was elated at winning the stage, second-placed Roche felt like the real winner after taking the yellow jersey. ‘It is the first time I have worn the yellow jersey in the Tour. I have long waited for it. It would be the greatest day of my life to keep it,’ but as Roche also acknowledged, ‘The Tour is not over yet. I may not even have it after tomorrow.’ He was right. After Spaniard Federico Echave won the 166 km 20th stage from Villard de Lans to l’Alpe d’Huez, Delgado took the jersey. Roche, who finished behind Delgado, dropped to second overall. It was an emotional occasion for Delgado. On this same stage in 1986 he abandoned the Tour when he heard of his mother’s death. It was also the first time a Spaniard had claimed the yellow jersey in fourteen years. Laurent Fignon won Stage 21 from Spanish breakaway companion Anselmo Fuerte. However, it was the battle between Delgado and Roche that remains one of the most dramatic days of racing in a modern Tour—for me, at least. Delgado had attacked Roche knowing he needed a greater lead on the Irishman to win the Tour. Hitting the last climb, he had about 90 seconds on Roche—a lead that dramatically dropped in the last five kilometres when Roche started to peg it back from 55 seconds. Delgado rode to fourth place on the stage and Roche fifth, only four seconds further back. After digging so deep into his reserves Roche collapsed just after the finish line, where he had to be given oxygen by Tour medicos for fifteen minutes before being taken to hospital by ambulance for observation. Roche was soon back at his hotel, but at 29 seconds to Delgado overall he had little to say: ‘I have to make sure I recover properly and an early night is the best remedy.’ He later told Irish TV: ‘I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t get off my bike, I couldn’t stand. [Then] I was lying down on the road and across the finish was a big scaffolding and all the journalists were up there getting photographs. The thing was swaying and creeping

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and I thought, “that is going to come down on top of me”. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was half in a daze, then they gave me the oxygen. It helped me breathe better, then I came round . . .’ Doping . . . and the dopes who ignored it It seems incredible today that until the 1987 Tour there had been relatively few positive tests recorded since 1967, when samples taken on the body of Tom Simpson after he collapsed on the slopes of Mont Ventoux revealed alcohol and amphetamines in his system. Sure, drug use was rampant and there had been scandals, such as in 1978 when Belgian champion Michele Pollentier was kicked off the race for attempting to cheat. But positive tests? Not nearly as many to match the reported extent of the problem. Even then, busted riders left the race with bans that amounted to a slap on the wrist. Very little was made of doping in those days, and it could be argued that the blind eye that was turned then by cycling officials, the media, riders and the public played a major role in the worsening of the doping problem in years to come. Some veteran Tour journalists waved their fingers, saying riders should not be questioned about doping unless their tests were confirmed as positive. Others warned against talking about the sport’s problem in front of the Fleet Street journalists who travelled from London to cover the race for only a day or two. There is no question the media played a role in allowing the problem of doping to develop.

Roche’s Belgian domestique, Eddy Schepers, rode by his side all the way up the Col de la Joux Plaine, the final climb of the 22nd stage from la Plagne to Morzine. His mission was to offer moral support, set an even tempo for Roche to follow and be on red alert to chase any attacks from Delgado or others. Had he been needed to chase, others in the team would have followed with Roche in tow. Roche was confident about Stage 22, but not until the hammer goes down does a rider know how much energy he has left. It soon became clear Roche had plenty. Spaniard Eduardo Chozas won the stage, but Roche dropped Delgado and took second place. He was now only 21 seconds down on Delgado: ‘It was my last chance to make up time on Delgado before the time trial at Dijon. It is going to be a head-to-head battle against Delgado. I am not saying I have won the Tour yet. It is not over until Sunday night. But today has put it in my favour.’

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The pressure was still on Roche for the Stage 24 time trial; the Tour was really his to lose. On a 38 km course that was damp and dangerous, he placed second to Bernard after taking the corners cautiously to avoid crashing. He also beat seventh placed Delgado by 1 minute 1 second to move into first place overall. Roche was more relieved, but nothing could match his mood on the last day, Stage 25 from Creteil to the Champs Elysees in Paris. Although the stage win went to American Jeff Pierce of the 7-Eleven team, finishing in the bunch it was Roche’s day. ‘I never said I would [win], people said it for me. I always thought about it, but I never believed it. When you actually cross the line knowing you’ve won you don’t feel really different, but when they play the national anthem and you see Irish people in the crowd, it is very touching.’ Standing on the winner’s dais in his yellow jersey while ‘The Soldier’s Song’ was played, tears welled in Roche’s smiling Irish eyes. No one could have guessed that several weeks later he would again be on a podium, this time in Villach, Austria after winning the men’s professional world road race title, which saw him become only the second person after Eddy Merckx to win the Giro, the Tour and the world title in the same year. Anderson may not have produced the performance I had dreamed of, but Roche more than made up for it. I also knew I would be back to go through it all again . . . as too would Anderson. The 1987 Tour de France podium 1. Stephen Roche (Carrera/Ireland), 4331 km in 115 hours 27 minutes 42 seconds (average speed 36.644 km/h) 2. Pedro Delgado (PDM/Spain) at 40 seconds 3. Jean-Francois Bernard (Toshiba/France) at 2 minutes 13 seconds The Australians 27. Phil Anderson (Panasonic/Netherlands) at 1 hour 20 minutes 43 seconds 103. Omar Palov (ANC-Halfords/Great Britain) at 2 hours 59 minutes 4 seconds DNF. Shane Sutton (ANC-Halfords/Great Britain) abandoned Stage 13 DNF. Allan Peiper (Panasonic/Netherlands) abandoned Stage 21

1988 They are worried about a scandal for the yellow jersey rider being found positive, but the scandal that has taken place is probably worse—the cover up and excuses for him getting out of it. If you saw what he did take and why he took it, you know why . . . Australian cyclist Michael Wilson on the Delgado affair, 23 July 1988 3 July–24 July (3286 km): Pornichet–la Baule (Preface), Pontchateau– Machecoul (Stage 1), la Haie Fouassiere–Ancenis (Stage 2 team time trial), Nantes–le Mans (Stage 3), le Mans–Evreux (Stage 4), Neufchatel en Bray–Lievin (Stage 5), Lievin–Wasquehal (Stage 6 individual time trial), Wasquehal–Reims (Stage 7), Reims–Nancy (Stage 8), Nancy–Strasbourg (Stage 9), Belfort–Besancon (Stage 10), Besancon–Morzine (Stage 11), Morzine–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 12), Grenoble–Villard de Lans (Stage 13 individual time trial), Blagnac–Guzet Neige (Stage 14), Saint Girons–Luz Ardiden (Stage 15), Luz Ardiden–Pau (Stage 16), Pau–Bordeaux (Stage 17), Ruelle sur Touvre–Limoges (Stage 18), Limoges–Puy de Dome (Stage 19), Clermont Ferrand–Chalon sur Saone (Stage 20), Santenay–Santenay (Stage 21 individual time trial), Nemours–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 22)

Earning selection in the Tour de France is a make or break experience for any cyclist. Many of the riders fighting for a place on a team as a domestique are so desperate that they will race themselves into the ground up to one week before the Tour in a bid to impress their directeur sportifs—even if they know they will be over-cooked and unable to reach the finish line in Paris. Once selected the value of a rider to a team is determined by how many days they survive in the Tour let alone finish, 22

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whether they win a stage, and how crucial they are in helping teammates win stages or a place in the general classification. Being a Tour rider not only means having a stake in the team’s prize money and the contractual clout that follows, it also enhances the chance of being invited to post-Tour criterium races, ostensibly exhibition events showcasing Tour stars in small towns across Europe. The value of a Tour start varies depending on a rider’s status, reputation and successes. This really came home to me in the months leading up to the 1988 Tour when speculation suggested that Phil Anderson—the one Australian who had been touted as a possible Tour winner—would not get to start that year. Anderson took the gamble of leaving the Dutch Panasonic team to join the rival Dutch squad TVM, which had ambitions of racing the Tour. To get that start, TVM knew it needed a marque name like Anderson. Anderson, in turn, realised that by joining a smaller team he might never get to ride the Tour with it. Anderson reportedly equated the value of that risk with a clause in his contract that required TVM to pay him $35 000 if it failed to be invited to the Tour. Unfortunately, this was the case and Anderson left his European base in Waragem, Belgium, and returned to his Australian home at Jamieson in the high country of north-east Victoria to train for the back end of the European season. Not being a part of the Tour hurt and he wanted to be as far away as possible from the hype. • • •

As the Tour was preparing to get under way in the department of Loire Atlantique on the west coast of France, events were about to unfold that would offer the New Zealander Nathan Dahlberg the opportunity Anderson so wanted. On the eve of the Tour, 7-Eleven rider Bob Roll crashed into a spectator during the ‘Preface’—an unofficial alternative to the traditional prologue time trial which was included under local laws to avert a Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) regulation that limited the number of days of any grand tour to 21. Suffering concussion, Roll was ruled out of starting by the 7-Eleven directors, who made an eleventh hour call to Dahlberg, the one rider on their books who had not been picked for the Tour but who could make it to the start in time for the next

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day’s ‘grand depart’. Dahlberg, a mid-spring recruit, had just returned to his Belgian home after a 180 km race when the telephone call came telling him to shower, pack his bags and get ready for a 7-Eleven team official to collect and drive him overnight to Pontchateau in time for the Stage 1 start. With a stop to eat and after dozing in the back seat, Dahlberg arrived at 5 am—in time for a 90 minute sleep and breakfast before the race began. One of the first things team manager Jim Ochowicz told Dahlberg was that there was no pressure on him, but if possible he should try and ‘hang in there’ for the Stage 2 team time trial so 7-Eleven could have a full complement of riders. Dahlberg did better. He made it to the finish in Paris. And on that feat alone, Ochowicz admitted he deserved to have his contract extended by a year. He wouldn’t have it otherwise . . . • • •

Michael Wilson was one of the most naturally gifted road cyclists to come from Australia, although many felt he never reached his full potential. The Adelaide-born Tasmanian was a good climber and time trialist, but his professional career was a stop-start affair. However, he did etch his own small place in cycling history by becoming the first Australian to win a stage in the Giro d’Italia in 1982 and then in the Vuelta a Espana in 1983 when he rode for the Italian Alfa Lum team. In 1988 Wilson was taken on board the Weinmann-La Suisse team by Paul Koechli, who steered Greg LeMond to his first Tour win in 1986. The only Australian in the 1988 Tour, Wilson also stood out for two other reasons: the crucial role he played in helping his Canadian team leader Steve Bauer defend the yellow jersey, and his position on the doping affair that embroiled that year’s winner and 1987 runner-up Pedro Delgado. Bauer, a short, thick-set rider and the 1984 Olympic road race silver medallist, won the rain stricken 91.5 km first stage from Pontchateau to Machecoul after attacking alone with 11 km to go, claiming the yellow jersey. It was a sweet-sour result for the team whose principal sponsor, Weinmann Brakes, had announced it would be withdrawing its support at the end of the season for another team. Despite the Panasonic team

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winning the second stage 48 km team time trial by 24 seconds from Weinmann-La Suisse, Wilson was still upbeat: ‘This whole business with the sponsorship trouble has pulled us together really. We know we are a good team and hope to prove it. Steve is a great rider and we know we can support him well. It is too early to say how well yet as there is such a long way to go and there is still a bit of nervousness among everyone in the race. Still, we are in a good situation overall and as Steve is our leader we will be doing our best to try and get the yellow jersey back for him.’ Over the next three days Wilson’s preoccupation, however, was to stay safe. Crashes are always a hazard, but the chances of having a spill are traditionally greater in the first week of a Tour when riders and teams not vying for overall victory try to win stages in the sprints or with breakaways. Everyone is in top form in the first week, and the tension is heightened with the eagerness to snare an early win. Such anxiety in a big bunch converts to high speed congestion and nasty crashes. As Wilson discovered, there is not enough room for everyone near the front, generally regarded as the safest place to be to avoid trouble: ‘It’s difficult to get yourself to the front of the bunch. You have to fight all day to keep some sort of position. I’ve spent most of my time hovering around in the middle. It can be dangerous there. It might be more dangerous than riding at the front, but then you can’t ride up front all day just for the sake of missing falls. The speed is too fast up front and it will just tire you out. Still, the safest place is on the front or right up the back, [where] you have time to stop [and] walk around the crashed riders, but then you have a bit of a chase on your hands. Up the front you miss the crashes.’ Panasonic controlled the race until the 52 km Stage 6 time trial from Lievin to Wasquehal. Incredibly, none of the big names stamped their mark on the stage. Delgado, Dutchman Eric Breukink, Irishman Sean Kelly, American Andy Hampsten and Frenchmen Laurent Fignon, Jean-Francois Bernard and Charly Mottet all fell short. The stage was won by Englishman Sean Yates from two other emerging contenders, Switzerland’s Toni Rominger and Italy’s Gianni Bugno. But Bauer continued to hover.

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The hungriest of them all . . . My last memory of Michael Wilson as a professional cyclist is not of him as a rider, as good as he was, but his generous personality that left him missed on the European circuit. After three seasons with Weinmann-La Suisse and Helvetia-La Suisse Wilson was racing the Paris–Nice in March 1991 as a new recruit on the Italian Ariostea team. The race had reached the French Riviera and another stage was over. I had just sat down with English photographer Graham Watson for dinner when Wilson approached from a nearby table where he and his team had been eating. His was always a welcome face at a bike race and he always bore a smile that cut through the divide that normally existed between riders and journalists. He knew Graham and I loved a good bottle of wine. We knew he was a connoisseur. (It is no surprise that he is today a viticulturist, winemaker and wine judge living on his vineyard, Velo Wines, at Legana in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.) On this occasion we asked him to choose a bottle. He studied the wine list, asked what we liked, studied the wine list some more and then asked the sommelier for a bottle. When it arrived, he tasted the wine, nodded, said ‘Very nice, you’ll like that’, and excused himself as the team doctor had told him he needed to lose weight and should go to bed hungry. When he left we didn’t know, as he did, that we would not see him again, at least as a professional cyclist. The next morning Ariostea announced that Wilson had withdrawn from Paris–Nice, and shortly after came the news that he had left the team, bringing an end to his career. I was shocked to think that a sporting career may have ended because a doctor advised a competing athlete that he should go to bed hungry every night to lose weight! I was very happy to see Wilson, and that smile, amongst the crowd at the 2008 Tour.

• • •

Reeling in a one second gap in a race as long as the Tour sounds simple enough. This was the task facing Bauer and his teammates as they chased the yellow jersey on Stage 7 from Wasquehal to the champagne capital of Reims. This was not a day about claiming stage honours, but about finishing at least one second or more ahead of race leader Jelle Nijdam. This task proved out of reach, with Bauer losing eight more seconds to the Dutchman. However, on the Tour opportunities often arise when they are least expected, as happened on the 219 km stage from Reims to Nancy. Bauer

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figured in a sixteen-man winning break that formed with 10 km to go. That Bauer did not win the stage didn’t matter. What mattered was the absence of Nijdam in the break and the fact that he regained the Tour lead. For Wilson, now fifteenth overall, this guaranteed some hard days in the saddle to come: ‘Jeez, we’ve got some work on our hands now . . . this week,’ he told me. ‘Our job will be to try and defend Steve. I don’t know if we can do it, but there are not many teams that can do it in the mountains so we have nothing to lose.’ Defending Bauer would entail chasing attacks from riders threatening his overall lead. Because he could climb well, Wilson would help lead Bauer up the climbs at a steady rhythm creating an energy saving slipstream so the team leader would not go into the red zed zone. Bauer kept the yellow jersey for stages 9, 10 and 11, and only fell short on the brutal 12th stage from Morzine to l’Alpe d’Huez. Before that stage Bauer said if he could keep the yellow jersey for one more day, he stood a chance of winning the Tour. Many doubted that, but his ride proved his ambition was well founded. With Spaniard Pedro Delgado the new race leader and Bauer second at 25 seconds, the Tour turned a vital corner. Delgado won the 38 km Stage 13 mountain time trial from Grenoble to the summit of Villard de Lans, then defended his yellow jersey through the Pyrenees on Stages 14 and 15 when Zimmerman, Mottet and Bernard abandoned. Nothing, it seemed, could now get in the way of the 27-year-old winning his first ever Tour until . . . In the early evening after the Stage 17 finish in Bordeaux, as many in the Tour entourage settled down with aperitifs before dinner, a French television talk show suddenly raised allegations that Delgado had failed a doping test after Stage 14. It was a bombshell for Delgado and the controversy could not have been more badly timed. He had already fallen out with the major Spanish television and radio network, Antenna 3, for his alleged ‘act of treason’ for not racing in the Vuelta a Espana that spring. The conflict had escalated to the point where Delgado refused interviews with Antenna 3 reporters, who were under immense pressure from an audience of millions demanding to know every detail of his Tour.

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Initially, Delgado and his Spanish team Reynolds refused to comment on the allegations, but the next morning before the 18th stage from Ruelle-sur-Touvres to Limoges he was singing another tune, telling the media: ‘I was notified this morning by my team director Jose Miguel Echavarri that I had undergone a positive test. I asked for a counter-test to be made . . . I have never taken dope, I have never taken medicine during the Tour. I just hope to keep the yellow jersey until Paris.’ What unfolded was a series of events that were clouded, bewildering and made reporting on the affair accurately much harder. The story evolved hour by hour. For an Australian journalist the task of reporting was made even more difficult in an era when filing an update meant stopping on the route, finding a phone (often in a cafe to the bemusement of locals drinking espresso, rosé and pastis) and dictating the story before the race passed by. At the back . . . but not out Waking from my slumber in the cramped front seat of the voiture balai, the broom wagon that follows the last rider to pick him up should he abandon, I focused on Jeff Pierce. It dawned on me how controversies like the Delgado affair can obscure what the Tour is about: hard and fast cycling on the flat, nail-biting sprints, one-on-one contests in the mountains, man against clock times trials, and the struggle to survive to race another day and hopefully reach the finish on the Champs Elysees. Jeff Pierce was an American rider on the 7-Eleven team. He was a domestique, not a star, even though he had enjoyed a moment of fame in 1987 by winning the last stage into Paris. But a year on in the heart of the Massif Central—and on Stage 19—fame was a long, long way away. Pierce’s pony tail was bobbing up and down in rhythm with his shoulders as he rode, head down, to the daunting Puy de Dome, an 11 km corkscrew ascent that sat on the horizon. At first glance he looked remarkably relaxed. In reality, he was anything but. He was way off the back of the peloton, alone, struggling with his mind and body in one of the hardest fights for any rider in the Tour, to finish the stage within the time limit and avoid elimination. His demise began at 30 km into the stage. He was dropped near the village of Cheissoux—his last energies had been sacrificed 10 km earlier to help his team leader Andy Hampsten rejoin the peloton after crashing.

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But by the time he came into my view, he was alone. The race had left him. His company consisted of a CBS Television crew, a 7-Eleven team car that sporadically returned from the race up front to check on him, two members of the Garde Républicaine on motorbikes and us in the broom wagon. As the gap between Pierce and the peloton increased, it was clear he would not rejoin it and probably would fall outside the time limit to start the next stage. Riders in his situation often ask: ‘If I am not going to finish the Tour, will it be because I gave up or because I was forced to stop?’ Often they choose to ride on knowing they will still be able to say they did not give up. Despite the romance of such valour, those who follow them tend to see the picture rather differently. Joel David, a robust, weathered and affable Frenchman, made that clear as he drove the broom wagon behind Pierce. He had seen what was unfolding before me all too many times. As Pierce was urged on by fans packing up their picnic baskets and astounded to see a rider still on the course, Joel muttered: ‘He will continue . . . pfft . . . It would be better for us if he abandoned, but for him, if he can finish he will. Elimination is far better than giving up.’ I began to wish Pierce would stop too . . . and relieved when Joel said the press room was at the foot of the Puy de Dome, and that he would take me there before following Pierce to his fate.

• • •

The Delgado doping controversy dragged on. It was as if the UCI, the Tour organisers and Delgado’s team management believed that if the Tour reached Paris before any official comment was made, then the matter might go away. All the talking was left to Delgado: ‘As far as I am concerned everything is going ahead as normal until I receive the results this morning. I will continue as far as Paris.’ The results did not arrive before that morning’s Stage 19 start, where a chorus of fans welcomed Delgado by chanting: ‘Pedro—let him go.’ Smiling as ever, he arrived with a posse of press photographers on motorbikes hoping to capture what they suspected would well be his last ride in yellow. Despite a cloud of uncertainty, Delgado still spoke to the media after signing on at the stage start: ‘The Tour was going very well until all this happened. I have always had a lot of confidence when I went to the dope control and I was very surprised by the result. This is a very bad timing

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for my career, as it would be for every rider. But I know I am clear and it will not affect me too badly in the future.’ However, as the silence of others continued so too did speculation over which drug Delgado had tested positive for. Was it hormones or a masking agent? There was also speculation over what fate would await him should the counter test prove positive. In the late 1980s, punishments for doping offences were far milder than they are today, so the worst Delgado faced was being relegated to last place on the stage in which he tested positive and handed a 10 minute penalty which almost certainly would cost him his Tour winning hopes. A circus of finger pointing began. Many still believed Delgado was a worthy champion-to-be: even the Spanish sports minister came out in support for him. Others smelled a rat. The sports minister, however, chose the wrong ticket this time. Five hours after the 19th stage was won by the Dane Johnny Weltz, Delgado’s counter test results arrived and showed that Probenicide, a masking agent, was detected. It was also finally confirmed that the test was not taken after Stage 14 as first thought but after Stage 13, the 38 km time trial that Delgado won. However, because Probenicide was not then on the UCI’s list of banned drugs (it was on the International Olympic Committee list), it was ruled that Delgado would not be punished. Barring disaster in the finals days to Paris, his Tour was as good as won. It was also immediately announced that Probenicide would be on the UCI list from 1989. With one day to go and Delgado holding an unassailable lead of 7 minutes 30 seconds it was too late. The Delgado doping scandal and another involving Dutchman Gert-Jan Theunisse had deeply scarred the race. No sugar coating could sweeten the sour taste that had been left in everyone’s mouth by the lingering suspicion that Tour and UCI officials had swept the issue under the carpet. Divisions even appeared in the ranks of riders, many of whom initially spoke in support of Delgado. Michael Wilson didn’t hold back: ‘They are worried about a scandal for the yellow jersey rider being found positive, but the scandal that has taken place is probably worse—the cover up and excuses for him getting out of it. If you saw what he did take and why [it can be alleged] he took it, you know why. This is the Tour de France and

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people will take drugs to win it. It’s a sad situation and I think something should be done about it.’ When the Tour reached Paris Delgado finished with an official 7 minute 13 second lead over Steven Rooks, who won the King of the Mountains title. Delgado dedicated his first win from six Tour starts to his mother. Wilson placed 50th overall after excelling in helping Bauer finish with a career best of fourth overall. As for the Delgado affair? It seemingly disappeared as quickly as it emerged. As Delgado stood smiling on the podium in Paris, it was almost as if it never occurred. The 1988 Tour de France podium 1. Pedro Delgado (Reynolds/Spain), 3286 km in 84 hours 27 minutes 53 seconds (average speed 38.909 km/h) 2. Steven Rooks (PDM/Netherlands) at 7 minutes 13 seconds 3. Fabio Parra (Kelme/Columbia) at 9 minutes 58 seconds The Australians 50. Michael Wilson (Weinmann-La Suisse/Switzerland) at 1 hour 9 minutes 31 seconds

1989 It was the first time I’ve cried in my life. Of course, I’m angry and disappointed. I’ve just lost the Tour. —Laurent Fignon after collapsing on his bike 1 July–23 July (3285 km): Luxembourg–Luxembourg (Prologue, Stage 1, Stage 2 team time trial), Luxembourg–Spa Francorchamps (Stage 3), Liege–Wasquehal (Stage 4), Dinard–Rennes (Stage 5 individual time trial), Rennes–Futuroscope (Stage 6), Poitiers–Bordeaux (Stage 7), la Bastide d’Armagnac–Pau (Stage 8), Pau–Cauterets (Stage 9), Cauterets– Superbagneres (Stage 10), Luchon–Blagnac (Stage 11), Toulouse– Montpellier (Stage 12), Montpellier–Marseille (Stage 13), Marseille–Gap (Stage 14), Gap–Orcieres Merlette (Stage 15 individual time trial), Gap– Briancon (Stage 16), Briancon–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 17), Bourg d’Oisans– Villard de Lans (Stage 18), Villard de Lans–Aix les Bains (Stage 19), Aix les Bains–l’Isle d’Abeau (Stage 20), Versailles–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21 individual time trial)

The years of Greg LeMond were great years for the Tour de France. I did not cover the American’s historic Tour victory in 1986, which was the first win in the event by a non-European, but I loved the aggressive way he raced. I loved his seemingly boyish and easy going Californian nature. I loved his candid views, his individuality, and his unabashed pride of all things American. But I especially loved the way he also embraced and respected the traditions and cultures of others. LeMond was absolutely adored by the French. He was also a journalist’s dream. At press conferences he provided direct and forthright answers. He also gave many one-on-one interviews—at his home in Belgium or the United States, or in his hotel room late at night while most other riders 32

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were asleep in bed. His words—like his performances on the bike—were always good for a headline back in Australia. As with any multi-Tour winner each of LeMond’s wins were significant and impressive, but it was the victory he snatched in 1989 from Frenchman Laurent Fignon on the final 24 km time trial from Versailles to the Champs Elysees that was the most spectacular. LeMond had had a string of setbacks leading up to the race, but the worst was a near fatal accident in April 1987 when his brother-in-law accidentally shot him while turkey hunting. Peppered with 31 buckshot pellets, six in the tissue surrounding his heart, he was 25 minutes from bleeding to death. He underwent surgery for appendicitis that same year then in 1988, his comeback year, for a tendon sheath injury. Throughout it all he understandably faced ongoing doubt over his ability to return. However, the LeMond of 1989 was far wiser and savvier than he had been in earlier Tours: ‘I’ve learned to handle pressure and setbacks a lot more. They don’t get me down so much.’ LeMond had executed an impressively aggressive 1989 Tour and had enjoyed an early spell in the yellow jersey, but the chances of him pulling off the overall win seemed inconceivable as he began the decisive last day time trial. Judging by his confidence in a press conference the night before, Laurent Fignon, who was 53 seconds up on LeMond, expected the only way the Tour would end was with a rousing rendition of ‘La Marsellaise’. That was not to be. • • •

I have never seen a rider botch the start to his defence of a Tour title like Pedro Delgado did in Luxembourg before the 7.8 km Prologue and in the 24 hours that followed. There have been some unbelievable mess-ups, shocking tactics and bizarre twists that have turned races on their head and seen favourites throw away wins, but nothing matches Delgado’s disastrous 1989 start. His first time loss came when he arrived 2 minutes and 40 seconds late for his scheduled Prologue start after he lost track of time in the streets of Luxembourg while warming up for that day’s racing. Seeking the solitude and calm needed to slip into the zone for the short intense

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race against the clock, he had no teammates or team officials with him. I will never forget seeing the defending champion in his yellow jersey speeding in from the horizon to the starting ramp where his sport director Jose-Miguel Echavarri was frantically beckoning him. It was a Tour rider’s worst nightmare. Little wonder that nowadays riders warm up on stationary rollers in the sight of team management or carry out reconnaissance rides over the course in groups—or in pairs—usually the day before with their team cars following. If that was not bad enough, Delgado lost seven more minutes in the Stage 2, 46 km team time trial after struggling to stay with his teammates. He lost touch several times and on each occasion his team slowed for him, but he still finished the race alone and fell to second last place overall from 198 riders. That night it was hard to determine which of the two disasters was more shocking, although Delgado later admitted that his performance in the team time trial had been affected by the shock of his Prologue debacle. Not that his team had lost confidence in him, despite speculation he might be deposed as leader. Echavarri quickly made that clear: ‘Pedro is still leader . . . everything is fine physically. But whatever happens will be decided after the time trial on Thursday. If he doesn’t prove to be as strong as I believe he could be, we’ll obviously have to look to someone else as our leader.’ That was a decision Echavarri would never have to make. The 73 km Stage 5 time trial from the coastal town of Dinard to Rennes in Brittany revealed that LeMond had something more in him than most expected. His win by 24 seconds over the fast improving Delgado saw him take the yellow jersey for the first time since he wore it as the 1986 champion. He was as shocked as everyone else: ‘Whatever happens, this is the greatest day of my life, as great as the day I wore the yellow jersey at the finish in Paris in 1986. I have dreamt of getting this jersey back ever since my shooting accident. There have been people who gave up their confidence in me, but now I have proved them wrong.’ He remained coy about how far he could go: ‘I came here wanting a place in the top twenty. Now I am looking at top five. I don’t know yet if I have it for the mountains. So I want to be calm about all of

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this.’ His next moment of truth would be five days later during the second of two Pyrenean stages, the 136 km 10th stage from Cauterets to Superbagneres. On the eve of that stage, the taciturn and hostile Scottish climber Robert Millar and I crossed paths for the first time since an uncomfortable chance meeting at the 1988 Tour presentation in Paris. It was 11 pm and I was sitting alone, having finished work and dinner. Out of the darkness I recognised Millar’s rake thin silhouette coming towards me. With his every step I prepared to be on the receiving end of more of his barbs, but instead he sat down, ordered an ice cream and chatted about everything other than cycling. The next day we crossed paths in Cauterets before the big day to Superbagneres began. He told me with a wry grin, ‘I’m going to give’m a bit of stick today’. And stick is what he gave the peloton . . . With Frenchman Charly Mottet, Millar bolted away from four others 24 km into the stage. Seventy kilometres later they were joined by Delgado, who desperately needed to make up time for his first week of horrors. The trio worked well together and by the foot of the last 16 km climb they had a lead of 4 minutes. Their battle for the stage win over the next hour was simply epic. Delgado attacked on his own twice, and on both occasions he showed why so many loved their ‘Perico’. The stocky Spaniard’s punch and quickness to settle into a rhythm and then accelerate again was beautiful to watch. One year during the Vuelta a Espana, a colleague turned to me in the press room as he watched Delgado attack on the brutally long climb to Lagos de Covadonga and said with tears rolling down his cheeks: ‘Look, Rupert . . . it is beautiful . . . look.’ However, on this occasion the honour was not to be Delgado’s, but Millar’s as he countered the Spaniard’s attacks with enough in reserve to beat him to the finish line. But theirs was just a curtain raiser to the main battle between Fignon and LeMond for the yellow jersey which was fought break by break over the next seven stages. By the 18th stage from Bourg d’Oisans to Villard de Lans, Fignon, now in the yellow jersey, tightened his grip on the Tour, extending his lead over LeMond by 50 seconds and Delgado by 2 minutes 28 seconds. He also became the darling of France. The French media, with whom he long

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had a strained relationship, praised Fignon for his panache. LeMond, on the other hand, was showing the first signs of stress. Coming in sixth at Villard de Lans, he yelled at the swarm of journalists and photographers who fell on him. ‘Leave me . . . leave me. You saw the race—you know what happened,’ he screamed before turning and cycling down the climb to his team hotel. So out of character was this that the media had no problem in cutting him a little slack. The next day LeMond responded in the best possible way: he won the 125 km 19th stage from Villard de Lans to Aix les Bains. However, with Fignon and Delgado on his tail the overall standing did not change. LeMond also had a warning for Fignon: ‘It isn’t finished. I can tell you. If he wins the Tour he won’t do it by 50 seconds. He’s going to have some sleepless nights between now and Sunday, I can tell you.’ What nobody knew was Fignon was already having sleepless nights due to a painful boil, caused by his many attacks in the Pyrenees and Alps, that had to be repeatedly lanced. The pain also started to test Fignon’s temper. Attention from photographers increased as his Tour winning odds rose. Wherever he went, they went, ‘even when I go for a piss’. Then when it was reported that he had spat at a photographer, some started to whisper that perhaps Fignon was ready to fall. And fall he did, the next day on the 24.5 km time trial from Versailles to Paris. LeMond went from being 19 seconds faster than Fignon at 10 km, to 21 seconds at 11.5 km, to 24 seconds at 14 km and to 35 seconds at 18 km. After he finished, all he could do was watch as Fignon’s overall lead of 53 seconds fell to zero with 200 m to go and then to the historic eight second deficit by the finish line. The countdown to Fignon’s fate was shared by spectators, riders, the media and officials, but nowhere more intensely than where LeMond stood with his Mexican soigneur, Otto Jacome. ‘This is definitely the happiest day of my life,’ LeMond said, nodding because he knew that he had said the same thing when he first took the yellow jersey at the Stage 5 time trial in Rennes. ‘I knew it was possible, but I knew I had to race the hardest day of my life. Still, I am shocked . . . really shocked. To win the Tour like this, plus three stages. That’s something!’

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The soigneur Every Tour team has up to four soigneurs, people assigned to look after riders before and after every stage. In fact, the job title is a French word that means ‘carer’. While being a masseur is the soigneur’s principal duty, there are many sides to the job. They administer basic medical care for wounds, cuts and abrasions—including boils, or saddle sores, as LeMond reminded journalists when he told us the boil he had just had lanced was ‘the size of a golf ball’ and that the pus would have ‘filled a wine glass’. Soigneurs also wash clothes, and prepare pre- and post-race food and drinks and the food bags (or musettes) that are handed out at the nominated feed zones for each stage. They are also the first person a rider sees at the stage finish—always with towels and cold drinks on hand—and will escort riders to and from the stage starts or finishes to fulfil various podium, media or antidoping protocols. And inevitably because of the time they spend together— especially during nightly massage—they become a confidant for the riders and, as a result, a handy source of insight for journalists. Some soigneurs are former riders who are kept on teams. Many of the big name riders often hand pick a personal soigneur. LeMond knew his Mexican soigneur, Otto Jacome, from his days racing as a junior in the United States. They developed a relationship that was almost like father and son. And Jacome’s cooking skills matched perfectly with LeMond’s penchant for Mexican food. Phil Anderson’s soigneur, Shelly Verses, was his de-facto partner. A blonde Californian, Verses created history by becoming the first female soigneur in a sport where women were not welcomed at the time. An outgoing and colourful personality, she was often seen at feed stations sunbathing in a bikini on a team car while waiting for the race. However, she was not a show pony. Her massage and knowledge of homeopathic care saw her regarded as one of the best.

• • •

One difficulty in covering the Tour is the time difference between Australia and France. Something that happened on a Saturday afternoon, for example, will not appear in an Australian newspaper until Monday morning. This means that journalists sometimes need to throw forward to the day the reader picks up the newspaper—which can be 36 hours

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after a stage has been raced. Or they need a strong news line, something LeMond was especially good for. But occasionally you get caught out, as I did on the afternoon of Sunday, 23 July—courtesy of LeMond and his extraordinary Tour victory. Two short news clippings from my Tour archives represent to me the drama of that 1989 finale. They were published in separate editions of the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, 24 July 1989. I filed the first story the night before the last stage was raced. It was printed in the first edition, before the time trial was raced. Fignon’s morale to hold off LeMond’s speed on Paris leg PARIS, Sunday Barring extraordinary poor form, misfortune or an unbelievable act of heroism from his arch rival, Frenchman Laurent Fignon should finish the Tour de France today with the leader’s jersey his for keeps. Today’s final stage, a 24.5 km individual time trial from Versailles to Paris, is thought to be too short for second-placed Greg LeMond, of the United States, to make up his overall deficit of 50 seconds. It is a flat route, significantly retracing in reverse the one that the French people took on July 14, 1789, to the Bastille on the day of the French Revolution when they threw out the monarch. This year’s Tour has been raced in tandem with the month-long festivities celebrating the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Fignon, a 28-year-old Parisian, is not being too cocky about his chances. He knows LeMond is a great time triallist, and on every occasion in a tour he has been beaten by the American. LeMond proved his strength with a 56 second lead and eventual win over Fignon in the fifth stage, a 73 km time trial from Dinard to Rennes. While LeMond has said that winning is not impossible, Fignon mirrors the thoughts of most people following the Tour. ‘I don’t think he can do it. On the time trial to Rennes he took 56 seconds on me, but that was over 73 kms,’ Fignon said after yesterday’s 20th stage. ‘Also, with the yellow jersey on my back, I will have greater morale. However, with such a small lead, I could still crash or puncture.’ Fignon had had little trouble in conserving his lead in yesterday’s 127 km 20th stage from Aix les Bains to l’Isle d’Abeau which saw the field finish together and contest a bunched sprint. It was not until after 95 kms that the attacks began. One, by Australia’s Phil Anderson who was after an elusive stage win, came

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with 10 kms to go, and for four kilometres he kept ahead of the main group. Ironically, it was compatriot Stephen Hodge who was the first to rein Anderson in. Hodge was working with his teammates to keep the bunch intact so his sprinting star, Mathieu Hermans, would have a good position for the finishing sprint. Hermans finished fourth in a stage won by Italy’s Gianni Fidanza.

The second story was filed in far hastier fashion. With LeMond’s Tour victory confirmed at about 12.30 am Sydney time, there was only time to put a collect call in to Australia and file off the top of my head a fresh first half—or ‘top’—to my previous story. Printed in the second edition—after the time trial was raced—it read: LeMond wins the Tour de France in a tense finale PARIS, Sunday American Greg LeMond sensationally won the Tour de France for the second time in a pulsating finale in Paris today after turning around a 50-second overnight deficit on local hero Laurent Fignon in the closing time trial. LeMond timed an unofficial 26 min 57 sec to win the 24.5 km stage from Versailles and clinch victory by eight seconds from the shattered Frenchman. It was the narrowest winning margin in the history of the world’s greatest cycle race. It is also 21 years since the Tour had a last day winner, when Jan Janssen of The Netherlands overhauled Herman van Springel of Belgium in the closing time trial to the 1968 race. LeMond last won the Tour in 1986 but today’s triumph was his greatest after having bravely fought his way back after nearly losing his life when accidentally being shot by his brother-in-law while out turkey hunting in California two years ago. Fignon, who was troubled by saddle sores, ended up crying on the Champs Elysees with his wife Nathalie trying to comfort him. LeMond, meanwhile, was jumping up and down in celebration, yelling: ‘Incredible.’ Fignon had had little trouble in conserving his lead in yesterday’s 127 km 20th stage from Aix-les-Bains to l’Isle d’Abeau which saw the field finish together and contest a bunched sprint. It was not until after 95 kms that the attacks began . . .

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Mayhem unfolded on the Champs Elysees that day. It was hot and humid and the press room was then in a cramped tent within 50 m of the finish line—rather than an air-conditioned hotel 4 km away as it is today. Journalists and officials tripped over each other and chairs and tables in a bid to reach LeMond and Fignon on the finishing line. Fignon gave no indication of doubt the night before at the ‘winner’s’ press conference—so termed because this is when the ‘annointed’ winner traditionally holds his last media call. He spoke about what this victory would mean, how hard it was to win, the ups and downs of the race, his rivalry with LeMond and, of course, the upcoming time trial: ‘Normally I should lose a maximum of fifteen to twenty seconds [to LeMond]. Also, with the yellow jersey on my shoulders, I shouldn’t have any problems, really none . . .’ Fignon may have tempted fate by talking so optimistically. He may also have been accused of being arrogant, but the result could have been different had he not developed a boil that made maximising his aerodynamism painfully difficult on the cobblestones of the Champs Elysees, or had he used the triathlon handlebars and aerodynamic helmet LeMond used, rather than allowing his pony tailed crop to debilitate his speed. Unsurprisingly, since the 1989 Tour the last stage has never again been a time trial. And apart from several close battles for the sprinter’s green jersey, the race for yellow has been settled before the ride up the Champs Elysees. • • •

For Australia the 1989 Tour was a lean one, but at least Phil Anderson, Michael Wilson and Stephen Hodge all finished. It also wasn’t short on drama, especially for Anderson, whose goal was to win a stage rather than aim for a top overall place. His Dutch TVM team earned its spot in the Tour this time, mainly due to Anderson’s results in the months leading up to the start, the most recent of which was a stage win and thirteenth place overall in the Giro d’Italia in June. However, Anderson had been at loggerheads with the team manager Cees Priem over his wish that his trusted domestique,

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Dutchman Jan Siemons, race the Tour. So heated did the dispute become that Anderson threatened to withdraw from the Tour team if Siemons was omitted. In preparing to defend his case for Siemons, Anderson phoned the Tour race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, a former professional cyclist and journalist on the French newspaper L’Equipe, and asked, ‘If I don’t do the Tour would the team do it?’ Leblanc said, ‘No, the only reason your team is doing the Tour is because you are part of the team’. So Anderson rang Priem and told him that if Siemons wasn’t on the team then he was not going to race the Tour either, and that would mean the team would lose its wild card entry. Priem stuttered in response and, finally, agreed to Siemons getting a start. But the seeds of discontent remained and to stop the bickering Anderson called a 3 pm meeting of the riders in the team bus on the day before the Prologue. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I want unity in the team. I’m pissed off with coach Priem because he tried to drop this bloke who helped me a lot. I don’t like being blackmailed and I didn’t like having to do these sorts of things. If anybody has anything against something say it now before the Tour because I want to go into this race with everybody being positive and I think we can get some result.’ However, a rousing speech and personal form is no guarantee of success, as Anderson was reminded at the foot of the Alps after the 238 km 14th stage from Marseille to Gap. This was Anderson’s last real chance to add a stage win to his 1982 win at Nantes. He came in seventh and ‘fairly battered up’ after a crash the day before. The crash was the first of two he would have in four days. It was typically hot and humid. It was also Bastille Day and the stage began amidst celebrations, highlighted by French rider Thierry Marie leading the peloton early and playing French classics on a trumpet as it rolled out from the start. The day also ended in French jubilation with Vincent Barteau leading home a French one-twothree stage finish at the old port of Marseille, where local fans waited for the race by lobbing firecrackers at unsuspecting media and officials. For Anderson, however, the festivity ended far earlier—at a feed zone—after a soigneur threw a feed bag to his rider on the other side of the road and it fell short and flew into one of Anderson’s wheels. The Australian was flung from his bike and sustained a black eye and severe

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cuts to his face, chin, arms and legs. Miraculously, he finished the stage and then, wearing various compresses to treat his wounds, fulfilled a pre-arranged commitment to appear live on television to review the stage. When he crashed again, after one of his tyres rolled on a descent in Stage 16 from Gap to Briancon, to those still fresh wounds were added more abrasions and a burn mark on his leg from the tyre. Anderson did well to finish that Tour considering his accidents and the difficulty of the stages that followed. He was the highest placed of the Australians, coming in 38th overall. Wilson finished in 69th place. His highlight was a third place on the 157 km 8th stage from la Bastide d’Armagnac to Pau won by Irishman Martin Earley, who jumped Wilson and two other breakaway companions with 800 m to go, and a tenth place on Stage 20 from Aix les Bains to l’Isle d’Abeau. Hodge—riding in the first of his six Tours—was 83rd. His duties as a domestique were to help Dutch sprinter Mathieu Hermans, who won the 11th stage to Blagnac. Okay, the Australian riders were not winning, but I was quickly learning that there is a lot more to a successful Tour than being on the podium. Finishing was a feat in itself. The 1989 Tour de France podium 1. Greg LeMond (ADR-Agritubel/USA) 3285 km in 87 hours 38 minutes 35 seconds (average speed 37.487 km/h) 2. Laurent Fignon (SystemU/France) at 8 seconds 3. Pedro Delgado (Reynolds/Spain) at 3 minutes 34 seconds The Australians 38. Phil Anderson (TVM/Netherlands) at 1 hour 11 minutes 38 seconds 69. Michael Wilson (Helvetia-La Suisse/Switzerland) at 1 hour 44 minutes 5 seconds 83. Stephen Hodge (Paternina/Spain) at 1 hour 53 minutes 35 seconds

1990 I looked left and right to see if there were any cyclists there to give me a wheel. What was the worst was not knowing whether Roger was one or even three minutes behind. I began thinking it was a stupid way to lose the Tour. —Greg LeMond on his puncture near the summit of the Col de Marie Blanque 30 June–22 July (3504 km): Futuroscope–Futuroscope (Prologue, Stage 1, Stage 2 team time trial), Poitiers–Nantes (Stage 3), Nantes–Mont Saint Michel (Stage 4), Avranches–Rouen (Stage 5), Sarrebourg–Vittel (Stage 6), Vittel–Epinal (Stage 7 individual time trial), Epinal–Besancon (Stage 8), Besancon–Geneva (Stage 9), Geneva–Saint Gervais Mont Blanc (Stage 10), Saint Gervais–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 11), Fontaine–Villard de Lans (Stage 12 individual time trial), Villard de Lans–Saint Etienne (Stage 13), le Puy en Velay–Millau Causses Noirs (Stage 14), Millau–Revel (Stage 15), Blagnac–Luz Ardiden (Stage 16), Lourdes–Pau (Stage 17), Pau–Bordeaux (Stage 18), Castillon la Bataille–Limoges (Stage 19), Lac de Vassiviere–Lac de Vassiviere (Stage 20 individual time trial), Bretigny sur Orge–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

My career took a big turn in the 1990 season. I left Winning to become the European correspondent for the US journal VeloNews. At a time when few English-speaking cycling journalists were based in Europe, it was a brief that had plenty of scope and allowed me to report on as many races as possible. I was also able to work for other media outlets. Barely a week went by when I was not going from one event to the other, covering races for VeloNews, Robert Maxwell’s The European, Ireland’s The Irish Press and The Independent newspapers, The Australian, Melbourne’s Sun News Pictorial, the Sydney Morning Herald, the cable television network Eurosport, the German sports agency Sports Information Dientse (SID), 43

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the Zurich-based Tages Anzeiger as well as specialist magazines such as Bicycling Australia, Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport in Great Britain, Pedal in Canada, Ciclismo a Fondo in Spain, and Velo in France. I didn’t earn a lot of money but became rich in experience and contacts. Covering those early season races also meant that I had knowledge of the form, objectives, personalities and the general strengths and weaknesses of the Tour riders. I followed defending Tour champion Greg LeMond closely after his 1989 victory. He capped off a fabulous year with a stunning victory in the world road championship at Chambery at the foot of the French Alps. However, the form that carried LeMond through his successes in 1989 was absent in 1990. He started the year ill-prepared and overweight and then fell ill with a virus from which he did not recover until mid May. The worst was seeing him struggle in the Giro—not just at the back of the peloton, but sometimes off it. Criticism was mounting and many respected legends in the sport even said his performances were not befitting a rider wearing the world champion’s rainbow jersey. The most humiliating of all was hearing his Giro detractors actually laugh at him, especially when a television camera focused on his backside as he was struggling to keep up with the pack. LeMond’s turn about in the Tour was therefore all the more surprising. The American’s form was certainly not the biggest surprise of that year’s Tour. When the little-known Italian Claudio Chiappucci won the King of the Mountains in Paris–Nice and then again in the Giro, I certainly didn’t pencil him in as a name to watch. Few tipped he would go on to become one of the biggest names in world cycling. He was known as a solid domestique whose early season form might at best have helped his secondary ‘business’—selling his mother’s handmade undershirts to the riders. By the end of July his was a name the cycling world could not get enough off. It took me a long time, however, to gel to his popularity. His aggressive riding was admirable, but the way he carried himself with the airs and graces of a champion before he had actually won anything irked.

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• • •

The 1990 Tour began with a formidable line-up. Besides LeMond, there was the Giro winner Gianni Bugno, Pedro Delgado, Stephen Roche, Sean Kelly, Laurent Fignon and Charly Mottet, and the emerging Mexican star Raul Alcala. There were also three Australians in the 198-strong field—Phil Anderson, Allan Peiper and Stephen Hodge. But nobody could have foreseen the impact a four-man breakaway early in the first stage would have on the overall result—not even those in the move. But the 10 minute 35 second stage winning margin by Chiappucci, Steve Bauer, Frenchman Ronan Pensec and Dutchman Frans Massen—all riders not even considered among the wildest of dark horses to win—left the Tour favourites chasing from the start to the finish. Peiper’s tune—the good and the bad The idea of Allan Peiper not starting in the 1990 Tour was unfathomable after watching him claim the biggest win of his career, Stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia. Peiper had been scolded by his hard-nosed directeur sportif Peter Post for ‘failing’ in race winning scenarios before, but now he had shown Post that as good as he was a domestique, he could also win races. However, when Post announced the Panasonic line-up for the Tour, Peiper was not named—the team was stacked with climbers and the 30-year-old Victorian was listed as the first reserve. To start, someone needed to pull out. Peiper did get the call-up, to replace Dutch teammate Gert-Jan Theunisse, the 1989 King of the Mountains who had tested positive for testosterone for the third time. Within days, he was again on the winner’s podium—as part of the Panasonic team that won the Stage 2 44.5 km team time trial. It was Peiper’s second win on the world stage in five weeks: ‘Crikey, winning a Tour de France stage is what so many guys want. My stage win in the Tour of Italy was for me, but this was for the team. And the feeling is great.’ So ‘great’, even Post was shedding tears of joy! Later, however, Peiper admitted he feared he couldn’t keep up with his team on the windswept twisting and turning course. ‘We just went flat out. I’ve never ridden so hard in my life. After the first 15 km I thought I would never make it to the finish. We were just motoring. I think I was the weakest link in the chain.’ Team time trialling is one of the trickiest and most demanding disciplines in cycling as a team is only as strong as its weakest rider. With a team’s time

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• • •

Now on the 7-Eleven team, Bauer took the yellow jersey on Stage 1, defended it in the Futuroscope team time trial and continued to do so until the 10th stage from Geneva through the forested heartland of the French Alps to St Gervais on Mont Blanc. Replacing the Canadian in first place was Pensec, an ever smiling rock ’n’ roll and car fan. What was meant to have been a private celebration for his 27th birthday suddenly turned into a national one, with the French quick to label him a potential Tour winner even though teammate Greg LeMond was his team leader. The situation now was ideal for LeMond. Having a teammate in the lead meant it was up to his rivals to attack, not him. And if they did and dropped Pensec, he would be alert to go with the winning move. Basically, all LeMond had to do was follow the race and conserve energy. ‘Greg is ten minutes down, yes,’ Pensec said. ‘That is nothing. My big problem will still be to follow the best climbers in the mountains. If the overall placings don’t change, then we will review the tactics. But if a

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break goes and Greg gets in it, there is still a good chance for him. There are still fifteen days to go.’ On the 182.5 km stage to l’Alpe d’Huez Pensec extended his lead on Chiappucci, but there were many who suffered. Nine riders abandoned, one was eliminated, another was disqualified for hanging on to a team car and a number of big names lost a lot of time. Right in the fray, however, was LeMond, who crashed just after the feed zone at Saint Etienne de Cuines while reaching into his food bag. He was not going fast at the time, but suddenly hit a ‘fat lady’. The two went down—LeMond landing on top of her. The first to his rescue was the woman’s husband, who helped LeMond before his wife, saying, ‘You’re more important’. LeMond, who had dislocated his finger in the crash, was poised for a winning move until he took a poor line on the sharp bend before the final rise to the finish. While he regathered his balance, Bugno sprinted ahead and beat him by half a length. Pensec had dreamed of wearing the yellow jersey into the Pyrenees, but his fate was sealed on the 33.5 km 12th stage mountain time trial, which was won by Chiappucci. The stage also saw the margin between most of the Tour favourites and the lead reduced, and in reach with two Pyrenean stages and a time trial ahead. • • •

Shortly before the start of the 13th stage from the summit of Villard de Lans to Saint Etienne, Phil Anderson gave me the heads up: he was going to attack from the start line. It sounded like lunacy, but coming from an aggressive rider like Anderson, who was nearing the end of a Tour in which he had yet to win a stage, there was nothing to lose. The stage was not long at 149 km, and with the overall favourites having ridden to the limit in the time trial, there was reasonable cause to believe that a break might work. The trouble was that many other riders had the same idea including Charly Mottet, now placed a lowly 35th overall. It was also 14 July, Bastille Day, so it was more than likely that most of the French riders in the peloton would have harboured some idea of attacking. My VeloNews colleagues were mildly disbelieving of Anderson’s plan, that is until Radio Tour, which links the entire race entourage, began

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reporting that he had attacked straight after the start and was still away. At 80 km/h and through a dangerous 27 km drop into a chilly gorge and the awaiting valley flats, Anderson led the charge. Frustratingly, he would not get more than a minute’s lead and was caught by Mottet at 32 km with the peloton hot on their wheels. ‘I really wanted to have a crack at it,’ Anderson said later. ‘I didn’t know why Mottet chased me, but if he hadn’t it might have worked.’ The stage erupted into a fireworks display of attacks that almost saw Chiappucci lose his yellow jersey. When the regrouped peloton split and a group of seventeen riders set off to chase down and catch a lead group of thirteen riders that included Stephen Hodge, Chiappucci was not among them. But included in the thirty-strong group that formed was Pensec. It took about 40 km for Chiappucci’s team to reel in the break, after which LeMond seized the moment to blow the race apart again. When there were still six riders ten seconds in front, LeMond counter attacked and caught the stage leader. Within 12 km and at the foot of the Croix de Chabourtet LeMond’s group had 90 seconds on the chase group, which included Chiappucci and Delgado, but then Delgado counter attacked, leaving the exhausted Chiappucci in his wake. The gap between LeMond and Delgado had shortened mid-way up the climb when the Spaniard Miguel Indurain sat up from the lead group and waited for Delgado’s group to provide the extra horsepower for the chase. Indurain’s move worked. By the summit the gap was down to twenty seconds, setting up the stage for a pursuit between two groups all the way to the finish. LeMond, committed to making the most out of his daring attack, extended the margin to thirty seconds by the finish, where he eased to let the others sprint for the stage win. Trailing was a decimated peloton— Chiappucci was in the third group at 4 minutes 53 seconds, while Pensec was in the sixth group at 7 minutes 47 seconds. After a day that had been raced at a frenetic 44.655 km/h Chiappucci hung on to his yellow jersey, but ominously LeMond was now in third place. As for Anderson, who started it all, the day ended with him in 174th place. The frustration of his attack being foiled would follow him all the way to Paris.

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Chilli peppers, burgers and pranks LeMond, a lover of Mexican food, recommended a restaurant in Poitiers on the eve of the 1990 Tour. We needed little persuading, especially after we saw his soigneur Otto Jacome waiting for an order of peppers for a meal he was to cook for the American. LeMond was never afraid to eat what he loved and was at constant and comical loggerheads with the French media and riders over his other great culinary love—McDonald’s hamburgers. LeMond dropped his head in despair when asked once again by a French journalist whether the fast food hamburger was an ideal meal for a Tour champion. His teammates ate steaks and ‘frites’, he replied, that were far greasier and oilier than anything on a McDonald’s menu. Playing up the French fascination in his love for McDonald’s, on one occasion he made sure his feed bag during a stage of the Tour contained a Big Mac and fries, which he deliberately took out and slowly ate in front of a bemused peloton. Pulling pranks was no unusual practice for LeMond. Early during one race in France, he asked a young mechanic to clean a new bike that had just arrived from Belgium and that was to have been used the following day. LeMond hid the bike in the cupboard in his room and pretended with all the anger he could muster that it had been stolen from downstairs. Unfortunately, the mechanic had driven halfway back to Belgium to collect a replacement, when team management realised it was LeMond’s mischief making. Calling on a favour, a French policeman set off in pursuit of the mechanic. ‘Can you imagine what he’ll think now when he sees a cop car chasing him on the autoroute?’

• • •

Stephen Hodge knew when he signed with the Spanish ONCE team that his mission would be to ride for the team’s cause and not his own. He would get his opportunities in other races but not in the 1990 Tour, where there was no question that his priority was to help Marino Lejarreta finish as high as possible overall. Lejarreta was one of the top rated and most consistent overall racers—in 1990 he became the second rider to race in the Vuelta, Giro and Tour in the same year on three separate occasions. However, as a climber, he was notorious for his reluctance to attack in the mountains. His characteristic racing traits were opposite to the attacking flare of LeMond, Delgado and Bugno. He was rarely in the lead and when on the flat he was often

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a bike length off any group, hence his nickname, ‘El Junco’, a black river reed that is long, flexible but never breaks. In cycling parlance, he is never dropped. But on the eve of the 14th stage, Lejarreta’s directeur sportif, Manolo Saiz, worked on his mind for two hours in a bid to encourage him to do something totally different the next day—to attack. Fast forward to the stage finish . . . It had been another fast and flighty day. The peloton had just regrouped and Lejarreta was riding with the leaders up the final 7.6 km climb to the finish when he began edging his way forward towards the front of the group. As LeMond, Bugno, Delgado and Erik Breukink began looking at each other, anticipating one of them would attack, Lejarreta suddenly bolted with 3 km to go. The shocked favourites hesitated as they looked at one another to chase, allowing Lejarreta to claim his first Tour stage. Hodge had spent most of his race riding for the Spaniard, collecting water bottles for him, riding alongside and in front of him to provide wind resistance and a slipstream, and chasing down dangerous breakaways. That night, however, he learned that Lejarreta wanted the ONCE team to now focus on winning the team classification rather than help him. It was a stunning gesture. To do that, it was vital for ONCE riders to finish as high as possible in each of the coming stages, either with sprint finishes or a breakaway. ONCE riders had to go on the attack. Hodge was surprised: ‘Marino said he is more interested in winning the teams than a place in the overall classification. I think he is capable of getting in the top three, but obviously that is very difficult.’ But ONCE’s intent was clear on the 170 km 15th stage from Millau to Revel. And the Australian was right in the action after recovering from a flu picked up in the wet and cold first week. By now, LeMond knew he would make his next big strike in the Pyrenees on Stage 16 from Blagnac to Luz Ardiden. It was a tough stage with three mountain passes, including the 14 km climb to the ski station summit finish. The big question was whether second-placed Breukink or fourth-placed Delgado would beat him to the punch; or what Chiappucci would do. LeMond attacked halfway up the 12 km Col du Tourmalet with

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Breukink, Indurain and Columbian Reynel Montoya in tow. He then milked what time he could get. Only in the last kilometre did he fade to allow Indurain to win the stage. A brave Chiappucci defended his overall lead by five seconds from LeMond, who was now happily in second and said: ‘The Tour’s not over until we reach the Champs Elysees, but I did the biggest part of the job today.’ • • •

A tactical mix-up may have cost Hodge a rare opportunity to win the 150 km 17th stage from Lourdes to Pau. Falling on his 29th birthday, this stage saw him at his most aggressive form ever. Unfortunately, he became detached from the 22-man lead group that formed just as the race approached the first of two main mountain passes. Because no one in the break posed an overall threat it was no surprise it got a seven minute lead by the end of the 28 km long climb up the Col d’Aubisque. By the summit of the next climb, on the Col du Marie Blanque, that margin had widened to just over nine minutes on a 25-strong group, including all the overall favourites. It was in that group that the day’s biggest drama unfolded when LeMond, with no teammates or team car around him, had a rear tyre puncture. Delgado surged ahead near the top of the Marie Blanque and before LeMond knew it, his rivals were racing away with his Tour winning hopes: ‘I looked left and right to see if there were any cyclists to give me a wheel. What was the worst was not knowing whether Roger [Legeay, the team manager] was one or even three minutes behind. I began thinking it was a stupid way to lose the Tour.’ The stage was now split in two. There were opportunists up front and the yellow jersey contenders behind—the most distraught of them being LeMond, who was forced to stop again and change bikes. It was gripping stuff. LeMond soon had two teammates with him and led them down the descent at 100 kmp/h. They were quickly back with the favourites with 21 km to go. Meanwhile for Hodge, who was with the leaders, this was a rare chance to try and win and help ONCE boost its place in the teams category. He had been one of the hardest working in his group that now

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numbered thirteen, hence his surprise when told to attack on the first of three smaller climbs before the finish. With no time to think, he followed the order even though it was from a team soigneur and not either of the team’s directeur sportifs. His attack only drained energy and he lost contact at the summit. Hodge came in eleventh, but was frustrated: ‘I had been working so hard for the teams competition in which we are second. That is what I had been told to do. But then I was told to attack on the first of those last three climbs. I don’t know why I was told to attack, perhaps for a prime. We also had some communication problems. We didn’t have the normal team director in the car. It was the masseur. That is always a difficult problem. Yet after I passed the first climb I was just knackered.’ • • •

Chiappucci still had the yellow jersey, but most race observers thought the likelihood of LeMond ending the Italian’s fairytale on the Stage 20 time trial was a ‘fait accompli’. As a preview to the showdown LeMond spoke of his plan to use a new custom-made time trial bike for the decisive stage. He knew the course well and because it was full of twists and turns and several undulations, he wanted to have the benefits of a traditional road bike plus aerodynamic, low-profile frame handlebars and wheels. ‘It is a very technical time trial route. I think aerodynamics are getting blown way out of proportion. Nobody takes into account how much time you lose when you lift your head or tilt your helmet. Nobody takes into account a side wind or something like that. Everything is contested purely on theory. I am having a bike made that is kinda between a road bike and a time trial bike. The main thing I want to do is to use a lightweight bike. For me, weight is as important as aerodynamics.’ LeMond revelled in difficult time trial courses where instability and inaccurate cornering can be so costly. He was the favourite to win the stage, and the yellow jersey. The pretenders who threatened him in the Pyrenees—Breukink and Delgado—were both counted out of the equation by now. Not even LeMond’s untimely puncture on Stage 16 was regarded as a hiccup. Chiappucci, who was now LeMond’s biggest threat, gained added

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motivation when his rival said he expected the Italian to explode in the mountains and that his race would be over by Villard-de-Lans. ‘It wasn’t a personal comment,’ LeMond said. ‘It was based on his Tour record.’ LeMond, too, was motivated by anger. ‘I’m getting really upset about everyone’s criticisms about my season so far and the fact I have focused on the Tour. If they would have been through half of what I have, they would never have come back.’ He need not have wasted his words. He beat Chiappucci in the Stage 20 time trial to take a 2 minute 16 second overall lead. And although he didn’t win the stage, he was on the podium for the first time since winning the world road title the year before: ‘Today I rode for the yellow jersey, not the stage win. Once I passed Chiappucci overall it was very hard for me to keep my concentration up for a good stage performance. I was sure of winning the yellow jersey and the Tour 15 km from the finish.’ The final 182 km stage was typically flat and this time not a time trial. It was instead a victory parade for LeMond from start to finish. The 1990 Tour de France podium 1. Greg LeMond (Z/USA) 3504 km in 90 hours 43 minutes 20 seconds (average speed 38.621 km/h) 2. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera/Italy) at 2 minutes 16 seconds 3. Erik Breukink (PDM/Netherlands) at 2 minutes 29 seconds The Australians 34. Stephen Hodge (ONCE/Spain) at 42 minutes 9 seconds 71. Phil Anderson (TVM/Netherlands) at 1 hour 30 minutes 1 second DNF. Allan Peiper (Panasonic/Netherlands)—withdrew before Stage 8

1991 This Indurain guy . . . everyone is talking about Indurain. He’s done six or something Tours now. If he was ever going to do anything in the Tour he would have done it by now . . . —Triple Tour de France champion Greg LeMond, 1991 6–28 July (3914 km): Lyon–Lyon (Prologue, Stage 1), Bron Chassieu– Euroexpo (Stage 2 team time trial), Villeurbaume–Dijon (Stage 3), Dijon– Reims (Stage 4), Reims–Valenciennes (Stage 5), Arras–le Havre (Stage 6), le Havre–Argentan (Stage 7), Argentan–Alencon (Stage 8 individual time trial), Alencon–Rennes (Stage 9), Rennes–Quimper (Stage 10), Quimper– Saint Herblain (Stage 11), Pau–Jaca (Stage 12), Jaca–Val Louron (Stage 13), Saint Gaudens–Castres (Stage 14), Albi–Ales (Stage 15), Ales–Gap (Stage 16), Gap–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 17), Bourg d’Oisans–Morzine (Stage 18), Morzine–Aix les Bains (Stage 19), Aix les Bains–Macon (Stage 20), Lugny–Macon (Stage 21 individual time trial), Melun–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 22)

A few weeks before the 1990 Tour, during the Giro d’Italia, defending champion Greg LeMond held court with English photographer Graham Watson and me in his tiny hotel room. With LeMond lying on his bed and his gear spread on every available surface there was room for only a single wooden chair, which Graham and I took turns to sit on. It was late at night, too late for us to drive to our hotel. We hadn’t planned on staying with LeMond as long as we did; indeed, we’d just tried our luck to get a quick interview. LeMond, who had been struggling during the Giro and would later abandon it, was tired, too tired to do a formal interview, but was happy to just have a chat. And chat he did. 54

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LeMond seemed to warm to our company. He talked about the Giro, his form, the early season races, the mandatory use of race helmets, the use of radios for communication between riders and their team cars, and Miguel Indurain. The Spaniard had won Paris–Nice in March, an event that traditionally flags potential Tour winners, and was fourth in the Fleche Wallonne one-day classic in Belgium in April and seventh overall in the Vuelta a Espana in May. ‘This Indurain guy,’ LeMond said with a wave of his hand, ‘everyone is talking about Indurain. He’s done six or something Tours now. If he was ever going to do anything in the Tour he would have done it by now . . .’ In 1991 he did more than ‘anything’. He won the Tour, and at LeMond’s cost. • • •

Indurain’s strength was not in words, but in the power and authority he delivered on the bike. Strong and graceful, he had superb time-trialling prowess but was also able to channel his power when climbing in big gears. At 78 kilograms when in peak form and 186 centimetres, Indurain was a veritable colossus on wheels. His resting heart rate was 28 beats per minute—against the 65 beats for an average person—and after a ride of reasonable difficulty his heart rate could drop from 150 beats per minute to 60 within 30 seconds. He also had a blood flow of 50 litres per minute compared to 25 litres of an average amateur cyclist; lung capacity of 7.8 litres against 5.8 litres; oxygen consumption of 88 millilitres per kilogram of bodyweight per minute compared to 55 millilitres; and a power output of 550 watts as opposed to 250 watts. But to really experience his power, you needed to be near him. Even if he didn’t say a lot, you still knew you were with sporting royalty. Occasionally I saw how he interacted with his team, Banesto. One morning I watched as he entered the dining room for breakfast. He said hello to each and every team member, but to his younger brother Prudencio, a rider of far less repute, he signalled their closeness by putting his hand on his shoulder and softly squeezing it. However, it was in private audiences with ‘Big Mig’ that his true aura was felt. He had a calmness that belied the demand for perfection he

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asked of himself and all those on his team. He was also modest, reflecting his upbringing as one of five children raised on a 30 hectare farm near Villava, a town of 6500 on the outskirts of Pamplona. Indurain had no known enemies. His rivals always said he was a gentleman whose competitiveness bore no malice. He remained true to the idea of fair play—a rare commodity today in a sport driven by the win-at-all costs demands of television, sponsors and team managers. The world around him might have spun in a whirlwind, but he remained in the eye of the storm seemingly untouched. It would take time for Indurain to become the phenomenon that he eventually became. After his first Tour win in 1991 most observers were left scratching their heads trying to find something to write about. Their most interesting revelation was that he listed sleeping as one of his favourite pastimes. The press conference on the eve of the last stage into Paris summed up the changing of the guard from LeMond to Indurain. Even though he had lost the Tour, LeMond was still the star attraction. He was fielding questions from several hundred journalists when Indurain arrived, his entry going almost unnoticed. I had to be nudged by another journalist before I realised the new Tour champion was seated at a nearby table and ready to speak. At first, even LeMond didn’t notice. LeMond did, however, have one word of warning for Indurain as they changed places on the hierarchy of the Tour: ‘Once you win your first Tour, your whole career changes.’ Indurain had cottoned on to this fact already. ‘At the start of my career I raced for a sandwich. Today, it is for winning money and one day to be able to live without having to work.’ With that first win secure and potential earnings for the following year of US$1.5 million, he was close to fulfilling that ambition. Indurain took the attention that eventually turned his way in his stride: ‘I am very reserved, but I never have problems with nerves. And I only wish to never allow myself to be taken up by all the excitement around me. I tried to keep my equilibrium so when I win I don’t become crazy with joy, or desperately sad either when I lose.’ It was a calm that he carried off the bike too with his love of nature, animals and walking. Even though he came from near Pamplona, the

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town that hosts the annual ‘running of the bulls’, he confessed he was not ‘a real Spaniard’ because of his dislike of bullfighting. • • •

The 1991 Tour was laced with plenty of drama and was as much about how other riders raced themselves out of contention, as how Indurian raced to win. There was the shock (and embarrassing) elimination of 1987 Tour champion Stephen Roche, who missed his team’s scheduled start for the Stage 2 team time trial when he went to the toilet and took too long. His teammates had no choice but to begin without him, while he rode the course alone knowing full well that he would probably finish outside the time limit. Then there was the crash on Stage 5 of Dane Rolf Sorensen who, wearing the yellow jersey, broke his collarbone and could not start Stage 6, thus putting pressure on LeMond and his Z teammates and the Dutch PDM team to assume control of the race even though it might cost them reserves needed later in the Tour. The focus on PDM only increased after Stage 11 when five of its riders abandoned during the stage and four others fell ill after it. The Tour even ended in drama when Djamolidin Abdujaparov of Uzbekistan crashed into the barriers at 70 km/h with 100 m to go. Amazingly he still finished, albeit walking across the line assisted and in a daze. Had he not done so he would have lost the green jersey. Missing the podium ceremony because he had to be taken to hospital, Abdujaparov did receive the maillot vert at the presentation of the 1992 Tour route the following October. Sean Kelly . . . straight shooter Sean Kelly was as tough as teak. Known as the King of the Classics, he had never won the Tour but as a four-time green jersey winner and with four top ten finishes, he was a constant contender. An Irish farmer’s son from Carrick-on-Suir, Kelly didn’t take fools lightly. He had a sharp memory, probably helped by the scrapbooks he compiled with every article ever written about him. I was reminded of this when he picked me up on a story I had writtten for the Irish newspapers after Stage 1 of the 1990 Tour suggesting that Kelly and his PDM team should have closed down a winning four-man break that included Claudio Chiappucci.

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WHAT a RIDE Taking issue with my analysis, he explained the reasons behind his thinking but agreed to hear me out if on reflection I still disagreed with him. I reread the story and he was right. And I got a great interview about the 1991 Tour. That was Kelly. Like Indurain he was a man of few words, but those words were considered and reasoned. But there was also a lighter side to Kelly. In the peloton he was known as a practical joker, his favourite stunt being to scrape a soft drink can on the road while the peloton was riding. This raised the hairs on every rider’s neck. It was the sound they most feared, a crash.

• • •

For Phil Anderson the 1991 Tour was pivotal to his career. With Stephen Hodge of the ONCE team, he was one of two Australians in the race. And with a string of seven wins, it was his best season since 1985 when he was beaten for the world number one ranking by Sean Kelly because of a back injury that ruled him out of the Tour of Lombardy. He was now riding for the new United States-registered Motorola team, which he joined just before Christmas. The late signing limited his options, but while the Motorola deal was for less money it included a handsome bonus system. He also liked the idea of riding for an American team and the role he would have as a leader in the developing squad. The most important of Anderson’s 1991 wins was in the 10th stage of the Tour from Rennes to Quimper, where he outsprinted three breakaway companions. This win ended a ten year drought between Tour stage victories. (The 33-year-old Anderson’s previous stage win was in the 1982 Tour when he attacked from eight breakaways on a steep uphill finish at Nantes to also take the leader’s yellow jersey for nine days.) After crossing the finish in Quimper, an elated Anderson was in no doubt as to which success he felt was more important: ‘My win in 1982 was great, but then I still had ten years ahead of me. Here, this win couldn’t have come at a better time; especially after the recent years where I haven’t had so good results. I would have to say it is a better one considering that; if not one of the best wins of my career.’ It was a brilliant win in any circumstance. After forming with 30 km left, the break was allowed to go as it did not include anyone who threatened the overall contenders, although it did have to fend off a strong chase by the teams with sprinters who wanted a bunch finish. The

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breakaway worked together, but its maximum lead only reached 1 minute 30 seconds with 20 km to go, meaning that every pedal stroke Anderson’s group made counted. By the finish only six seconds separated the break from the chasing peloton, as Anderson recalled afterwards: ‘We had to work together because it has happened so often that in the finale everyone starts looking at each other and then suddenly the group catches you. But once we got close I knew we would be okay.’ Anderson didn’t lose his tactical cool. He let Brian Holm of Denmark lead out the sprint and blasted from behind the Dane’s rear wheel to pass him with 150 m to go—his left pedal clipping Holm’s front wheel in the process. Was that clip by Anderson from a ‘hook’ aimed at spooking Holm out of the sprint? Some suspected it was, but Anderson said: ‘I knew the guys in the break well and they wanted the stage as much as I did. But as I came past, my pedal clipped his front wheel. It gave us both a bit of a fright, even though it has happened to me tons of times.’ The win was significant for Anderson as it reassured his team management and teammates that he was still a winner. Busted . . . for all to see Were it not for Phil Anderson’s stage win, the Tour for Motorola may have been best remembered for the embarrassing disqualification of its Swiss climber, Urs Zimmerman. What ensued was a very public fiasco that led to team manager Jim Ochowicz being suspended for a day and one of the team’s soigneurs, John Hendershot, taking his place. Motorola’s problems started when it allowed Zimmerman to make the transfer from Brittany to Pau by car rather than plane with the other riders. Fearing the air pressure might aggravate an eardrum complaint, Zimmerman was caught only because a photo of him eating at a restaurant en route to Pau was published in a local newspaper. Once alerted, Tour organisers acted swiftly to punish Zimmerman for breaching race rules that all riders must travel together on such stage transfers. Punishment was instant. But organisers seriously underestimated the power of the peloton, which was incensed at Zimmerman’s harsh punishment. It refused to start Stage 12 unless Zimmerman was reinstated. Anderson supported the peloton’s stand: ‘Okay, a mistake was made. Zimmi should have been on the plane, the organisation should have been told or asked if he could travel by car instead. But to eliminate him from the

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WHAT a RIDE race is just too severe. What happens when a rider is found positive? They give him a ten-minute penalty and, if he is good enough, he can still win the Tour. But for not taking the chartered flight for a transfer and a car instead? Does that deserve elimination? No way. Where is the justice in that? The riders have to do something against it as a matter of principle.’ After a heated 90-minute discussion between race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, Ochowicz and Motorola’s media liaison officer, the former British professional rider but now television commentator Paul Sherwen, the Tour organisers backed down and reinstated Zimmerman and the stage started 38 minutes late. They held firm to the ban on Ochowicz.

While Motorola was thrilled, Anderson’s win was overshadowed by the withdrawal of the Dutch PDM team in a controversy that became known as the Intralipid Affair. It all started to unravel during Stage 11 when one by one the names of five PDM riders were announced on Radio Tour as having withdrawn due to illness. After the fourth announcement, we started to wonder what was happening. The mystery only thickened when PDM announced that the four riders who did finish were also ill and that the team would not start the Tour the next day, but leave en-masse immediately. Initial reports said the team pulled out because of a bacterial infection from contaminated food, but suspicion of a drug scandal quickly arose. After first denying the rumours the team claimed its medico, Dr Wim Sanders, had administered riders with a contaminated batch of Intralipid—a natural lecithin-based product that contained concentrated carbohydrates and proteins to aid recovery—that had either been left in the boot of the car or was out of date. The incident would be debated well into the mid-1990s when doping accusations became more regular. On the Tour itself, the issue led to threats of rider boycotts when the media reported speculation that PDM’s exit had been somehow drug related. These threats were backed by former five-time Tour champion Bernard Hinault, who was then working for the Tour organisation and stoked the increasingly tense atmosphere by proposing a week-long media ban by all the riders in the peloton. Whatever the cause, PDM’s exit left the Tour without its first-placed team and three of its biggest stars—Erik

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Breukink, who was third, Sean Kelly, who was sixth, and Raul Alcala in ninth place. The day after PDM’s departure, a local farmer’s daughter presented Anderson with a fresh haul of vegetables before the start of Stage 12 on behalf of the region’s young farming association. (That same morning, LeMond was presented with a cow from farm elders.) Anderson was in a buoyant mood and happy to share in the spirit of the occasion with the young woman by offering her a carrot from his vegetable basket. Had he been given a bouquet of flowers, as is more common, he would have given her a flower. The rest of the Tour was frustrating for Anderson, however. On Stage 15, a 235 km leg, he crashed on a course that included five third category climbs made all the harder by the 38˚C temperature. It took him 20 km to rejoin the peloton, by which time he had been drained of the energy he needed for the finish. Sean Yates, his lead-out man, severed an artery in his arm in the crash and could not rejoin the bunch. Stage 16 became a case of ‘what if’ for Anderson after he got into an eight-man break that included LeMond, who attacked in the last 15 km. Anderson placed sixth on the stage after opting not to chase LeMond, ‘because we are friends. You don’t do that.’ Then two days later, on Stage 18, Anderson crashed again after a hair-raising descent of the Col de Joux Plane just as he reached the flat section with five kilometres to go. Missing a turn, he ran into a barbed wire fence. Anderson reached Paris in 45th place at 1 hour 8 minutes 13 seconds to a victorious Indurain. While he rued not winning a second stage, he soon realised that winning one stage was more than enough to remember the 1991 Tour by. The 1991 Tour de France podium 1. Miguel Indurain (Banesto/Spain) 3914 km in 101 hours 1 minute 20 seconds (average speed 38.747 km/h) 2. Gianni Bugno (Gatorade-Chateau D’Ax/Italy) at 3 minutes 36 seconds 3. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera/Italy) at 5 minutes 56 seconds

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The Australians 45. Phil Anderson (Motorola/USA) at 1 hour 8 minutes 13 seconds (1 stage win) 67. Stephen Hodge (ONCE/Spain) at 1 hour 32 minutes 52 seconds

1992 We have seen the arrival of a new Merckx. And he will reign for a long time. —PDM directeur sportif Jan Gisbers on Miguel Indurain 4–26 July (3983 km): San Sebastian–San Sebastian (Prologue, Stage 1), San Sebastian–Pau (Stage 2), Pau–Bordeaux (Stage 3), Libourne– Libourne (Stage 4 team time trial), Nogent sur Ise–Wasquehal (Stage 5), Roubaix–Brussels (Stage 6), Brussels–Valkenburg (Stage 7), Valkenburg– Koblenz (Stage 8), Luxembourg–Luxembourg (Stage 9 individual time trial), Luxembourg–Strasbourg (Stage 10), Strasbourg–Mulhouse (Stage 11), Dole–St Gervais Mont Blanc (Stage 12), St Gervais–Sestrieres (Stage 13), Sestrieres–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 14), Bourg d’Oisans–Saint Etienne (Stage 15), Saint Etienne–la Bourboule (Stage 16), la Bourboule–Montlucon (Stage 17), Montlucon–Tours (Stage 18), Tours–Blois (Stage 19 individual time trial), Blois–Nanterre (Stage 20), la Defense–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Everything pointed towards Miguel Indurain winning back-to-back Tours in 1992. He started with solid early season form, and for the ‘grand depart’ in San Sebastian he didn’t let down his legion of fans, winning the Prologue to keep the yellow jersey he wore as defending champion. However, it was in Luxembourg in the 65 km ‘race of truth’ that he showed he could have won the Tour on his own. Indurain’s ride was one of the finest in a time trial I have ever seen. His average speed after 20 km on a windswept and undulating course was already 60 km/h. And when he finished, it was reported that he never let his heart rate exceed 190 beats per minute. Even more staggering, this dropped to 58 beats within one minute of him finishing. One of the riders most stunned by Indurain’s ride was Frenchman Laurent Fignon, who was overtaken by the Spaniard in the last kilometres 63

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despite starting six minutes before him and later dubbed him the ‘extraterrestrial’. It was the biggest winning margin in a Tour time trial since Italy’s Fausto Coppi beat Gino Bartali by 7 minutes 2 seconds in 1949. The closest anyone got to Indurain was 3 minutes, and that was his French teammate Armand De Las Cuevas. Greg LeMond was stunned: ‘Did you see his time? How could he do that? I don’t understand how he could take four minutes on Bugno and myself.’ Another favourite, Dutchman Erik Breukink, was so demoralised he immediately questioned whether he could ever win the Tour. Breukink’s PDM sport director Jan Gisbers said: ‘We have seen the arrival of a new Merckx. And he will reign for a long time.’ There were still riders, such as Fignon, Claudio Chiappucci and Stephen Roche, who were willing to put up a fight as the Tour progressed, but they left their marks with stage wins. Indurain showed distress on only two occasions. The first was on a rain sodden 6th stage from Roubaix to Brussels. The second was on the climb to Sestrieres where he suffered a hunger flat, the complete loss of energy from lack of food, with two kilometres to go. But Indurain was rock solid. And after winning the final time trial from Tours to Blois two days before the finish, he knew he would win the Tour (in the fastest ever overall time until then of 100 hours 49 minutes 30 seconds). • • •

To celebrate the opening of borders between members of the European Economic Community the Tour opted to visit seven EEC countries, starting in Spain, where the race began in the Basque city of San Sebastian. Arranging a route that took in Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy was no simple task, and the challenges were many. They included having to deal with seven different currencies and a French truck drivers’ protest that threatened to block the autoroutes (and possibly border entries). The effects of the blockades were felt by some even before the Tour began. Greg LeMond’s trip to the start in San Sebastian from his home in Kortijk in Belgium took 36 hours due to airport closures and delays in train schedules. He started with a train trip to Lille, where he changed trains

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for Paris. This train was full, so he had to stand for four hours despite trying to buy a place from the seated passengers, who knew who he was en route to the Tour start. Then a television commitment in Paris meant he missed his flight to Bordeaux, where he was to meet his team and drive to San Sebastian. The only option was another train trip, but he was sent to the wrong train, which meant another hold up. When LeMond finally arrived in Bordeaux, his bad luck continued. On the autoroute, 46 km out from San Sebastian and with his temper fraying after 34 hours of travel, the team car he was in ran out of petrol. It was towed to a petrol station by another team car using a chain made of three spare bicycle tyres. Eventually, a day and a half after starting out, he arrived at San Sebastian. As inconvenient as the industrial action was, the most significant challenge for the Tour organisers was political. The sensitivities of the Basque nationalists required the Tour organisation to negotiate with the movement’s political arm, Herri Batasuna, before the race started. Although it was officially a visit to Spain, everyone knew that without the support of Herri Batasuna the ‘grand depart’ risked not going ahead. I had developed friendships with Basques and Spaniards alike and, to be honest, I knew nothing of Basque militant activity other than what I had learned from media reports. I was simply excited about the Tour beginning in San Sebastian. Several days before the Tour started it became evident that an arrangement had been made with Herri Batasuna. Throughout the town, for every Spanish flag that flew a green and red Basque flag was next to it. Across many streets hung banners emblazoned with nationalist calls such as ‘Indepenztzia H.B.’. Along the race route— but particularly during the Prologue—onlookers raised placards bearing the faces of Basque nationalists arrested by Spain’s Guarda Civil. And then on the eve of the Prologue several cars were blown up—including one in which the English television commentator Phil Liggett has stashed his clothes! Not that I heard a thing. Unlike in France, Tour starts in Spain are festive and spirited and with photographer Graham Watson I fell into the biggest trap of them all, partying in a Basque bar well into the early morning. Our red eyes at the Prologue several hours later told us we really shouldn’t have been there.

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• • •

Nowadays, it is almost taken for granted that an Australian will win a Tour stage. It was very different in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when watching an Australian finish close to winning or helping a teammate win made for a good story. Excluding Phil Anderson, by 1992 a number of Australians had tried their hand at winning, only to fall narrowly short. Allan Peiper was one of them. In a summer haze near the end of Stage 3 from Pau to Bordeaux, Peiper ground out the last pedal strokes of a solo attack only to be caught by a group of eight riders he had just escaped from. For his effort, Peiper finished ninth. There was no hysteria as he came to a halt. No media. No rush of officials ordering him to move to the winner’s podium. Peiper just stood there as his soigneur wiped his face, gave him a drink and put an overshirt on him and a towel around his neck so he wouldn’t catch a chill. Later, Peiper spoke of his move and the realisation that his ambition to win a stage would remain a dream. What frustrated him most was not that his attack failed, but that he had attacked and lost in Bordeaux before: ‘I was in a similar situation once here before and I lost. Sure, I would have preferred to win this time, but being in the finale is great. There’s something about this Bordeaux finish that suits me. When I attacked I knew that it was the only chance that I had of winning rather than in the sprint. I went away with everything, looked down between my legs and saw nobody was there and then looked up and saw the finish. But . . . it just wasn’t meant to be.’ • • •

There are no certainties on the Tour. It always throws up surprises—for riders, officials, sponsors, fans, policemen and the media. And there were surprises galore in an action-charged 167 km 6th stage from Roubaix to the Atomium in the Belgian capital of Brussels. The day even made a normally unflappable Indurain nervous. Everyone knew the stage would be raced over narrow roads with cobblestone sections. They also knew that first week nerves and local expectations of a win by a Belgian rider would substantially increase the

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risk of crashing. The stage lived up to the expectation. It was heavy with attacks, particularly from the big guns like LeMond and Chiappucci. Under a deluge of rain there were many crashes, including a massive one on the slippery cobblestones near the finish in Brussels where a touch of wheels and poor vision in the conditions, making the cobbles harder to negotiate, was a cocktail for disaster. For Indurain, the sight of such mayhem reinforced how quickly his Tour campaign could end in disaster. Survival, even for such a credentialled rider, is never underestimated. A royal flush The Tour took time out for royalty before the start of Stage 7 from Brussels to Valkenburg, although I didn’t know this when I walked up to a gathering of people at the sponsor’s village to find out what all the fuss was about. Politely squeezing through a wall of people, the last thing I expected was to find myself next in line to shake the hand of King Baudouin I of Belgium as he was introduced to selected Tour officials and dignitaries. Before I had time to react after realising my embarrassing faux pas, I was met with the King’s open hand. What else could I do but shake and leave as quickly as I could before his entourage had time to even ask who I was.

• • •

After Indurain’s rout of the Luxembourg time trial, and despite him being odds on favourite to win the Tour, his rivals swore to take their fight right up to him. And that they did, starting with Gianni Bugno and Stephen Roche the next day on the 10th stage from Luxembourg to Strasbourg, and then Fignon on Stage 11 from Strasbourg to Mulhouse, where he claimed his best stage win since 1989 by fending off six chasers in the 249 km leg. Fignon made his winning move with two kilometres to go on the last of seven climbs, the first category Grand Ballon where he attacked the group he was in. Indurain called on his charges to chase Fignon, and he was helped by ONCE—including Neil Stephens and Stephen Hodge— who wanted its sprinter Laurent Jalabert well positioned to strike should the stage end in a bunch sprint. Indurain, still second overall, was well placed as the Tour bunkered down at the foot of the Alps for a rest day. But few could have imagined

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what the Tour had in store when it resumed for the 254.5 km 13th stage from St Gervais to the ski station summit of Sestrieres in the Italian Alps. It is still the greatest single exploit I have seen by a rider in the Tour. And it was not Indurain who pulled it off, even though he did take the yellow jersey, but Claudio Chiappucci. And it was only by chance that I got to witness the feat so close up. The stage, made up of five mountain passes, began under a glorious sun. I was in the VeloNews car and we drove ahead to get some distance on the peloton on the Col des Saisies, believing the race would meander on the second category climb as it was the easiest of the day and thus not selective enough for anyone to launch an early move. It is important in the mountains that the media cars stay ahead of the riders as too many things can suddenly go wrong. This is especially true on the descents as riders travel so much faster than cars. What’s in a mountain Mountains on the Tour de France are all categorised according to their difficulty from four, the ‘easiest’, to three, two, one and ‘hors’ (above) categories. Every mountain also has a written description and a crosssection profile in the Tour race manual. Ask any rider, and they will say that there are many hills on the course that aren’t categorised, but should be. There are many others that are categorised but not rated as highly as they should be. All anyone will probably agree on is that on the Tour there isn’t any such thing as an easy climb! The following is a guide to how race organisers rate the climbs, despite the subjectivity of their judgments. • Category 4: Usually less than 2 km long at an average gradient of about 5 per cent, or up to 5 km long with a gradient of 2–3 per cent. • Category 3: These climbs can be up to 1.6 km long, but at a 10 per cent average gradient, or up to 10 km with a gradient of 5 per cent or less. • Category 2: No less than 5 km long at 8 per cent, but up to 15 km at 4 per cent. • Category 1: From 8 km at 8 per cent to 20 km at 5 per cent. • Hors category: The granddaddies of them all. These can be a category 1 climb where the summit is the finish line, or a climb that exceeds 10 km at a 7.5 per cent gradient, or extends to 25 km and at least 6 per cent or more.

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We drove up and over the Col des Saisies and then down through the valley and the town of Beaufort. We drove steadily up and down, picking up bits and pieces of race information from Radio Tour as we went in and out of range. We heard enough further down the course to know Chiappucci and eight others had escaped the peloton on Cormet de Roselend. About two kilometres up the third climb—the Col d’Iseran, with a summit of 2770 m—and just after the first feed stations, we stopped and waited for the Tour to arrive. We hoped that the gap between the break and the peloton would be enough for us to slip into the vacuum of traffic we expected and allow us to follow the break. My heart jumped when I looked through my binoculars down into the valley and saw Chiappucci in the red and white polka dot King of the Mountains jersey in the throws of a solo attack. Chiappucci had still not yet won me over. For all his bravado and talk and the immense publicity he attracted, I still felt he had yet to achieve something that warranted the attention he got. Even as he rode past on the 37 km long climb and we slipped in behind—shocked we were the only press car—I was still unsure about the wisdom and purpose of his latest solitary bid for glory. We decided to follow, but only until the gap got too small between him and the peloton, which we felt would surely catch up and discard him as penance for his audacity. How wrong we were . . . We followed him kilometre after kilometre, all the while observing his slight frame against the backdrop of Alpine mountains that seemed so big they would swallow him. He never appeared to relent. His cadence was constant and his position looked comfortable. He drank and ate regularly to maintain hydration and calorie levels, his deliberation indicating that this was not some whimsical attack but one that he had planned and intended to stick to. Watching him climb—and then descend—was simply magical. After passing the Iseran summit and negotiating the descent, Chiappucci provided an encore up the 2083 m Col de Mont Cenis. We were caught in a wave of awe over his majesty as he set about making

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his dream ride into Italy and to Sestrieres come true on a road that had begun to melt under the searing summer sun. On the 32 km climb up Sestrieres, Chiappucci emulated the feat of another great Italian, Fausto Coppi, who won there in 1952. We wanted to stay behind him all the way, but were forced by the race commissairies to pass him halfway up the climb. The passage gave me one last and close glimpse of a rider whose entire torso was matted in sweat, whose eyes were glazed and transfixed on the few metres of road before him, and whose face was now contorted in pain. Chiappucci would have been getting radio updates from his team car telling him that Indurain was starting his charge. Could he hang on to his five minute lead? Would Indurain’s huge engine and power climbing prowess cruel not only Chiappucci’s day, but Italy’s too? Both were struggling: Chiappucci from his solitary effort, and Indurain from a sudden hunger flat that struck hardest with two kilometres to go and left him suddenly drained of the energy he needed. Chiappucci saved his last gasp and burst of energy for his triumphant finish after 7 hours 44 minutes 51 seconds of racing, punching the air with his fist and then raising his arms aloft in total exultation. In desperation on his own, Indurain pedalled across the line in third place, 1 minute 45 seconds behind Chiappucci and 11 seconds behind the second placed Italian Franco Vona. His face was pained to a degree that most of us had never seen before as he tried to save as many seconds as he could with every pedal stroke. His was a race of three goals: to stop Chiappucci from overtaking him, to take the yellow jersey from Frenchman Pascal Lino and to gain as much time as he could on everyone else. In all three, he was successful. It was a brutal, punishing day that left much of the field devastated, including LeMond, who finished 49 minutes behind Chiappucci. This was Tour cycling at its best . . . and grazie to Chiappucci, who had now definitely won me over. An audience with ‘Big Mig’ ‘It’s all fixed,’ Neil Stephens said before the start of Stage 18 from Montlucon to Tours. ‘After the stage today . . . at his hotel.’ An interview with Miguel

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Indurain. Even better, Stephens, who spoke Spanish and knew Indurain well, offered to be my translator. Indurain was in huge demand and I was astonished that Neil was able to help me out. The previous day, during the 198 km 17th stage from La Bourboule to Montlucon, Stephens had started an attack but was quickly joined by Indurain off the front. Why would Indurain, riding for the Spanish team Banesto, join a move by a ONCE domestique? Perhaps Stephens was arranging the interview he had previously said he would, I joked. That night, after Stage 18, we arrived at Indurain’s modest hotel room. No grand suite for the Tour leader. He was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. We could see the tan marks on his thighs and arms. He beckoned us to sit down—on his bed. He seemed bigger close up even though his body was stripped to its 78 kg racing weight. Indurain was as generous as he was unpresupposing, despite the shocked surprise of his team’s press liaison officer Francis Lafargue, an affable man from the French Basque region, in finding that an Englishspeaking journalist and a ONCE rider had broken through his cordon of control unannounced. There was also a kerfuffle brewing downstairs. The Spanish media had heard that a ONCE rider was in Indurain’s room and they were suspicious about why. Even worse, the ONCE team manager Manolo Saiz had not been told that Stephens was with me for our clandestine audience with Big Mig. For all the angst the incident caused both Banesto and ONCE, I could not help but notice that the calmest of everyone was Indurain. The incident was just a snapshot of his life, but it said as much about him as a man as it did about his being a champion rider.

• • •

There is a well known photograph by Graham Watson of Greg LeMond in the 267.5 km long 12th stage from Dole to St Gervais as he struggled up the western side of the Mont Saleve, just south of Geneva. Less known is the story of who was running beside him. VeloNews editorial director John Wilcockson had followed LeMond’s career from its beginning, through all its peaks and troughs. So when the American’s reign as the Tour champion appeared to be drawing to an end it pained nobody more than Wilcockson, who sensed that Mont Saleve—the steepest climb of the Tour with a gradient of 13 per cent— would be LeMond’s make or break moment.

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When LeMond passed Wilcockson, who was recording the time gaps between riders with me a kilometre from the summit, my companion suddenly set off in chase of him. He followed LeMond up the climb, urging him success with every pedal stroke. The American finished that day’s ride, but Wilcockson’s support for LeMond failed to turn destiny to his favour. He abandoned on the 14th stage to l’Alpe d’Huez. The end of an era had arrived. The only consolation for LeMond was that he was not alone. On one of the hardest days of the Tour seven other riders quit, three were eliminated, one was disqualified and many suffered huge time losses. For American cycling, there was one saving grace, however, as the stage was won by Andy Hampsten of the Motorola team. That did little to cheer John up. He left us at the dinner table early that night to take a walk. When I got back to our room he was already in bed, half-asleep facing the wall. I knew he was hurting. He had followed, written on and shared virtually every moment of joy and angst in LeMond’s career. To see it suddenly come to an end with him dismounting the bike and having his race number stripped off was devastating. ‘You alright, John?’ I asked. ‘It’s been a very bad day,’ he replied, laying on his bed before turning back to face the wall in the room we shared. It really was the end of an era. LeMond would never ride the Tour again, and Indurain would mark his place in Tour history with his second win. The 1992 Tour de France podium 1. Miguel Indurain (Banesto/Spain) 3983 km in 100 hours 49 minutes 30 seconds (average speed 39.504 km/h) 2. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera/Italy) at 4 minutes 35 seconds 3. Gianni Bugno (Gatorade-Chateau D’Ax/Italy) at 10 minutes 49 seconds The Australians 74. Neil Stephens (ONCE/Spain) at 2 hours 15 minutes 42 seconds 81. Phil Anderson (Motorola/USA) at 2 hours 23 minutes 30 seconds 93. Stephen Hodge (ONCE/Spain) at 2 hours 36 minutes 55 seconds 126. Allan Peiper (Tulip/Belgium) at 3 hours 40 minutes 21 seconds

1993 It is a route tailormade for Indurain. The only thing that has come of this is that it has killed the race halfway through. —Carrera team manager, Davide Boifava 3–25 July (3714 km): le Puy du Fou–le Puy du Fou (Prologue), Lucon–les Sables d’Olonne (Stage 1), les Sables d’Olonne–Vannes (Stage 2), Vannes– Dinard (Stage 3), Dinard–Avranches (Stage 4 team time trial), Avranches– Evreux (Stage 5), Evreux–Amiens (Stage 6), Peronne–Chalons sur Marne (Stage 7), Chalons sur Marne–Verdun (Stage 8), Lac de Madine–Lac de Madine (Stage 9 individual time trial), Villard de Lans–Serre Chevalier (Stage 10), Serre Chevalier–Isola 2000 (Stage 11), Isola 2000–Marseille (Stage 12), Marseille–Montpellier (Stage 13), Montpellier–Perpignan (Stage 14), Perpignan–Andorra (Stage 15), Andorra–Saint Lary Soulan (Stage 16), Tarbes–Pau (Stage 17), Orthez–Bordeaux (Stage 18), Bretigny sur Orge– Montlhery (Stage 19 individual time trial), Viry Chatillon–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

Miguel Indurain’s preparation for the 1993 Tour was another celebrated one. He had won a stage in the Tour of Murcia, then the overall classification in the Giro d’Italia, followed by two more stage wins in the Tour des Vallee Minieres and had come second in the Spanish road championship. Few contemplated a Tour defeat, even if Indurain tried to play down his favourite’s status: ‘I’m not a superman. I’m not unbeatable. I know it. Why would anyone believe otherwise?’ One rider was deemed a serious threat, and it was not Claudio Chiappucci or Gianni Bugno, who had basically conceded winning the Tour was out of reach. The new threat was two times Vuelta a Espana champion Tony Rominger from Switzerland. He was not shy about his 73

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intent: ‘I have always said that when I can win a big three week race such as the Tour of Spain [Vuelta] then I can win the Tour de France. It is important to show that you can stand three weeks.’ Australia’s hopes of Tour success were at their lowest in years. Only two Australians were in the small field of 180 starters—Phil Anderson and Neil Stephens. Stephen Hodge and Scott Sunderland, from Inverell in rural New South Wales and on the Dutch TVM team, were unexpectedly named as reserves when the start list was confirmed three days before the start, although neither ended up racing. Hodge forfeited his place due to tachycardia, a rapid heart rhythm. He could train, but the manageable condition meant his heart rate could not drop to a minimum level required for full recuperation. His average resting pulse had been an amazing 90 beats per minute compared to the average rate of 42 to 50 for most athletes. ‘It was agreed that for my long future it is better to take the time to resolve the problem and focus my long term goals and energies on the rest of the season.’ Sunderland’s omission could not have been on form. He placed tenth overall in the 10-day Tour of Switzerland, which was one of the last lead-up events to the Tour de France and is a race heavy with brutal mountain passes. However, the make-up of the TVM team appeared to be weighted in favour of big, strapping Dutch riders who were better suited to the flatter stages. Sunderland was a lighter, more nimble rider who could climb but offered less for the flat stages, where strength and size are important in bunch sprints or with attacks. As for Anderson and Stephens, both at least began the Tour in high spirits. Anderson had won the pro-am Tour of Sweden and Stephens a stage in the Bicicletta Vasca in Spain. And they both had plenty to race for. Anderson needed success to keep his team going. Before the Tour started Motorola had threatened to pull its sponsorship. Stephens would be working to help three riders: Laurent Jalabert, who won the green jersey in 1992, and contenders for the general classification, Alex Zulle of Switzerland and Dutchman Erik Breukink. Red faces . . . fine company When Phil Anderson rode out of his hotel with his two Motorola teammates Lance Armstrong and Max Sciandri, he didn’t expect a normal warm-up ride

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for the 6.8 km prologue at le Puy du Fou to become a team time trial. But when they reached the circuit and were greeted by an estimated crowd of 100 000 and an absence of arrows pointing to the start, a team time trial is exactly what it became: ‘We asked for directions but nobody knew. And when we tried to get closer and closer, we just went further away every time. We ended up team time trialling for about 10 km while trying to find the route. We were not allowed to go on the course either.’ With time running out Anderson was left with no choice but to leap over the fence and make it to the start by riding the route. ‘I had to time trial alone to the start as hard as I could. I even caught a French rider who was actually racing, although I didn’t pass him . . . I went faster trying to get to the stage than in the actual race itself.’ When Anderson finished the race, he joined an elite club of three riders— Stephen Roche in 1992, Pedro Delgado in the 1989 and Fons de Wolf in 1985—all of whom had missed their time trial start time.

• • •

The 1993 Tour was not short of characters. It was the year Lance Armstrong, mentored by Phil Anderson, made his Tour debut riding for Motorola. It was also the year the 26-year-old Italian Mario Cipollini had his first stage win. Cipollini, who once called himself ‘the most beautiful man in the peloton’ and said that if he was not a cyclist he would be a porn star, had been a professional rider for three and a half years and had had 44 career wins. His first Tour success came in the 215 km first stage from Lucon to the Atlantic coastal town of les Sables d’Olonne in a finish where five riders crashed 350 m from the end due to the erratic riding of Uzbekistan sprinter Djamolidin Abdujaparov. Abdujaparov, whose favourite pastime was looking after his pet pigeons, ignored criticism of his dangerous riding in bunch sprints: ‘In the sprints everyone wants to be at the front, so it’s natural to take risks. I don’t put any importance in the criticism of other riders. In any case, anyone who races bikes is capable of bringing someone else down.’ The first major opportunity for those intent on challenging Indurain came with the 81 km team time trial on Stage 4 from Dinard to Avranches. Indurain’s Banesto team was not strong in this discipline, so it offered his rivals a chance to gain extra time before he unleashed his strength in the individual time trials. Banesto was seventh, allowing

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Cipollini to take the yellow jersey. But more importantly, Indurain lost considerable time to several contenders such as Zulle, Breukink and Motorola’s Andy Hampsten. • • •

It was during Stage 7 from Peronne to Chalons sur Marne in the Champagne region that the scene was set for the first win by the rider who would go on to be the Tour’s most dominant athlete three years later, Lance Armstrong. Motorola had found itself with three riders—Anderson, Max Sciandri and Colombian Alvaro Mejia—in the winning seven-man break. To have such collective strength in a Tour break is rare and stacks the chances of winning as the team can have a rider in every move in the finale. But the stage went to Dane Bjarne Rijs. Sciandri was second, Mejia fourth and Anderson, who had done most of the work, was sixth after sacrificing his chances with 15 km to go: ‘I felt I didn’t have the legs to jump and attack. That would have been the only way I could have won. So I told Max that.’ Sciandri, for his part, was embarrassed to have lost to Rijs, who was by far the less credentialled sprinter of the two: ‘To get beaten, yeah . . . but Rijs?’ There was a consolation, however. The three riders had dominated the two intermediate sprints before the finish, thus amassing 260 bottles of Fleury la Rivieri champagne for their efforts, but as a Motorola soigneur said: ‘I think we would have preferred to win the stage and buy two bottles than lose it and get 260 bottles free.’ It was the next day that the team really had something to celebrate, the Stage 8 win by Lance Armstrong at Verdun. The 21-year-old rookie had outsprinted six other breakaways with 6 km to go on the Cote Douaumont, the site of the eight-month long battle ‘the Hell of Verdun’ where 700 000 Germans and Frenchmen had died during World War I. The victory by Armstrong, who was racing his first full season as a professional, gave Motorola much needed new heart, and he couldn’t hide what it meant to him as he sat in the team car. ‘After having not won [at Chalons sur Marne] we were all so disappointed, but we really wanted to win today.’

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• • •

Indurain did what everyone expected he would do in the Stage 9 time trial at Lac de Madine—he won convincingly. The longer the time trial, and this one was 59 km, the faster Indurain went. He milked every ounce of power using extra long cranks to increase leverage on his pedals and his aerodynamic position. Gianni Bugno said: ‘In the time trials this man is just head and shoulders above anyone. He is a lot stronger.’ Afterwards, it was no surprise to hear calls for time trials in future Tours to be limited to 40 km. Critics suggested that Indurain had an unfair advantage, that his domination stymied hopes for an exciting race and that ultimately the Tour would suffer. Indurain now wore the yellow jersey as the Tour moved into the Alps and Pyrenees. Even if he lost time in the mountains, he still had a 48 km time trial on Stage 19 to fall back on near the end of the Tour. Chiappucci pledged to attack him: ‘I am going to attack in the mountains. I don’t know what else I can do. But, on the second last day there is still another time trial. I think it is impossible to beat Indurain.’ His Carrera team manager Davide Boifava agreed: ‘It is a route tailormade for Indurain. The only thing that has come of this is that it has killed the race halfway through.’ Their concerns and those of many others fell on the still deaf ears of Tour race director Jean-Marie Leblanc: ‘We will not be forced into changes just because there have been complaints by riders.’ The first day in the Alps on Stage 10 from Villard de Lans to Serre Chevalier proved Chiappucci and Bugno were clearly past their prime. They both lost huge chucks of time—Bugno 7 minutes 42 seconds and Chiappucci 8 minutes 49 seconds. Indurain finished third on the 203 km stage won by Rominger, who was in the breakaway that escaped on the Col du Galibier. It was good enough to extend his overall lead. The Spaniard was now 3 minutes 8 seconds ahead of Mejia overall and 4 minutes 16 seconds on the emerging revelation of the 1993 Tour, Zenon Jaskula. On Stage 11 to Isola 2000 Rominger and Indurain worked together on the 23 km climb to the 2802 m summit of the Col de Restefond La Bonnette, which is the highest continuous road in Europe. It was later suggested that they had formed an alliance, especially after Indurain

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seemed to ease up with 15 m to go to let Rominger win. Such strategic alliances are not uncommon in cycling. With Rominger apparently out of yellow jersey contention, he had nothing to lose in helping Indurain extend his time and do his share of work in return for the stage win. Indurain’s focus, on the other hand, was on winning the Tour—not stages—and to have a big buffer on the clock going into the Pyrenees would make the task much easier. Indurain later denied any deal: ‘I tried to get past him, but in the last five kilometres to the finish I did so much work and just couldn’t.’ • • •

You can tell when a Tour rider is on the brink of not being able to finish. I saw it in Neil Stephens just before the start of the 13th stage from Marseille to Montpellier. His sagging eyes and ghostly white face told of the fate that awaited him 30 km up the road under a blanket of sunshine on a 182.5 km course full of twisting, lumpy and hilly roads. When the day began, I was not shocked to hear that Stephens was struggling. With 2217 km and twelve stages behind him, he had barely slept the night before because of a stomach upset. The gritty rider who in 1992 was the first Australian to race and finish the tours of Spain, Italy and France in one season, now found himself unable to keep any food down. Stephens’ fight began as soon as the day’s racing started. Under 30°C heat and through a blanket of humidity, the peloton wheeled out from Marseille slowly—but even this was too fast for Stephens. Ten minutes into an extraordinarily long 30-minute neutralised zone where riders cannot ride hard or attack as they leave the congestion of the city, he was already at the back. At the official start on the outskirts of Marseille the tempo rose, and Stephens had trouble keeping pace. He dug in, praying that in any minute he would push through the bad patch and suddenly feel better. But just as the banner for the first intermediate sprint came into sight and his peers jumped up from their saddles, dancing and jockeying for position to lead out the sprinters, Stephens lost contact. He was off the back, floundering in the mass of team, press and official cars following the race. He knew the Tour was racing away from him, but he pushed on for another ten

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minutes until accepting the only option left for him was to stop. His head was dizzy with fever. His stomach was heaving with nausea. His battered, weak and drained body could go no further. ‘I would just rather lie down,’ he croaked as he was helped into an ambulance and driven to hospital. Australia now only had one rider left in the Tour—Anderson, who was 89th overall at 1 hour 9 minutes 40 seconds to Indurain. Anderson finished the Tour without a stage win and placed 84th overall, but he and his teammates did not finish empty handed. On the rest day before Stage 16 in the Pyrenees, Motorola announced it would continue its sponsorship of the team for another year. ‘This is great news,’ Anderson said. ‘It could not have come at a better time . . . when you always need a boost for morale.’ • • •

The three days through the Pyrenees were disappointing. It had been thought Indurain’s rivals would use every tactic imaginable and in doing so unleash their last reserves of energy. However, Indurain’s lead and control was so firm that they were now more focused on racing for a place next to him on the podium in Paris. The 231.5 km 15th stage from Perpignan to Andorra had been billed as the ‘Queen stage’, but instead an apathy crept into the Tour and Indurain was not attacked. Rominger, while conceding his overall hopes were washed up, was critical of his fellow riders: ‘I don’t know why the other teams rode like they did today. It was sad for the race and for cycling in general, but to be frank, in my head I know that the Tour is finished. To be sure of winning I would have to take back eight minutes and that is impossible.’ The next days confirmed the 1993 Tour was all but over. It made for a long week, and it wasn’t helped by Indurain riding within himself because of the rain in the last time trial, 48 km from Bretigny sur Orge to Montlhery. Rominger, who clocked the fastest time at each split and at an average speed of 50.495 km/h, won the stage in 57 minutes 2 seconds. After moving to second overall, he was in far better spirits: ‘For the first time so far here I woke up feeling good. In past mornings I was bad after suffering from bronchitis in the Pyrenees.’ He kept his win in perspective:

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‘To say by winning here I am the best time trialist in the world is wrong. After three weeks of racing, a time trial is just not the same.’ • • •

Just before the Tour finished in Paris, with Indurain virtually assured of a third successive win, attention turned to the track for Englishman Chris Boardman’s attempt at the world hour record. Only six days beforehand Scottish rider Graeme O’Bree got the jump on Boardman by setting a new world record of 51.596 km at Hamar in Norway on a bike made at home using parts from a washing machine. Nearly all of the Tour media headed to Bordeaux to watch Boardman’s bid. This record is arguably cycling’s most prestigious. It is an hour filled with excruciating pain for anyone who dares take it on. I’d not seen an attempt on the record, which was first made on 11 May 1893 by Frenchman and founder of the Tour Henri Desgranges. I had, however, heard plenty of ‘horror’ stories of riders in delirious states being prised off their bikes. Boardman did set a new record of 52.270 km, but this would not be the last attempt I would see. On 2 September 1994, I returned to Bordeaux to watch Indurain ride a distance of 53.040 km. He was not the smoothest rider on a track, but what he lacked in grace and fluidity he made up for in power. And it was this power that in 1993 took him to the podium on the Champs Elysees as the yellow jersey winner for the third year in a row. The 1993 Tour de France podium 1. Miguel Indurain (Banesto/Spain) 3714 km in 95 hours 57 minutes 9 seconds (average speed 38.709 km/h) 2. Tony Rominger (Clas/Switzerland) at 4 minutes 59 seconds 3. Zenon Jaskula (GB-MG/Poland) at 5 minutes 48 seconds The Australians 84. Phil Anderson (Motorola/USA) at 2 hours 10 minutes 45 seconds DNF. Neil Stephens (ONCE/Spain) abandoned Stage 13

1994 This Tour is frankly a lot harder than normal. One can’t do anything about the exceptional heat. But I find that there are too many long stages. To have stages of 200 to 230 kilometres may not change the strategy of the race, but it will certainly change the life of the riders. —Festina team manager Bruno Roussel 2–24 July (3978 km): Lille–Lille (Prologue), Lille–Armentieres (Stage 1), Roubaix–Boulogne sur Mer (Stage 2), Calais–Eurotunnel (Stage 3 team time trial), Dover–Brighton (Stage 4), Portsmouth–Portsmouth (Stage 5), Cherbourg–Rennes (Stage 6), Rennes–Futuroscope (Stage 7), Poitiers– Trelissac (Stage 8), Perigueux–Bergerac (Stage 9 individual time trial), Bergerac–Cahors (Stage 10), Cahors–Lourdes Hautacam (Stage 11), Lourdes–Luz Ardiden (Stage 12), Bagneres de Bigorre–Albi (Stage 13), Castres–Montpellier (Stage 14), Montpellier–Carpentras (Stage 15), Valreas–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 16), Bourg d’Oisans–Val Thorens (Stage 17), Moutiers–Cluses (Stage 18), Cluses–Avorias (Stage 19), Morzine–Lac de Saint Point (Stage 20 individual time trial), Disneyland–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Miguel Indurain’s Tour de France tactic was to annihilate the opposition in the time trials and defend the yellow jersey in the mountains. He tried this again in 1994, after starting the year with several early season wins. And if he wasn’t winning, he was never far away from the victory dais. But it was Chris Boardman who won the 7.2 km Prologue time trial in Lille at an astonishing 55.152 km/h—setting a new Tour record—beating Indurain by 15 seconds and Tony Rominger by 19 seconds. That record was soon forgotten, however, after a spectacular crash the following day in the finishing sprint of the 234 km first stage from Lille to Armentieres. Ten riders went down near the right hand barriers 81

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with 50 m to go when a policeman stepped in front of the peloton at full speed of 70 km/h to take a photo. The crash ended the Tour for Belgian sprinter Wilfried Nelissen and Laurent Jalabert, who somersaulted over his handlebars, landed on his head and was left in a bloodied daze with concussion, several broken upper teeth and shattering to his facial bone. It was Nelissen who rode head first into the policeman, and like dominos Italian Fabio Fontanelli and Jalabert came crashing down behind him. The other riders fell when the policeman groggily got up and stepped back into the oncoming field. The crash brought the press room to its feet. As the television footage was replayed over and over many called for it to be stopped. The images of Jalabert, his face completely covered in blood and blowing up like a balloon, were sickening. Phil Anderson, one of the toughest riders in the peloton and one of the four Australians in the 1994 Tour, said: ‘If I was Jalabert, I would never race again.’ Tour race director Jean-Marie Leblanc was ashen-faced as he spoke on French television: ‘It seems that the principal cause was the presence of a policeman where he should not have been. We are so shocked that after the brilliant start to this Tour . . . that today it has to be marred by this accident which has also led to some of the biggest stars being eliminated.’ The loss of riders like Jalabert and Nelissen not only cost the Tour marque talent, but also potential earnings for their teammates who would have shared their prize money. It was a loss the Australian Tour rookie Patrick Jonker, riding in Nelissen’s Novemail team, was able to quantify. ‘Wilfried’s absence ruined the focus of an entire team. Our whole Tour was based on Wilfried winning. He was our money earner. Without him here our chances of earning money on the Tour are slim. Wilfried in the yellow jersey—no matter how short-lived—would bring in publicity for our sponsor and prize money earnings for us, which are normally shared between teammates. A yellow jersey wearer then recoups his reward via lucrative contracts later on. To get a rider in the yellow jersey though requires that we work like mad. That was the case [on the stage to Armentieres] when we had five riders at the front of the pack and controlling the pace over the last 15 km. It was working fine—until that crash.’

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As for the policeman? No one knows what happened to him. He did not become a celebrity. Hats off to Fred and Bobby The French photographer Frederic Mons was an enthusiastic visitor to England when the Tour crossed the Channel by train via the still to be opened Eurotunnel. Mons, who is very rarely without a smile and speaks English very well, discovered the local hospitality when he arrived in Portsmouth. Stopping at an intersection to ask for directions to the port where the Tour entourage was leaving by ferry for the overnight trip to Cherbourg, an obliging bobby leant through the passenger’s window and gave Mons directions. An appreciative Mons drove off, looking into his rear vision mirror to see the bobby waving. ‘Nice guy,’ he thought. It was only when he parked his car on the ferry that he found a bobby’s helmet on the seat next to him! The bobby wasn’t waving but crying out for Mons to stop.

• • •

When the Tour headed to England for two stages with Johan Museeuw in the yellow jersey, it marked the race’s first visit there since 1974. It was a welcome respite after the drama at Armentieres and Jean-Paul Van Poppel’s Stage 2 win from Roubaix to Boulogne sur Mer—where Phil Anderson and his Motorola teammates, Lance Armstrong, Steve Bauer and New Zealander Steve Swart, were very active—and in the 66.5 km Stage 3 team time trial from Calais to Eurotunnel. About one million fans lined the road for Stage 4 from Dover Castle to Brighton, where the Spaniard Francisco Cabello won after an 184 km attack. However, it was English Prologue winner Chris Boardman who gave the locals something to really cheer about when he attacked the bunch in the last kilometres and took fourth place with arms aloft. And just as many locals turned out the following day for Stage 5—an out and back 187 km race from Portsmouth that was won by Italian Nicola Minali. While the atmosphere of ‘Le Tour en angleterre’ was positive, one small group of angry British agriculturalists took to the Tour course brandishing banners that read: ‘You don’t want our beef . . . we don’t want your Tour.’ And as if in counter protest, many French members of

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the Tour entourage made it known they were less than enthusiastic about English ‘haute cuisine’. As if to make up for two days of English food, the Tour decided to celebrate its return to France on the overnight ferry trip across the Channel. I wish I had remembered there are times when it is fitting to celebrate and there are times when it is not. With free champagne, I found myself still standing at the bar drinking and toasting all things great about ‘Le Tour’ when dawn broke as we arrived in Cherbourg. But ‘great’ was not how I felt for the next 207 km from Cherbourg to Rennes under a scorching summer sun. I would never have tipped that in one of the hardest days of self-induced agony I have experienced, when I was ill in someone’s rose bed and several hours later dry-retched on a gendarme’s polished shoes, that Anderson’s Motorola team would ride into the limelight, with teammate Sean Yates taking the yellow jersey by getting into the winning break. Yates, a former ACBB and Peugeot teammate of Anderson’s, was a strapping rider who was an excellent time trialist and domestique. He had wanted to leave his mark on the Tour in England, but the hometown attention distracted him: ‘There were so many people there supporting me that it was hard to concentrate on my race.’ It was a deserving reward for Yates, whose career had spanned twelve years and had seen him pedal almost every stroke to help another rider win or do well. But his spell in the yellow was short-lived, as Johan Museeuw reclaimed the jersey the next day, although not without controversy. On the final intermediate sprint of the day, which Museeuw won to take a six second bonus, Yates was obstructed by the Belgian’s teammate Rolf Sorensen. Motorola successfully appealed and Sorensen was fined 500 Swiss francs and given a twenty second penalty on overall time and a 20 point deduction in the points classification. It was an inconsequential punishment, but as Yates said before the protest: ‘All I can say is that I am happy to have at least had a day in the yellow jersey.’ Museeuw also knew that his time in the yellow was more or less up as well. • • •

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Indurain was typically ruthless in the way he took the overall lead. He again handed his rivals a crushing defeat in the first major time trial— 64.5 km from Perigueux to Bergerac. That Indurain won was no surprise; it was more the winning margin. That he beat Rominger this time in 35° heat by 2 minutes and his former Banesto teammate Armand des la Cuevas by 4 minutes 22 seconds left everyone in amazed admiration. Approaching the Pyrenees, Indurain lead Rominger by 2 minutes overall. He clearly felt that it was mission accomplished: ‘My aim was to take as much time out on Rominger as I could before the mountains.’ Two days later in the Pyrenees on the 11th stage from Cahors to the 1560 m summit of Hautacam that margin increased further when Rominger was struck with diarrhoea and had to stop three times en route to relieve himself. His Tour was at the crossroads: ‘I have never had a day like that. I was on the toilet all night and then I had to stop in the fields three times. It’s the first time this has happened. So I really don’t known how I will recover, or if it’s possible to make up the time.’ Indurain’s unexpected aggression four kilometres into the 13 km climb to the finish came after Marco Pantani attacked when he saw Rominger struggling. And he didn’t ease up. Indurain produced a series of surges. He got off his saddle and stood on his pedals as one by one he dropped every rider bar Frenchman Luc Leblanc, who would win the stage. For the hundreds of thousands of Spanish and Basque fans, Indurain’s explosiveness and flair on the mountain was payback for their faith in him. He was about to sign, seal and deliver another Tour win. For Rominger, the Tour definitely was over when he abandoned on the 233 km 13th stage from Bagneres de Bigorre to Albi. His exit was extremely public, caught by hundreds of fans on the roadside where he stopped, then by a swarm of photographers and television cameramen. Despite his state of health, there were some who wondered if Indurain had simply beaten him psychologically. Rominger was not the only star to pull out of the Tour. Greg LeMond dropped out with exhaustion, as did Claudio Chiappucci and Gianni Bugno. When the Tour reached Montpellier after Stage 15, the race was looking at a record low survival rate with 54 riders already out of the Tour. And the hardest stages were still to come.

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Tour doctor Gerard Porte rejected the suggestion that a virus was in the peloton. There were so many drop outs, he said: ‘Because of the heat the riders have been drinking a lot of cold water, passed to them by their managers from their cars’ ice boxes. In such heat, an athlete can become nauseous, feel the need to vomit and suffer from diarrhoea. After ten to twelve days of racing, the body organisms collide and a real weakness in the digestive system appears.’ The Tour was also being raced at a breakneck pace—the average speed going into the first day in the Alps was 39.886 km/h. So why were riders going so fast? There were, of course, the individual ambitions of riders to win stages or minor classifications, thus earning a share of the prize money. Then there was the opportunity to earn world ranking points and increase contractual clout, and the pressure from sponsors on teams to succeed couldn’t be discounted. Stephen Roche, by then retired, believed all those factors played a big role in the drop out rate: ‘The riders are at the maximum race speeds after only five kilometres in this Tour. To say that they are suffering from the heat is one thing, but it doesn’t explain all. Cycling has changed a lot. When I was racing, I would start the season with 700 to 1000 kilometres of training in my legs before Christmas. Nowadays riders begin with 5000 to 7000. There are no vacations any more because riders are so worried about being in top form for selection.’ Indurain’s French teammate Gerard Rue feared riders were becoming pawns: ‘When you start thinking more about commercialism than the interests of sport, it’s always the riders who will be the victims.’ And in an ironical twist, Bruno Roussel, the French manager of the Festina team which four years later would be kicked off the Tour for systematic doping, supported these views: ‘This Tour is frankly a lot harder than normal. One can’t do anything about the exceptional heat. But I find that there are too many long stages. To have stages of 200 to 230 kilometres may not change the strategy of the race, but it will certainly change the life of the riders.’ • • •

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It was a turbulent Tour for Neil Stephens. His commitment to the ONCE team had not waned, but it was a Tour that left early cracks in Stephens’ tenure with the top Spanish team. The first crack appeared when Stephens was given a serve by ONCE manager Manolo Saiz for not winning the 14th stage from Castres to Montpellier in a two-up sprint against Rolf Sorensen. Beaten for the win by half a length after shedding the remnants of a five-man break, Saiz still accused Stephens of riding for second place. It was an insinuation that stung. After all, Stephens was the most aggressive rider of the day. He attacked after 30 km, only to be caught by the world champion Lance Armstrong. He then sat up and attacked again 15 km later, when eighteen other riders joined him. He then took the initiative to split that group by attacking with about 62 km to go, taking four riders with him, including Sorensen. Stephens again attacked with 20 km to go, and prompted Sorensen to work him to the finish where they could fight out the sprint for the stage. And he was ready for that fight: ‘Sure, it was a pity I was in the front position, but going into the straight I said to Sorensen that I was ready for a fair and square sprint so long as he did his share at the front. He didn’t. And in the end I had no choice but to do the best I could. For that I am happy.’ Stephens was probably an easy target for Saiz. The Tour had not been going ONCE’s way. After Laurent Jalabert’s crash in Stage 1, the team had not won a stage. And while Stephens might now concede that Saiz’s comments bore some truth, at the time they appeared harsh, especially as he was a domestique and not expected to win races. That he had raced so well for ONCE since joining in 1992, and continued to do so despite three hernia operations and two broken collarbones, made Saiz’s call seem all the more unfair. Did the sting of Saiz’s words affect Stephens the next day on Stage 15 from Montpellier to Carpentras? Who knows, but there was certainly sting in his altercation with Mexican Raul Alcala as they climbed the fabled and brutal Mont Ventoux. The scuffle began when Alcala became angry over Stephens riding tempo at the front of their group on the 22 km long climb up Mont Ventoux. They were in the ‘bus’—otherwise known as the ‘laughing

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group’ or ‘groupetto’—made up of riders not in contention for the stage win or overall placings but who keep to an agreed tempo so they can all finish within the time limit, thus avoiding elimination. ‘Alcala was abusing me for riding too hard,’ Stephens said. ‘He was abusing everyone and then finally I had enough.’ He hit Alcala in the eye. The pair continued to fight while on their bikes. They soon dropped off the back of the group, dismounted and exchanged more punches. Stephens’ teammates stopped to break up the fight, but then Alcala lashed out and broke Stephens’ nose! All the two could agree on was to remain tight-lipped about the incident to avoid disqualification. Stephens wanted to say his broken nose was the result of a spectator accidentally hitting him with a water bottle, but word gets around on the Tour and at Valreas before the start of Stage 16 the two riders were summoned before the race commissaries. Stephens, with a very swollen and sore nose, and Alcala, with a black eye, were told that the commissaries knew what had happened and didn’t want any excuses. They were both given a second chance and escaped with only a warning. ‘We were able to start,’ Stephens told me, ‘but we’ve been told that if anything like this happens again then we’re out. My nose is still sore. My biggest fear, though, is that the bleeding will continue and that will make finishing very hard.’ • • •

Marco Pantani was only 172 cm tall and weighed 54 kg, but by the end of his Tour debut in 1994 the 24-year-old Italian had emerged as one of the giants of the race. This son of a pizza chef was not without credentials. He had already won two stages in the Dolomites of the 1994 Giro d’Italia and was second overall—ahead of Indurain. Pantani had natural climbing ability, but nobody really knew what level of determination he really had. He was soon to show us all. It was halfway up the Col du Glandon, the first of three major mountains in Stage 17, that Pantani lost control on a slight downhill section and crashed. It took ten minutes and the help of three teammates to get him back to the peloton. With a severely cut knee and bruising

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he kept pace with Indurain and the other main contenders on the next ascent and descent of the 22 km long Col de la Madeleine. He followed them on the climb to Val Thorens when their group had been cut from forty to fifteen and then as the group was reduced even further with every pedal stroke. His attack came with 5.5 km to go. He caught Bjarne Rijs, but it was too late to reel in Colombian Nelson Rodriguez and Latvian Piotr Ugrumov. Finishing third, Pantani had arrived on the Tour and the field left was agog. ‘What he did was remarkable,’ said Luc Leblanc. ‘A super feat. I tried to go with him but I didn’t have any strength left.’ The podium beckoned Pantani. Indurain’s fourth win may have been in the bag, but the Tour now had a new hero. • • •

Just as one career began in the 1994 Tour, another ended. The great Australian rider Phil Anderson went beyond just contemplating retirement to finally announcing its likelihood after placing fourth in the 20th stage from Morzine to Lac de Saint Point: ‘I’m seriously thinking of calling it quits this year, at least from this level of competition. There comes a time when you have to decide. And I will decide very soon. I don’t want to um and ah over it like some people do. I have to start thinking about the future.’ For Anderson, the 1994 season had been hard. He had never raced so far in a season without a win. He was no longer blitzing the circuit. His season had been marred by illness and poor form. But his effort in the penultimate stage of the Tour to place fourth reminded the cycling world that he still had some cartridges to fire: ‘Today I proved I am still able to be up there with the best, but I don’t want to go out being a finished rider. I’ve had a great career and am very proud of what I’ve done. But it’s important to go with your head high . . . I have received an offer from Motorola for next year, as well as one or two good contracts with other teams. But I can’t just think short term.’ Soon after the Tour, Anderson announced he would be retiring at the end of the year. He rode for Australia in the Commonwealth Games 100 km team time trial and won a gold medal, but on returning to Europe he was told by Motorola that he would not be needed for the end

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of season races. The team was committed to blooding its new recruits in the year’s final races and could not afford to give up places for sentimental farewells to the peloton. It was a sad way to end a brilliant career. The 1994 Tour de France podium 1. Miguel Indurain (Banesto/Spain) 3978 km in 103 hours 38 minutes 38 seconds (average speed 38.381 km/h) 2. Piotr Ugrumov (Gewiss-Ballan/Lithunia) at 5 minutes 39 seconds 3. Marco Pantani (Carrera/Italy) at 7 minutes 19 seconds The Australians 52. Neil Stephens (ONCE/Spain) at 1 hour 47 minutes 59 seconds 69. Phil Anderson (Motorola/USA) at 2 hours 1 minute 13 seconds 83. Stephen Hodge (Festina/France) at 2 hours 23 minutes 50 seconds DNF. Patrick Jonker (Novemail/Netherlands) abandoned Stage 17

1995 It’s quiet for a long time as the magnitude of our friend’s death sinks in. You can feel the grief in the air. It isn’t only our team that is affected, but the entire race . . . every person, from officials to sponsors, press and fans. They all feel the loss. —Motorola mechanic Scott Parr on receiving the news that Fabio Casartelli has died 1–23 July (3635 km): Sant Brieuc–Saint Brieuc (Prologue), Dinan–Lannion (Stage 1), Peros Guirec–Vitre (Stage 2), Mayenne–Alencon (Stage 3 team time trial), Alencon–le Havre (Stage 4), Fecamp–Dunkerque (Stage 5), Dunkerque–Charleroi (Stage 6), Charleroi–Liege (Stage 7), Huy–Seraing (Stage 8 individual time trial), le Grand Bornand–la Plagne (Stage 9), Aime la Plagne–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 10), Bourg d’Oisans–Saint Etienne (Stage 11), Saint Etienne–Mende (Stage 12), Mende–Revel (Stage 13), Saint Orens–Guzet Neige (Stage 14), Saint Girons–Cauterets Cretes du Lys (Stage 15), Tarbes–Pau (Stage 16), Pau–Bordeaux (Stage 17), Montpon Menesterol–Limoges (Stage 18), Lac de la Vassiviere–Lac de la Vassiviere (Stage 19 individual time trial), Sainte Genevieve des Bois–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

The 1995 Tour de France should be remembered for the historic fifth successive win by Miguel Indurain. It is instead the tragic death of Fabio Casartelli on 15 July that first comes to mind. The day when the Italian Olympic champion crashed on the Col de Portet d’Aspet in the Pyrenees on Stage 15 remains my worst day ever on the Tour. Casartelli’s death, the result of serious head injuries and cardiac arrest en route to hospital, was the fourth by a rider in the Tour. In 1967, Briton Tom Simpson collapsed on Mont Ventoux—alcohol and drugs were found in his system. In 1935 Spaniard Francisco Cepeda crashed into a ravine on the Col du Galibier, while in 1910 Frenchman Adolph Heliere 91

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drowned on the French Riviera on the rest day. Other deaths have also occurred during the Tour. In 1957 a radio reporter and his driver were killed when their motorbike went over a mountain near Aix les Thermes. A year later a race official was struck by rider Andre Darrigade near the sprint finish on the last stage to Paris, and in 1964 ten spectators were killed when a police van crashed into the crowd. Even more tragically, in 2000 a twelve-year-old boy was killed when he was hit by a publicity car, as was a seven-year-old in 2007 when he ran out in front of the advertising caravan. That guy . . . it was Fabio Casartelli Journalist Steve Wood and I parked our car on the race route just after the start line in Saint Girons, and walked down to the madness that is the ‘village depart’ where, in the days before air-conditioned team buses, accredited followers mingled with riders at the stage start. The passage ahead of us was narrow. Thousands of people were going in every direction and the cacophany of noise from Daniel Mangeas—the Tour announcer—became more deafening the closer we got. I couldn’t see anyone I had planned to interview, so decided to talk to whoever I could get alone. Suddenly I noticed the red and blue sleeve and shoulder of a Motorola rider squeezing between me and Wood. He was also finding it hard to get a clean run to the village depart. It was Fabio Casartelli . . . ‘You know,’ I told Wood, nodding towards Casartelli, who was in 87th place overall and more than two hours behind Miguel Indurain, ‘of all the Motorola riders, that guy is the only one I’ve never interviewed or written a story about. I should do it sometime.’ I would never see Fabio Casartelli again but, gosh, did I get to write about him.

• • •

I was in the VeloNews car with Steve Wood, John Wilcockson and New York Times writer Samuel Abt, who had joined us for the 206 km 15th stage. The sun was out. The sky blue. Five legendary mountains were ahead of us: Col de Port d’Aspet, Col de Mentet, Col de Peyresourde, Col d’Aspin and Col du Tourmalet. Indurain was in the overall race lead, but with such a challenging course facing the peloton Tour followers were privately whispering, ‘You never know, anything could happen’.

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We reached the 1069 m summit of Col de Portet d’Aspet and began the descent, Wood steadily taking the corners. Upon seeing the steep drops in the ravine, the sharp corners and concrete bollards on the side of the road, we couldn’t help but think about the hazards of descending, especially in the often wet Pyrenees where the roads tend to be rougher and steeper than the Alps. We drove into the valley feeling a little relieved, our minds turning to the race behind us. Sixty minutes later Radio Tour made the announcement that raised everyone’s concern: ‘Chute, chute [crash, crash].’ A crash had occurred on the descent of Col de Portet d’Aspet about 33 km into the stage. Over the next minutes several scrambled messages came across Radio Tour and in the background we could hear car horns and breaking wheels. We couldn’t believe the crash had happened at the same spot we had talked about the dangers of descending in the Pyrenees just a short time before. We listened and scribbled notes as updates came to hand. Several riders had crashed, some had gone over the edge and into a ravine, but the race was continuing. And then Radio Tour announced that a helicopter had been called. ‘That’s not good . . . it’s serious,’ Wilcockson said softly. Within minutes, another alert came from Radio Tour. Casartelli had been evacuated by helicopter, Frenchman Dante Rezze and German Dirk Baldinger were being taken to hospital by ambulance, and Belgian Johan Museeuw was being treated at the crash site. While stunned, he would soon try to rejoin the race. It was a couple of hours later on Col de Peyresourde that the most numbing news came through. In the heaviest and saddest of tones, race director Jean-Marie Leblanc announced: ‘We have some sad news to give regarding the rider, number 114, of team Motorola. Due to the injuries to the head, Casartelli has lost his life.’ My jaw dropped . . . I didn’t know what to say, what to think. The silence in the car was overwhelming even though we—and the Tour— continued over the Pyrenees towards a finish where we knew the reality of what had happened would really kick in. It was surprising that the race continued, but there is no instruction in the Tour manual on what to do when such a tragedy occurs. Each team

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handled the news differently, aware that in a peloton shredded by attacks and chases many of Casartelli’s friends had yet to learn of his death. Some teams alerted their riders as they got dropped; others preferred to keep racing, to get their riders to the finish as quickly as possible and only then break the news. Some riders inevitably learned of Casartelli’s death from each other. The only riders who didn’t were those right up the front of the race—like Richard Virenque, who was vying for what was meant to be a massive stage win. We knew what awaited us: the demand that we write the story of the death of a married man with a four-month-old baby boy, Marco, who was only five days away from fulfilling his dream of reaching Paris and finishing the Tour. The following is an edited extract from Tales from the Toolbox, a book I wrote with Motorola team mechanic Scott Parr, who was first at the crash scene and revealed what he saw: I scan the scene quickly to see if there are any of our riders involved, but at first I don’t see anybody. As I get closer I spot the scene that is now embedded in my memory forever. The race doctor Gerard Porte, looks up at me as he holds Fabio Casartelli’s head in is hands. Fabio is lying in the foetal position, and a pool of blood has already spread down the hill. I can’t believe how much blood there is. His bike lies in a heap beside him. I just stand there and stare; it can’t have been for very long, but everything seems to move so slowly. The doctor is yelling, but I don’t hear. I can’t take my eyes off Fabio. Finally, I am jolted out of my trance by a deafening scream. Reality comes rushing back to me when a race official next to me has his foot run over by a car trying to squeeze by the accident site. The race has gone mad, people are yelling and car horns are honking. It all seems surreal. I have never hesitated before. A mechanic’s priority is always to make sure the bike is okay if the rider wants to continue, but I just stand there in a daze. As I look down at Fabio, the blood continues to spread down the road. I know he isn’t going to make it. Finally, I decide to get his bike off the road. The saddle is pushed up against the small of his back, and for some reason I am afraid to pull it away; as if I might disturb him. I pull the bike away slowly and Fabio’s body moves slightly. As I pick up the bike I look into the doctor’s eyes for some sign of hope; but there is none. I walk back to the car, carrying the bike, and Jim Ochowicz [Motorola team manager] is just walking up. Stopping him, I say: ‘It doesn’t look good, Jim, he’s in a very bad shape.’

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Jim goes to see for himself, while I put the bike on the roof. When he returns, his face is white with shock. We stand there for a few moments; he is in a daze. I finally ask him: ‘What do you want to do? We can either stay, or we can have Hennie [Kuiper—Motorola’s directeur sportif ] stay with him. One of us needs to get back in the race.’ Jim ponders for a few moments and says: ‘We should probably go. Hennie can wait with him.’ We don’t say much while trying to rejoin the race. The gravity of the situation is beginning to sink in. Radio Tour informs us that a helicopter is on its way to take Fabio to the hospital. A few minutes later, Hennie confirms that this has occurred and that he is back on the road again. ‘How is he, Hennie? Did the doctor tell you anything?’ asks Jim. ‘It is very bad, Jim. He hit his head very hard,’ answers Hennie to Jim, who looks at me in the mirror and says, in disbelief: ‘He could die.’ After all the years Jim has been in cycling, he has never imagined that something like this could really happen. We don’t talk much over the next few hours, overcome by the realisation that we may have lost a teammate and a friend. Radio Tour gives periodic updates, and finally the news of Fabio’s death arrives. The sadness in the voice of the radio is clear. We hope it will be good news, even though deep down we know it won’t be. Neither Jim nor I is fluent in French, but we understand what is being said on the radio. ‘What did he say?’ asks Jim to our French guest who had been respectfully quiet during the whole ordeal. ‘It’s over,’ he says quietly. ‘He died?’ I ask, hoping that I had misunderstood or that I was experiencing a nightmare and would soon awake. ‘Yes,’ he answers solemnly. It’s quiet for a long time as the magnitude of our friend’s death sinks in. You can feel the grief in the air. It isn’t only our team that is affected, but the entire race . . . every person, from officials to sponsors, press and fans. They all feel the loss. • • •

The atmosphere at the stage finish in Cauterets Cretes du Lys was awful, for both the immense sorrow over Casartelli’s death and the inevitable clash of emotions among those riders who had known about the

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tragedy for several hours and those who only found out about it after finishing—in the case of Virenque and his teammates this was only after celebrating their victory. Jean-Marie Leblanc, a former professional rider and Tour racer, was torn apart: ‘We’re all in a state of shock. A young rider who finishes the Tour is some kind of hero, but instead he’s dead. It’s terrible.’ Tony Rominger was seated alone on the steps of his team bus when I gingerly approached. His eyes were red with tears. In the Giro d’Italia a few weeks earlier, he had been outspoken about rider safety and now his worst fear had become a reality. As one of the last to learn of the tragedy, he was angry that Tour organisers had not told the entire peloton of Casartelli’s death before the finish: ‘I only knew when I got onto the team bus and saw. I was worried about safety on this year’s Giro, though here I think they are doing all they can. But people are riding much faster these days.’ Australian Stephen Hodge was another who didn’t know what had happened until after he had crossed the line and celebrated his teammate Virenque’s success. He felt embarrassed: ‘There I am whooping it up and see that nobody is cheering or celebrating. I wondered why.’ Eddy Merckx also criticised the race organisers: ‘I would have liked them to show more respect for Casartelli by calling off the ceremonies at the finish.’ At the Motorola van, the scene was of complete despair. Little was said, but the embraces were strong. Outsiders understandably kept their distance. Later the Motorola team decided to continue the Tour, believing that is what Casartelli would have wanted. After seeing him in hospital to say their private farewells, they pledged to reach Paris in his honour. • • •

Sitting at my desk in the press room the next day after Stage 16 to Pau, I stared at my computer. All I saw was a blank screen. I kept telling myself, ‘Keep the story simple. Explain what happened, don’t think too deeply about it.’ I started writing, but within a minute I was crying. I was not the first to break down in the press room, nor was I the last. As emotional

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as the previous day was, many of us had to bottle up our feelings while gathering reactions and writing our stories to deadlines. Now that we had had a chance to reflect on how the peloton responded the day after Casartelli’s death, those emotions started to unravel. The best way to describe that day is to reproduce the story I wrote for The Australian. Under the headline ‘Riders pay respects on longest of days’, datelined Pau, Friday, 21 July, it reads: It was a day that will be remembered for producing one of the most emotional displays of sporting honour in the Tour de France. But as former Tour winner Bernard Hinault of France said after the 117 riders in this year’s field finished Wednesday’s 237 km 16th stage from Tarbes to Pau: ‘It was a day I really hope I never, ever have to experience again.’ Paying homage to Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli who was killed in a crash on Tuesday, the Tour’s survivors followed up an official minute of silence at the start by riding as a united pack throughout the mountainous Pyrenean stage. With 5 km to go to the finish, Casartelli’s six remaining Motorola teammates were called on by fellow riders to lead the pack into Pau. The crescendo to the eight-hour tribute came 2 km from the finish, when the bunch suddenly slowed to allow Casartelli’s teammates to finish by themselves, and in front. Motorola are continuing in the Tour at the request of Casartelli’s widow, Anna-Lisa. It was Casartelli’s room-mate and close friend, Italian Andrea Peron, who was accorded the honour of crossing the finish first; the rest of the Motorola team on his wheel. It was the first time in the Tour’s 93 year history that an entire team had been allowed to pay such a tribute to a lost teammate. In the 1967 Tour, Englishman Barry Hoban was allowed to ride off alone with 20 km to go and win the stage after compatriot Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux the day before. Later, Wednesday’s stage results were declared unofficial as the field obviously refused to race. In the aftermath of Casartelli’s death, the mood of festivity over Spaniard Miguel Indurain’s (Banesto) anticipated overall victory on Sunday took a clear back step. Casartelli, the 24-year-old 1992 Olympic Games road race champion,

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was buried at his home town near Como in the Lombardy region in northern Italy. A memorial will be placed at the site of Casartelli’s crash on the Col de Portet d’Aspet after the Tour has finished. Just as the physical rigours of pedalling over 237 km in eight hours took its toll on riders, team personnel and the entire 3500-strong Tour entourage, so, too, did the psychological stress which came with the day-long run of tributes. The day began with a minute’s silence as Indurain and other leading contenders rode off from the front with Motorola, who wore black armbands in memory of Casartelli. Soon after leaving Tarbes under a blanket of suffocating heat which saw temperatures rise to 38 degrees celsius, rider unity was again shown when it was announced that they were donating all prizemoney from the stage to Casartelli’s widow and their four-month-old son Marco. The Societe du Tour de France then said that the 220 000 French franc [$61 857] kitty would be matched by them. This was followed by news that the Motorola team would set up a trust fund for the Casartelli family with the team donating their entire prize purse from this year’s event. While news of Casartelli’s death filled the front pages of all French newspapers and most expected a neutralised race, thousands of fans still lined the roads to cheer the riders along their way. After the stage, most riders pedalled off to their respective team hotels as fast as possible. However, Frenchman Laurent Jalabert (ONCE) echoed the feeling of most riders. ‘Nobody really felt like racing this morning. I think what we did was the least we could have done,’ said Jalabert. ‘It was a difficult day, but it was a nice gesture by the peloton.’ Inevitably, debate has increased over calls for mandatory laws on wearing hardshell helmets, as is the case in Australia, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands. However, most riders in the Tour discounted the need for such a law. ‘With the heat like it was today, and going up the mountains, it would be just too hot,’ Jalabert said. ‘People just have to understand that.’ But the hottest issue arising from Casartelli’s death is the allegedly sensationalised and graphic coverage of his crash and evacuation to hospital by French television. Many people have been offended by the local networks’ vivid imagery of Casartelli’s trip to the hospital in Tarbes and then to the morgue. And several leading French newspapers, such as France-Soir, horrified readers

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with a full front-page colour photograph of a bloodied an unconscious Casartelli lying on the ground in the foetal position. In a sombre tone, Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc said: ‘The Tour must go on as much as we are sorry for what has happened.’ With Wednesday’s stage being the last in the mountains for the 1995 editions, yesterday’s stage 17 travelled 246 km from Pau to Bordeaux, suiting the sprinters in the field. The race will finish in Paris on Sunday along the famous Champs Elysees. Despite the tragedy, this year’s Tour will be remembered as one of the most competitive. • • •

The 1995 Tour was still a great race. Indurain was fully deserving of the accolades that came his way after his fifth victory, as was his team of eight other riders, four masseurs, four mechanics, two directeur sportifs, a doctor, a public relations officer and a manager. Indurain’s team ran on an annual budget of US$10 million and had a 24-man squad from which the nine riders for the Tour team were selected. It goes without saying that having a share of the financial pie lifts team performance, and the Banesto pie was always guaranteed to be big. Indurain’s 2.2 million franc (US$450 000) purse for first place overall that year was thrown into a team kitty that included all the prize money won during the three week race to be shared by the riders and staff. However, it takes more than just a financial incentive to bring out the best in riders. They must want to ride for their leader. Banesto team manager Jose Miguel Echavarri called it a sense of la familia. For all the attention put into preparing Indurain for his Tours, it was the diligence and rock-solid ability of the back-up team that counted for so much. As Echavarri explained before the 1995 Tour began: ‘I don’t want to take any risks with this race. I don’t want riders I might have to pull out after a week because of low morale. Miguel is as demanding as any leader, but we prefer riders whom we know will be 100 per cent loyal, who will never give us a moment’s trouble rather than those who sometimes hide.’ Echavarri’s process of picking his Tour team was similar to most other team managers. By May he had selected a fifteen-rider shortlist that was cut down to eleven by mid-June based on performances at the Giro and Dauphine Libere. The final nine-man team plus reserves in case of a

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last minute withdrawal was named one week before the Tour after the national road championships. ‘You need two or three riders to keep him [Indurain] out of the wind and protect him in the bunch,’ Echavarri explained. ‘These riders are usually the same ones who pull him along on the flat stages. Then you need at least three riders for the hilly stages and one or two more for the high mountains. And then you need two or three riders you can depend on totally for the team time trial. The time differences you make in the team time trial are rarely important, but the psychological differences can be crucial. It’s important to see that your opponents have been put as far behind as possible by the whole team.’ Indurain’s inner-circle was tight-knit. Known as ‘Clan Navarro’ because Indurain was from Navarro, it included Eusebio Unzue, who discovered him as a junior and in 1995 was one of Banesto’s two directeur sportifs. The clan’s conviction to help Indurain win a fifth Tour was unrelenting, even when the team was against the wall, as was the case in Stage 12 on Bastille Day when Laurent Jalabert won the 222.5 km leg to Mende. Featuring in the five-man breakaway with Jalabert were his ONCE teammates Neil Stephens and Melchor Mauri, who rode themselves into the ground in a truly great display of teamship. When it came to team unity though, nothing matched that of the Motorola team as it fulfilled its commitment to ride on to the finish in Paris. It was a credit to the team—in particular one rider—that the Tour was reignited from its mourning and jolted back into race mode. After the peloton rode slowly through the Pyrenees as a ‘cortege’ on Stage 16, there was an apparent reluctance to race hard on Stage 17 over the hot and sticky roads of the Gironde to Bordeaux, where German Erik Zabel won in a sprint finish. But on the rolling terrain of the Dordogne the next day, on Stage 18 from Montpon Menesterol to Limoges, the peloton suddenly rediscovered its competitive fire. Riders from many teams willingly went on the offensive. Eventually, a 12-strong breakaway formed, which included Motorola’s Lance Armstrong who, nearing the finish and suspecting that such a large group would not work well together, attacked alone. The image of Armstrong racing furiously to Limoges was impressive and would have remained a highlight even had he been caught, but that

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was not to be. The Texan reached the finish 33 seconds ahead of his chasers and in one of the most memorable gestures I have seen in the Tour, pointed to the sky and blew kisses. Everyone knew what it meant, and Armstrong needed little, if any, encouragement to confirm it: ‘I did it for him. I had Fabio on my mind the whole time. He motivated me today . . . The biggest thing about him was that everybody got along with him. He had a lot of friends. When he first came to the team, he talked a lot—a hell of a lot—but he was always happy . . . He had more friends than anybody I’ve met.’ Emotions were still raw over Casartelli’s death, but Armstrong’s victory—and the aggressive racing he produced to claim it—had placed an added seal of honour in memory of the Italian. Casartelli may not have claimed the Tour finish he dreamt of, but as the Motorola team raced on to Paris his bike—adorned with his race number and a black ribbon—remained on the top of one of the Motorola team cars. In the team’s view, and all those who followed the Tour, Casartelli still finished in spirit. The 1995 Tour de France podium 1. Miguel Indurain (Banesto/Spain) 3635 km in 92 hours 44 minutes 59 seconds (average speed 39.191 km/h) 2. Alex Zulle (ONCE/Switzerland) at 4 minutes 35 seconds 3. Bjarne Rijs (Gewiss-Ballan/Denmark) at 6 minutes 47 seconds The Australians 60. Neil Stephens (ONCE/Spain) at 2 hours 16 minutes 1 second 64. Stephen Hodge (Festina/France) at 2 hours 28 minutes 17 seconds

1996 I knew a day like this would come, but I didn’t think it would come today. —Miguel Indurain on the end of his reign as ‘The King’ 29 June–21 July (3765 km): ’s-Hertogenbosch–’s-Hertogenbosch (Prologue, Stage 1), ’s-Hertogenbosch–Wasquehal (Stage 2), Wasquehal– Nogent sur Oise (Stage 3), Soissons–Lac de Madine (Stage 4), Lac de Madine–Besancon (Stage 5), Arc et Senans–Aix les Bains (Stage 6), Chambery–les Arcs (Stage 7), Bourg Saint Maurice–Val d’Isere (Stage 8 individual time trial), le Monetier les Bains–Sestrieres (Stage 9), Turin–Gap (Stage 10), Gap–Valence (Stage 11), Valence–le Puy en Velay (Stage 12), le Puy en Velay–Superbesse (Stage 13), Besse en Chandesse–Tulle (Stage 14), Brive–Villeneuve sur Lot (Stage 15), Agen–Lourdes Hautacam (Stage 16), Argeles Gazost–Pamplona (Stage 17), Pamplona–Hendaye (Stage 18), Hendaye–Bordeaux (Stage 19), Bordeaux–Saint Emilion (Stage 20 individual time trial), Palaiseau–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Who really did win the 1996 Tour de France? The rider who placed first, Denmark’s Bjarne Rijs, admitted in 2007 that he had used the illegal drug erythropoietin (EPO) to win the race. His name is still in the record books, but that is only because his confession fell outside the eight year statute of limitations. So should the moral winner be the next rider down? That rider was Rijs’ teammate Jan Ullrich, but the German’s career ended amidst allegations of doping. Go down another place to Frenchman Richard Virenque, leader of the Festina team, which was booted out of the 1998 Tour for systematic doping, including the use of EPO and growth hormones. Perhaps fourth placed Laurent Dufaux is safer. Whoa! He was a Virenque teammate and like his leader was banned for six months for his role in the Festina scandal. Is it worth 102

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continuing? To fifth place? To Austrian Peter Luttenberger of the Italian Carrera team? At least his record was clean. Maybe he deserves to be the moral winner of the 1996 Tour? Rijs remains the official 1996 champion, and despite making the offer at the time of his confession, he didn’t return his winner’s yellow jersey. By 1996 the use of the drug EPO in cycling was widely known despite denials by the sport’s world governing body, the UCI. I recall a Dutch doctor explaining in 1989 that many riders were like ‘human time bombs ready to explode’ because of their heavy use of self-administered EPO. His concern was not the morality of doping—although he did not condone it—but that riders could kill themselves by taking the drug without medical supervision. While Rijs was the first winner to confess to doping without having failed a test, he was not the first to be implicated in a doping scandal. Even Miguel Indurain was caught up in controversy. A urine test taken during the 1994 Tour de l’Oise detected salbutamol, a substance found in Ventolin which is used by asthmatics to relieve breathing problems. Indurain had been using Ventolin to treat his asthma and while its use was banned by the French sports ministry and therefore by the Federation Francaise du Cyclsme in its races such as the Tour de l’Oise, under UCI laws the medication was permitted for therapeutic use. This anomaly led to immediate calls for the UCI to create an antidrugs policy that all its member national cycling unions could follow without clashing with the policies of their national governments. ‘Nobody is happy with the present situation. The confusion is damaging to the image of the sport,’ said Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc, not knowing then how much more damage was to come. While certainly not condoning his deceit, I have never been able to understand what was gained by Rijs’ confession: there was no punishment, no clarification of how the doping occurred, and no follow-up on how his experience could help the fight against doping. (Rijs did implement an internal anti-doping policy in the team he created after his retirement, although this has been interpreted by some cynics—and without proof—as simply a way of ensuring that his riders didn’t get caught.) If

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anything, I felt Rijs’ confession just dragged down the Tour and the sport with him. • • •

I have since looked back on the 1996 Tour not as the Tour Rijs won, but as the Tour that brought to an end the reign of Miguel Indurain. In many ways, his legion of fans respected him even more as a beaten champion. He showed he was human and capable of experiencing loss, yet he remained gracious and humble. Indurain’s downfall began with three kilometres to go on the 7th stage from Chambery to Les Arcs. Until then, the Tour had been one of survival from the dangers of crashes in conditions that ranged from overcast to wet, windy and downright miserable. Indurain had shown no sign of weakness, but in those last kilometres at Les Arcs he suddenly slowed. His rivals upped the tempo when they saw him struggle and Frenchman Luc Leblanc went on to win, with Indurain emerging in sixteenth place. Indurain’s sudden turn of form stunned everyone including his team manager, Jose Miguel Echavarri: ‘We’re not used to seeing Miguel like that.’ Writing for the Spanish sports daily Marca, Indurain explained: ‘For the first 100 km I felt good and even thought about attacking. Then, at Les Arcs, it was all different.’ Indurain rallied in the Stage 8 mountain time trial, 30.5 km from St Maurice to Val d’Isere. But the Tour was turned upside down on Stage 9 when blizzard conditions forced the organisers to shorten the stage from 196 km to 46 km. This meant the Tour missed the Col d’Iseran and Col du Galibier. The change was a huge blow to many contenders, paricularly Richard Virenque, who told race director Jean-Marie LeBlanc, ‘This was the stage I built my Tour around’. For Rijs it was a career-changing opportunity. He rode at a ferocious pace from the start and attacked three times on the second category Col de Montgenevre. Rijs’ intent was unwavering and he crossed the 2030 m summit finish line 24 seconds ahead of Luc Leblanc, followed by Virenque at 26 seconds, and Rominger and Indurain at 28 seconds. Rijs also took the yellow jersey. It was a massive turn-around for the race. Rijs’ overall lead was 40 seconds, while Indurain was eighth at 4 minutes 38 seconds.

1996

A different perspective … For the first time since 1987 I did not go to the Tour, having moved back to Australia from France in early 1996. I pretended to believe I didn’t care what happened, that there were other things to do in July. Of course, I ended up searching the newspapers every day for Tour news and sought out copies of L’Equipe and European cycling journals. I still had the bug . . . I wished I was back in France in the VeloNews car, amidst the mayhem of day-to-day life on the Tour. Finally, two weeks into the 1996 Tour, I began to watch the nightly 30-minute highlights package of the previous day’s stage broadcast on SBS-TV. The packages were comprehensive, colourful and full of drama, providing edited reports of what happened during the day, who was in the lead, who had been dropped, who would be next to wear the yellow jersey. But as those who have gone to France and followed the Tour know—or who have seen SBS’s live coverage since—there is so much more to the Tour than can be packed into thirty minutes. It is far more than a bike race that starts mid-morning and finishes late afternoon. It is a three week festival that transcends social, economic and political differences. It may have started in 1903 as a publicity stunt for the French newspaper L’Auto. It may earn millions every year from its sponsors, the television networks that pay for broadcasting rights, and the towns and regions that bid to host a Tour stage start or finish. But the Tour still prides itself on being an event for the people. And it is among these screaming masses waiting by their front doorstep or camped atop a mountain peak that the heart of the Tour beats. The moment the race passes is the climax to hours—in some cases days— of preparation that can convert a barren, lonely, sun-baked mountain peak into a giant natural grandstand smothered by up to 250 000 celebrating fans, their cars, caravans, tents and barbecues. Before the race comes into view, fans follow every moment on live television and radio. But nothing surpasses the cheer of the crowd as the Tour’s arrival is heralded by a fourkilometre long advertising caravan that travels 90 minutes ahead of the race. In front and behind are the cavalcade of press cars and motorbikes, the Garde Républicaine on motorbikes, and the whirling noise of helicopters as they rise from the valley below to higher vantage points. ‘Ils arrivent . . . Ils arrivent [They are coming . . . they are coming]’, the fans cry out. And with the commotion, the seeming panic and the claustrophobic proximity of the fans to the riders as they force their way through the mayhem towards the summit, comes the realisation that you are at the epicentre of the Tour de France storm. Then, just as suddenly, it is gone.

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WHAT a RIDE And so the Tour continues for three weeks, enveloping people from all walks of life—farmers, shopkeepers, tradesmen, actors, poets, artists, businessmen and women and politicians alike. It is no wonder I thought as I watched another SBS highlights package that something was missing . . . I was not on the Tour.

• • •

As the Tour headed south-west towards the Pyrenees, Rijs enjoyed two easy days in his new yellow jersey. But in the hills of Stage 13 from le Puy en Velay to Superbesse after a break of fifteen riders escaped, Rijs, who was in the peloton, was taken on by Indurain’s Banesto henchmen. Setting a ferocious tempo, they tried to tire him by putting all their riders at the front of the peloton in the second last of five climbs. The move was effective in that the peloton was soon down to twelve riders, but Rijs was resilient and still in it. His response? When Peter Luttenberger attacked, Rijs jumped on the Austrian’s wheel and went with him. Indurain didn’t panic and was soon charging back, settling for sixth place on the stage. But Rijs’ best came three days later on Stage 16 from Agen to Lourdes Hautacam. He turned the screws on his main opponents with a win that decimated the group he attacked on the final 20 km climb. Ironically, this was also Indurain’s 32nd birthday. Falling to tenth overall at 7 minutes 6 seconds to Rijs, Indurain condeded: ‘Rijs will probably win in Paris and it will be very difficult for me to make the podium. I knew a day like this would come, but I didn’t think it would come today.’ Rijs’ win was virtually secure after the most significant stage of the Tour—the 262 km 17th from Argeles Gazost to Pamplona, which passed Indurain’s home in Villava in Spain. With four climbs in the first 160 km, the Dane showed he had the form and confidence to win. For Indurain it was an extremely hard day in the Pyrenees. It was meant to celebrate on home territory his possible sixth Tour win, but ended up becoming one that signalled the end of his reign. The most poignant image of the day occurred when Rijs, wearing the yellow jersey, presented Indurain with his winner’s bouquet. Some may have said it was a wreath instead. Was ‘El Rey’ (The King) dead? Indurain had now slipped down

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another place—to eleventh overall. Rijs, to his credit, was quick to declare to Indurain’s legion of fans at Pamplona that the Spaniard was not finished: ‘I’ve won, but you mustn’t forget that Miguel Indurain is still a great champion.’ The same stage also heralded the emergence of another champion in Rijs’ teammate Jan Ullrich, who finished in the next group of nine riders behind Rijs at 20 seconds. The next two days turned into a virtual procession for Rijs. He was feeling terrific in first place overall, as he admitted in a television interview: ‘If I had to pedal another week I would be happy to . . . as long as I had the yellow jersey.’ All eyes now were on the penultimate stage, the 63.5 km time trial from Bordeaux to St Emilion. In 35°C heat Ullrich won in 1 hour 15 minutes 31 seconds, beating second placed Indurain by 56 seconds. Rijs was placed fourth, but the overall standings remained and he was safe in first place and confident his Tour victory was just a day away. The result, however, raised eyebrows and left many wondering if Ullrich had had the chance, maybe he could have won the Tour. Indurain anointed 22-year-old Ullrich and not the 33-year-old Rijs as the rider likely to dominate the Tour in the years to come. He noticed throughout his ordeal how Ullrich had set the tempo in attacks on him, yet still managed to finish the third week of the Tour so strong. This was how Indurain had ridden for Delgado in the 1988 Tour: ‘He is as strong as an ox and his performances in the mountains and in the time trials makes him a definite winner, as long as he stays fit.’ Ullrich, whose one previous grand tour was the 1995 Vuelta a Espana which he abandoned, was humble when told of Indurain’s comment: ‘I am very touched, but I will rest after the Tour and think things over.’ While some minds thought ahead to 1997, others were trying to absorb the end of the Indurain era. In the past, Tour followers may have wished that someone would challenge Indurain’s domination and methodical reliance on—or logical use of—the time trial to gain control, but there was now a sadness that the great champion had been beaten. • • •

Patrick Jonker emerged as Australia’s next top-ten hope after his twelfth

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place in 1996, an incredible result considering he spent most of the Tour helping his ONCE team leaders Laurent Jalabert, who withdrew on Stage 10, and Alex Zulle, who had faded to place 26th overall. It was a turnabout result for the tall Dutch-born South Australian, who did not finish his one previous Tour in 1994, but would go on to complete three more Tours. Jonker’s twelfth place, which was the best overall result by an Australian since Phil Anderson’s fifth in 1985, left many wondering how well he might have finished had he ridden for himself and not others. It also provided him with a small but unique slice of Australian cycling history as the Australian rider to get closest to Indurain during his reign as the Tour champion. Also riding to protect Jalabert and Zulle, Neil Stephens’ 1996 Tour was typically drama filled. Finishing 49th overall he again found himself vying for his first Tour stage win, this time on Stage 15 from Brive to Villeneuve sur Lot. Stephens was in a 28-strong break that formed after 10 km but was down to six by 38 km. Then when the two-times Italian road champion Massimo Podenzana attacked alone Stephens led a chase with Michele Bartoli, that year’s Tour of Flanders winner. With four kilometres to go Stephens suddenly came a cropper at a roundabout when his rear tyre rolled. He suffered cuts and abrasions, but re-started to finish in sixth place behind a victorious Podenzana. Showing his resilience, two days later on the 262 km 17th stage where Rijs silenced Indurain’s hopes of a sixth Tour, Stephens led the race for over 100 km and picked up a 20 000 franc (A$5000) bonus for being first over the 1704 m summit of Col d’Aubisque. He then fell off Indurain’s group to the finish at more than eight minutes to Rijs: ‘I was feeling so rough that I felt I had to win something before I was caught and tailed off.’ Also carrying the honour of finishing the Tour was New South Wales rider Scott Sunderland, who was among the 129 riders to race into Paris and down the Champs Elysees. • • •

Three months after the 1996 Tour, Lance Armstrong announced he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his stomach and

1996

And the winner is . . . Miguel Indurain One of my duties as the VeloNews European correspondent was to present Miguel Indurain with trophies when he was voted the magazine’s International Rider of the Year in 1993 and 1994. The 1993 trophy—a modest silver cup—was presented in the shadows of the Piazza Duomo in Milan on a Sunday morning a few minutes before the start of the 1994 Milan–San Remo one day classic in a quick ceremony with brief speeches and a few seconds for photographs. It was after he won in 1994 that things got a little trickier and frustrating . . . My heart sank when the call came from the magazine’s head office in Boulder, Colorado that Indurain had won the award again, and that this time a hand-made marble trophy would be presented. Weighing about 10 kg, it would prove to be the most cumbersome object I have ever taken on the road. When the trophy arrived at my place in the south of France in early 1995 it was broken in two and for two months the two pieces sat on the floor as a door stop. VeloNews commissioned a second trophy, albeit a smaller one, that John Wilcockson would bring from the United States and present to Indurain when a suitable opportunity arose. As the days passed on the Tour with the trophy still sitting in our boot, I could see it coming home with me and again being left the task of catching the increasingly sought after Indurain. And so it came to pass that the task of presenting Indurain with back-to-back VeloNews trophies was mine again on the eve of a big one-day race, the San Sebastian Classic, when Indurain fever was at its peak in Spain. Waiting outside the dining room of the Banesto team hotel, photographer Graham Watson and I watched Indurain’s teammates come down for dinner one by one. We also watched the crowd in the adjoining cafe grow. Word was out, we thought. Then suddenly, the giant shadow of the great man appeared in the hall. He was late, said media manager Francis Lafargue, because he had to do the coup d’envoi, the ceremonial kick-off at a local football game. We didn’t waste a moment. With a rapid explanation and a deft exchange of trophy for his handshake, Indurain was once again ordained International Rider of the Year. And within seconds the trophy that had been a part of my life for what seemed forever was passed on to a minder behind the bar and Indurain seated for dinner. I still wonder whatever happened to that trophy. I wouldn’t be surrpised if it was still there behind the bar.

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lungs. The 25-year-old had ridden with the condition through the 1996 spring classics, the first week of the Tour until he abandoned at Stage 6 and then the Olympic Games. The news stunned everyone. I first met Armstrong in 1992 in Milan after the finish of the Giro d’Italia. He carried a Texan swagger and you could tell he was not short on confidence. However, his enthusiasm and zest for life and bike riding was infectious. I sensed he would leave his mark on the sport, although no one could have forecast what awaited him—for good and bad. Within one year of becoming a professional, Armstrong went from finishing dead last in his first World Cup race, the San Sebastian Classic in August 1992, to becoming the youngest ever rider after Belgian great Eddy Merckx to win the professional world road race championship. Two days after that win he agreed to one of his first interviews with me. Armstrong was a man in cycling, but still the boy in life. With a smile on his face that was as big as it had been 48-hours earlier after his win in Oslo, he picked me up in an old brown car from the train station in Como, Italy to take me to his home—a small apartment he shared with his American teammate Frankie Andreu. His grin was still there as his mother Linda packed up his belongings for his return flight to the United States the next day and a fax message came through confirming he had been upgraded to business class—a few years later he would be flying around the world in private jets, and mixing with politicians, multi-millionaires and Hollywood movie stars. During that year, and in the two that followed, I got to know Armstrong better. I also saw him mature. And I got to see him win. Following the Tour from Australia in 1996, I felt for Armstrong when he was forced to stop due to a virus. But with the Olympics in Atlanta to come, I could see the wisdom in the decision. However, nothing prepared me for the news former Motorola media liaison officer and current television commentator Paul Sherwen broke one night when he beckoned me out of the dining room for a chat during the now defunct Commonwealth Bank Classic in Australia. I could see by his ashen face that it was bad. And it was. Armstrong had cancer and might die.

1996

The 1996 Tour de France podium 1. Bjarne Rijs (Telekom/Denmark) 3765 km in 95 hours 57 minutes 16 seconds (average speed 39.235 km/h) 2. Jan Ullrich (Telekom/Germany) at 1 minute 41 seconds 3. Richard Virenque (Festina/France) at 4 minutes 37 seconds The Australians 12. Patrick Jonker (ONCE/Spain) at 18 minutes 58 seconds 49. Neil Stephens (ONCE/Spain) at 1 hour 43 minutes 33 seconds 101. Scott Sunderland (TVM/Netherlands) at 2 hours 32 minutes 54 seconds

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1997 Me . . . I just won half an hour ago. —Neil Stephens when asked if he knew who was the last Australian to win a Tour stage

5–27 July (3950 km): Rouen–Rouen (Prologue), Rouen–Forges les Eaux (Stage 1), Saint Valery en Caux–Vire (Stage 2), Vire–Plumelec (Stage 3), Plumelec–le Puy du Fou (Stage 4), Chantonnay–la Chatre (Stage 5), le Blanc–Marennes (Stage 6), Marennes–Bordeaux (Stage 7), Sauternes–Pau (Stage 8), Pau–Loundenviele (Stage 9), Luchon–Andorra Arcalis (Stage 10), Andorra–Perpignan (Stage 11), Saint Etienne–Saint Etienne (Stage 12 individual time trial), Saint Etienne–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 13), Bourg d’Oisans– Courchevel (Stage 14), Courchevel–Morzine (Stage 15), Morzine–Freiburg (Stage 16), Freiburg–Colmar (Stage 17), Colmar–Montbeliard (Stage 18), Montbeliard–Dijon (Stage 19), Disneyland–Disneyland (Stage 20 individual time trial), Disneyland–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Jan Ullrich came to the 1997 Tour de France dubbed ‘The Prince’, while his Telekom teammate and defending champion Bjarne Rijs was lauded as the new ‘King’ after dethroning the five-times winner Miguel Indurain a year earlier. However, by the time the 1997 edition was over, it was Ullrich who gained the crown and Rijs who had to take a back seat to his German protégé. The five Australians who started all excelled by finishing. Neil Stephens, who had now joined the world No. 1 ranked Festina team, and Patrick Jonker, now with the Dutch Rabobank team, were joined by three debutants who were forever in the action. They were Robbie McEwen, Stuart O’Grady and Henk Vogels. Despite the spate of crashes, abandons 112

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and the controversy of the first week, each left his mark with a strong top-ten place in every stage but two. McEwen proved he was one of the world’s most consistent sprinters and that he had plenty of potential for the years to come. He may have missed out on a stage win, but his control and form in the bunch sprints augured well for the future. O’Grady and Vogels, who also claimed some impressive results, enjoyed the rare opportunity of each riding their first Tour for GAN, a team that had two team leaders—Englishman Chris Boardman and the French revelation Cederic Vasseur. • • •

As is typical, the first week of the 1997 Tour was nervous. High speeds, risky moves and the narrow roads were all the ingredients for a cocktail of crashes that saw eight riders abandon with injuries by the end of the week. After the 7.3 km Prologue in Rouen, a massive crash in the 199 km first stage from Rouen to Forges les Eaux saw 127 riders fall or held behind the pile up. Then in Stage 3, after Italian Mario Cipollini (wearing illegal ‘Stars and Stripes’ shorts to promote his bike manufacturer Cannondale) claimed back-to-back wins in Stages 1 and 2, a series of crashes took out Tour contender Tony Rominger, who broke his collarbone in a spill with nine kilometres to go and abandoned what was his last Tour. On Stage 4 Italian Fabio Fontanelli and Spaniard Vicente Garcia-Acosta abandoned after crashing into a female spectator, who was taken to hospital with serious head injuries. And in Stage 5 from Chantonnay to La Chatre, where Vasseur pulled off a 148 km solo attack to win and claim the yellow jersey, Alex Zulle failed to start fearing that with all the crashes he could break his collarbone already fractured in the Tour of Switzerland. It was in this stage that O’Grady finished in second place after joining a ten-rider chase which set off in pursuit of Vasseur in the final 10 km. It was no great surprise that O’Grady got into a break so early in his first Tour; he had shown a penchant for aggressive riding since his conversion from the track to professional road racing in late 1994. With his teammate Vasseur ahead, he realised his first objective should be to break up the group’s momentum to ensure it did not catch the Frenchman. Once he

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was told by team radio that Vasseur’s win was safe, O’Grady was able to focus on winning the gallop for second place and was thrilled to hand his GAN team a rare one–two: ‘With two kilometres to go I heard Vasseur had won and I had a smile on my face all the way. Getting second was a huge bonus. When I came here I never imagined I would do that, nor ever be in the top ten overall at any point.’ Controversy stole the limelight on Stage 6 with the disqualification of Belgian Tom Steels, for throwing a water bottle at French rider Frederic Moncassin in the finishing sprint, and Uzbekistan sprinter Djamolidin Abdujaparov, who had failed a dope test on Stage 2. Also on this stage, Erik Zabel was relegated from first place to last for an illegal sprint and Cipollini abandoned after 30 minutes due to a knee injury sustained in a crash the day before. Zabel made amends for his loss the next day during the 195 km run from Marennes to Bordeaux with an easy win. McEwen’s fourth place was his fifth top-ten so far and as close as he would get to a win. But his complaint of a sore hamstring indicated he was at his limit, and he confirmed as much the next day: ‘I was stuffed. I just didn’t have it for the day.’ Everyone welcomed the arrival of the mountains, even the riders. The big guns aiming for overall victory were anxious to farewell the uncertainty of a reckless pack and assert their claim to the throne, and the sprinters (except for Zabel) and their henchmen were simply running out of puff after eight days of hectic bunch sprints. In the Pyrenees, Festina was the first to strike. In the 182 km 9th stage from Pau to Loudenvielle, Richard Virenque ordered his teammates to attack one after the other on a course that included four mountains— Col du Soulor, the 34 km long Col du Tourmalet, Col d’Aspin and Col de Val Louron-Azet. Virenque came in second behind his teammate Laurent Brochard. Vasseur still managed to hang on to the yellow jersey, but only by 13 seconds on Ullrich. • • •

It had been two years since Casartelli’s death on the Col de Portet d’Aspet, but it was still fresh in everyone’s minds. When the Tour

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stopped during Stage 10 from Luchon to Andorra at the monument marking the place where he had died, it was obvious his loss still hurt many riders. The memorial, on a narrow stretch of road, was as I had imagined, peaceful in its solitude. The monument—a marble sun dial marking the time Casartelli died—was beautiful. At 11.09 am the peloton, which had agreed not to attack before it reached this point, turned right and passed the corner where Casartelli and the four others crashed. It then pedalled a further 100 m to a painted message on the road that read ‘R.I.P Fabio’, and came to a stop next to the monument. Awaiting the peloton was Casartelli’s family, his wife and son Marco. The riders had asked for a minute’s silence, and Gian-Mateo Fagnini, one of Casartelli’s closest friends, dismounted his bike to touch the monument. Other riders hugged Casartelli’s family. Marco Pantani, who had a photo of Casartelli in his room, stayed on his bike: ‘I wanted to get off my bike and hug his parents but I was shaking too much. My legs would not have held me up.’ For Massimo Testa, the Motorola team doctor who was by Casartelli’s side in the helicopter when he died, the pain was abating. But it returned during that first week whenever he saw a crash or a rider take risks: ‘I get mad when I see riders racing without a helmet. I get mad when I see them take too many risks because I don’t think it’s worth it. Sometimes riders, when they are so focused on the race, they don’t even consider that a little mistake can have very critical consequences. About Fabio, for some time it was as if it never happened. It is like it was a nightmare. I live in his town and see his family quite regularly. I don’t feel bad any more, I feel it was his destiny. It was as if it was meant to happen. But when I see riders and his friends still remember him, even those who don’t know him, I realise how strong the impact was. That’s why I get angry when I see the riders take risks. They were so marked by what happened, but then they’ll act as if they didn’t learn anything from it. Coming to this Tour I couldn’t remember if it happened last year or if it was two years ago. I did the Tour when Fabio died in 1995 and couldn’t remember anything from last year. It is something really deep in the brain, and sometimes brings positive things, other times sad things.’

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Spills, but no thrills Each Rider crashes on average three times in the Tour and, as Neil Stephens explained, one of the main causes in 1997 was early race nerves: ‘All the guys riding for overall places tried to get to the front and all their guys are trying to get to the front as well. From a field of 190, you probably have about 130 guys trying to get to the front . . . on narrow roads not everyone gets there.’ So what if a rider crashes? There is a selfless but instinctive protocol to follow according to Stephens: ‘As you get up you feel to find if you have broken anything. What should be automatic is to make sure your bike is going and get back on it. Then when you are trying to rejoin the bunch, you make sure there is nothing seriously wrong. However, the most important thing is to get going first, not check yourself out. Then it depends on your role in the team. When I crashed in the first stage I thought, “Thank Christ, I’ve still got my helmet on”, and as people were crashing on top of me I realised I was okay and there was nothing wrong with me. I wanted to get up as quick as I could. I got up, grabbed my bike and looked around to see where my leaders were. My bike was stuffed, but I could have given them my wheels if they had needed them.’ But sadly, as the memorial to Casartelli on the Col de Portet d’Aspet will always remind Tour followers, there are times when the rider doesn’t get up at all.

• • •

Any hope that Ullrich’s time gain in the Pyrenees would flatten out before the Alps was silenced when the German won the 55 km Stage 12 time trial at Saint Etienne by more than three minutes. Festina had little choice but to throw everything it had at Ullrich, Rijs and their Telekom teammates. Ullrich surprised everyone again by attacking on Stage 13 when he dropped Virenque on l’Alpe d’Huez. Then on the 148 km 14th stage Virenque and Ullrich found themselves in the lead before the final ascent to the finish at Courchevel, where Virenque won. The French were euphoric, especially as Ullrich had sat on Virenque’s wheel to the summit. But the ease with which Ullrich followed was proof that the German was in full control. No one had told Virenque this, and he vowed to fight to the bitter end. And fight he did, on the 15th stage from Courchevel to Morzine, which

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included six mountain passes. Marco Pantani won the stage, but all eyes turned to Virenque and Ullrich as they rode the frightening and twisting descent to Morzine from the summit of the Col de Joux Plane. Ullrich’s tentativeness on the corners was evident, even though he reached the bottom safely with his lead still secure. By Stage 16 the Tour was as good as won for Ullrich, whose overall lead was 6 minutes 22 seconds over Virenque and 10 minutes 13 seconds over Pantani. • • •

As Festina charged headlong into the 1997 Tour it seemed Neil Stephens, who had joined the team on a deal reportedly worth US$250 000 a year, had landed on his feet. As well as having Virenque pressure Ullrich for the overall win, the team had already won three stages, the third going to Stephens on the 218 km 17th stage from Freiburg to Colmar. Stephens’ win was an immensely popular one. And it was not just because of its rarity—he was only the second Australian to win a Tour stage. It was also because it symbolised a victory for all domestiques. The French sports daily L’Equipe summed up the feeling in its page one headline the next day: ‘Stephens au nom des equipiers [Stephens in the name of domestiques]’. Stephens’ inclusion in a break of thirteen riders after 60 km on the third category Col de Pierre Pertuis laid the path to his success. Attacking, he instigated the break, and soon twelve riders were with him. With Ullrich’s yellow jersey safe, the break (representing thirteen teams) was never going to be caught, so with 5 km to go Stephens ignited several solo attacks, as did other riders in the break, aimed at testing their measure. He waited patiently before unleashing his last move with 3.5 km to go when he darted to the right of a sinewy stretch of road near the entry to Colmar and pedalled head down as if he were leading out a bunch sprint. But for once it was not a bunch sprint but a solo attack that would see him finally claim the stage win that had twice eluded him. He was thrilled: ‘This is the greatest win of my life. This is my sixth Tour, but over the years I have never been able to win a stage; or when I’ve had the odd chance, things have gone against me. It wasn’t until about 700 m to go that I really thought I could win. I attacked and thought the other

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guys would come back on me. Then in the last few kilometres there were some corners and painted pedestrian marks on the road which were slippery because of the rain. I was worried that something might go wrong, but it didn’t. Then I looked around and saw the others weren’t on me, and I finally realised that the finish line was closer to me than they were to me.’ He also understood where his place in Australian cycling history now lay. When asked if he knew who the last Australian stage winner was, he said with the broadest of grins: ‘Me . . . I just won half an hour ago.’ Stephens dedicated his win to his Spanish wife Amaia and five-monthold daughter Maaielen by swaying his arms as if he was rocking a baby. ‘After she [Maaielen] was born I said I would dedicate my next win to her . . . it’s just taken this long to win a race.’ As well as gaining a great sense of personal pride, his win provided $43 600 in prize money and bonuses for the team kitty, his 65 kg bodyweight in Couer de Lion cheese and a bicycle made of local chocolate. More importantly, however, Stephens would become a must-have rider for the post-Tour criteriums where he would be able to command an estimated fee of $12 000 to $15 000 for each of the hour-long races. The only person who was made to pay for Stephens’ success was me. In the VeloNews car with journalists from England, the United States and Australia, tradition was that if a rider from your country or a team registered from home won a stage or claimed the yellow jersey, you had to buy the champagne before dinner that night. I had got away cheaply until then. • • •

Almost losing it . . . Ullrich and me Believing we were at least 45 minutes ahead of the first Tour cars, we stopped at a picturesque farmhouse auberge in the Vosges for a glass or two of chilled Alsace beer straight from the tap when my mobile phone rang. It was ABC Radio in Sydney. Play in the Ashes between Australia and England at Lords had been postponed and commentator Jim Maxwell wanted to chat about the Tour in five minutes time.

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Looking at my now half empty beer glass, I found a seat in a shaded corner of the bar with my notes and local newspaper in hand ready to explain the sudden turn of events in Stage 18 that had Jan Ullrich on the brink of losing the Tour. Barely a minute had passed when I heard the blare of a siren, then another . . . and another. The Tour was already here! Sculling my beer and making a dash for the car, my telephone rang again. It was ABC Radio. ‘Jim Maxwell is ready . . . Rupert, you’re up after the break.’ Maxwell had already introduced me before I got to the car door, puffing and panting. By the time I was in the back seat I had already explained, ‘It’s on!’ Skidding on the gravel, we were quickly back on the course, not knowing how close the Tour really was other than suspecting it was right on our tail. Still out of breath, and with the noise of Radio Tour crackling updates in the background, I hadn’t had a chance to look behind me when Maxwell said it sounded like we were in the thick of the action, and asked me to tell Australia’s newest Tour de France audience just what was I seeing. I turned behind me. There was nothing, except the sight of rolling green pastures, the odd cow or two grazing and the disappearing horizon. Miraculously, despite my shock, I managed to describe what I thought we would be seeing if the race was actually on us, thanks to Radio Tour and quickly written notes from my colleagues Steve Wood and John Wilcockson. Somehow I finished the report, exhausted and relieved. And we were still nowhere near the race.

• • •

Festina’s fortune’s continued in Stage 18 from Colmar to Montbeliard when another domestique, Frenchmen Didier Rous, won the 175.5 km race with a solo attack 80 km from the finish. However, the team was also left wondering what might have been had other teams seized an opportunity that arose late in the stage to isolate Ullrich. Festina’s plan was to send riders on the attack in numerous waves, and to have them positioned up front and waiting for Virenque’s attack on Ullrich. Once Ullrich was dropped, the idea was that Virenque and his Festina charges would join forces with overall contenders from other teams to take as much time as possible on Ullrich. Festina’s real battle began on the 17.5 km-long ascent to the summit

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of the Grand Ballon where Virenque led a group away, leaving Ullrich in a second group with only German teammate Udo Bolts to help him. Virenque’s group got a maximum of 23 seconds lead before Ullrich rejoined them. But then Ullrich was dropped again on the Col de Hundsruck. The door had been opened to depose Ullrich, but it was abruptly shut again when Rijs helped the German by riding tempo for him and by providing moral support. The door was also shut up front when riders in the leading pack including Pantani, Abraham Olano and Fernando Escartin refused to collaborate with Virenque, even though they had taken 43 seconds on Ullrich. Why? Virenque was not a popular rider among his peers, so why ride to help him win the Tour? They preferred to see Ullrich win. The battle for the yellow jersey ended there with Ullrich finally managing to keep Virenque at bay. It was a tough ride for Ullrich, who was visibly tired and later admitted to feeling the strain: ‘Right now I’m really stressed by all the interviews I’ve been doing. I’m happy that the Tour is nearly finished and that we’ll arrive in Paris.’ Ullrich, Virenque and Pantani had booked their places on the podium in Paris. All that was left was the final stage to the Champs Elysees in Paris, where the sprinters would return to the fray and Australian Henk Vogels would come in third behind Italian Nicola Minali and German Erik Zabel for his first stage placing. The 1997 Tour de France podium 1. Jan Ullrich (Telekom/Germany) 3950 km in 100 hours 30 minutes 35 seconds (average speed 39.237 km/h) 2. Richard Virenque (Festina/France) at 9 minutes 9 seconds 3. Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno/Italy) at 14 minutes 3 seconds The Australians 54. Neil Stephens (Festina/France) at 2 hours 23 minutes 40 seconds (1 stage win) 62. Patrick Jonker (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 2 hours 33 minutes 38 seconds 99. Henk Vogels (GAN/France) at 3 hours 26 minutes 46 seconds 109. Stuart O’Grady (GAN/France) at 3 hours 55 minutes 56 seconds 117. Robbie McEwen (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 3 hours 45 minutes 47 seconds

1998 It’s been an unforgettable Tour. We’ve had two great stages in both the Pyrenees and the Alps, and of course this doping scandal which has poisoned the race. However, the Tour will arrive in Paris and will finish as have the 84 previous Tours. And it is thanks to the fifteen teams still in the race. —Jean-Marie Leblanc, Tour race director 11 July–2 August (3875 km): Dublin–Dublin (Prologue, Stage 1), Enniscorthy–Cork (Stage 2), Roscoff–Lorient (Stage 3), Plouay–Cholet (Stage 4), Cholet–Chateauroux (Stage 5), la Chatre–Brive (Stage 6), Merignac l’Eglise–Correze (Stage 7 individual time trial), Brive–Montauban (Stage 8), Montauban–Pau (Stage 9), Pau–Luchon (Stage 10), Luchon– Plateau de Beille (Stage 11), Tarascon sur Ariege–Cap d’Agde (Stage 12), Frontignan la Peyrade–Carpentras (Stage 13), Valreas–Grenoble (Stage 14), Grenoble–les Deux Alpes (Stage 15), Vizille–Albertville (Stage 16), Albertville–Aix les Bains (Stage 17), Aix les Bains–Neufchatel (Stage 18), la Chaux de Fonds–Autun (Stage 19), Montceau les Mines–le Creusot (Stage 20 individual time trial), Melun–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Shortly before the 1997 Tour finished, I asked everyone in our group how they would feel about my wife of seven months, Libby, joining us for the 1998 race start in Dublin. This was not an easy request, although attitudes had changed remarkably about the presence of women on the Tour. In my first Tour in 1987 there were just two women: a soigneur and a photographer. The next year, there was a journalist. The Tour was still very much a men’s club where the presence of women was treated with suspicion. Not so long before, riders had to seek special permission to see their wives or girlfriends during the race—even for a cup of coffee! Ten years on, the circumspection about bringing a partner or girlfriend to the Tour had more to do with what would happen should 121

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things go wrong than concerns about the Tour being seen as a holiday. It sounds selfish, but the Tour doesn’t stop for anyone. For all its romance as a sporting event, it is not an event made for romance. And for those working on the race for three weeks every year, the people closest to you are those with whom you share elbow-to-elbow space in sweaty and humid press rooms, in small rental cars and, more often than not, drab broken-down hotels where double bookings are not uncommon and four or five people can end up sharing a room. Libby did start the Tour with me in 1998, but I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams—or nightmares—how the race would unfold, and how it would be marred by the biggest doping scandal the sport had ever seen. La joie de . . . Irish craic Dublin was as different a place to begin a Tour as anywhere. Ireland had been chosen because the Tour start clashed with the FIFA World Cup final that France was hosting—and eventually won. Equally important to Tour organisers was the money Ireland paid for the right to become the first non-European host to stage the ‘grand depart’—a package that included a week of pre-race build-up, a live television presentation of every team on race eve, the Prologue in Dublin, Stage 1 in Dublin and Stage 2 from Enniscorthy to Cork. The days before were a celebration in true Irish style. There were presentations, receptions and dinners at halls, malls, hotels and castles. The feats of Irish cyclists Stephen Roche, Sean Kelly and Martin Earley, who won a stage in 1989, were championed. Not so the career of Paul Kimmage, who started the Tour in 1986, 1987 and 1989, but was more widely known for his book A Rough Ride exposing the use of drugs in cycling. He had touched too many nerves about the issue. The only raw nerves I was touching were the result of a little too much enthusiasm for Guinness family history and its black ale.

• • •

The bombshell came out of the blue. At first it was an innocuous news dispatch: a soigneur with the French Festina team had been caught by customs officers at the Belgian–French border with a stash of drugs in a team car. The soigneur, a Belgian named Willy Voet, was so far away

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from Dublin that nobody made the connection to the Tour. When it was then revealed that his stash included 100 phials of anabolic steroids, 250 phials of EPO and human growth hormones (HGH), syringes and other unidentified drugs, it became clear to all that what was breaking was the biggest doping scandal in cycling history. Tour organisers hastily called a press conference to address the question of what action they would take—if any was warranted—against the Festina team, which included three overall Tour contenders—Richard Virenque, Alex Zulle and Laurent Dufaux—and one Australian, Neil Stephens. There were more questions from the media than answers from race director Jean-Marie Leblanc. His first response was: ‘We must remain calm until things have been cleared up. It could be a distant incident unconcerned with the riders of the race. We don’t want to throw out a whole team from the race unjustly based on an emotional decision.’ The Festina team, meanwhile, declared its innocence. Team manager Bruno Roussel said: ‘I know nothing about this. It had better be a bad joke.’ Stephens’ first reaction was: ‘All I know is that the masseur was sent to collect protein and water replacement drips and other medicines that we would use for the mountain stages.’ Voet’s arrest was but the tip of the iceberg. • • •

The last moment of calm on the 1998 Tour was on the evening of 13 July as we slipped out from Cork on the ferry for an overnight voyage to Roscoff, where Stage 3 would start. From the top deck of the ferry we looked out to an orange sun setting behind the silhouette of the Emerald Isle. The Tour had begun and there were winners. English time trial specialist Chris Boardman won the Prologue for the third time in his career and became the first yellow jersey wearer. The Belgian sprinter Tom Steels won the 180 km first stage in Dublin from German Erik Zabel and Robbie McEwen, whose finish was hampered by his lead-out man pulling his own foot from the pedal with 500 m to go, slowing and thus costing the Australian vital momentum. Not that McEwen was satisfied with his third place: ‘There is never a good third place. I am a winner and I like winning, not coming third.’ Then Czech champion Jan

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Svorada tasted victory at McEwen’s expense on Stage 2 from Enniscorthy to Cork. McEwen was feeling even worse for his second place in the bunch sprint, saying it ‘was even more frustrating to get closer to the win and not get one’. But the French had cause for cheer: back in Paris, Les Bleus had beaten Brazil to win the football World Cup. But as the ferry chugged across the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, in the back of most minds was the Festina scandal and what would be awaiting the Tour when it arrived ‘home’. The answer came as Roscoff and the French police car parked near the dock came into view. The gendarmes were waiting to take Bruno Roussel away for questioning. • • •

The brain game Good legs, a big heart, cunning tactical sense and a strong team are not always enough to win the Tour, or even snare a spell in the leader’s yellow jersey. To get the lowest accrued time needed, riders also have to be good mathematicians. For without even winning a stage or gaining real time on a rival, until they were stopped in the 2008 Tour, a rider’s position could still come down to time bonuses, which would be deducted from the overall times. Time bonuses of 6, 4 and 2 seconds were awarded at intermediate sprints and 20, 12 and 8 seconds at stage finishes (except in time trials) to the first three riders who crossed the line. It always amazed me how riders could calculate the positions they needed in any number of scenarios to take the yellow jersey while racing at breakneck speed and, for the most part, on the threshold of absolute agony. The decision to not award bonuses in 2008 was welcomed though and by no one more than me, who was never good at mathematics while sitting down in a classroom, let alone in a media car or on a bicycle saddle!

Stuart O’Grady set himself up to take the yellow jersey on Stage 3 from Roscoff to Lorient, a lightning fast 169 km stage through Brittany that was raced at an average speed of 47.471 km/h. And had his plan for that day gone as expected, he would have been in the lead. But his bluff not to contest the second intermediate sprint and instead feign fatigue, hoping it would allow him to launch an attack with five kilometres to go and thus bagging the time bonus he needed to take the yellow, failed: ‘I am

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disappointed because my attack with five kilometres to go wasn’t enough. In the sprint I was at my limit. It didn’t quite come off, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.’ He did, however, move from 26th overall to third that day and boldly declared: ‘I’m not too far away [from the lead], so tomorrow I’ll be playing for the same time bonuses.’ And play he did, on Stage 4 from Plovay to Cholet. Despite placing 39th and finishing eight seconds behind the day’s winner, and getting caught in a crash with two kilometres to go, he won the battle for time bonuses over American George Hincapie to take yellow. The pressure was intense: ‘I slept about an hour and a half. I was spewing from the day before. I would have been much happier to have been in yellow yesterday. Today, everything went to plan except for the crash in the last two kilometres.’ His joy could not be contained as he stepped off the winner’s podium: ‘Not bad for a freckly red-headed bastard from Adelaide. It’s bloody awesome. All I have ever dreamed of since I was a kid was wearing the yellow jersey. I don’t care for how long I have got it. Even if it’s only for one hour, it’s mine for the rest of my life.’ O’Grady’s excitement was also felt by the three other Australian riders in the Tour—McEwen, Neil Stephens and Patrick Jonker. Stephens even helped: ‘We’re doing 70 km/h,’ O’Grady explained, ‘and I was thinking about what Neil told me, to be really careful 10 km from the finish. He was staying around me, looking after me as if I were on the same team. He did all the work to get me back up to the front, along with my teammate Magnus Backstedt. But there was so much camaraderie there between the Aussies. Neil, Robbie and Patrick all kept coming up to me after the [intermediate] sprint asking, “How did you go?” They were sitting up the back, but freaking out just as much as I was.’ In Australia, people were ‘freaking out’ as well as the country awoke to hear the news. The story led most news bulletins and even made the front pages of the major newspapers. O’Grady’s parents, Brian and Fay, sister Leslie and brother Darren were inundated with calls, the first, fittingly, coming from O’Grady himself at 2 am to tell them what had happened. How long O’Grady could keep the yellow was uncertain. He is not a climber and was never considered an overall contender. At best, he

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was fancied as a chance to keep the lead until the 52 km Stage 7 time trial when the Tour favourites such as defending champion German Jan Ullrich would come to the fore. He could have lost it the next day—Stage 5—when he crashed again on a route marred by wind and sleet. Managing a wry smile as he crossed the finish line in 16th place with a cut right elbow and knee that would need stitching and a grazed hip, O’Grady declared: ‘It was a pretty average day. But I’m happy I’ve still got the yellow jersey.’ The one disappointment for O’Grady and his French team GAN was that his reign in yellow was overshadowed by the unfolding Festina affair, with police interrogating Roussel and team medico Dr Erik Ryckaert. Wearing the yellow jersey traditionally means millions of dollars worth of publicity for the rider, his team and their sponsors, but with the Festina affair O’Grady’s moment in the sun became secondary news. It upset GAN team manager Roger Legeay: ‘What is happening—the feats of the yellow jersey in the Tour de France are being relatively ignored because of this issue—is total injustice.’ Legeay’s furore fell on deaf ears. The next day’s edition of L’Equipe ran only six lines on O’Grady who, as the race leader, would be the last to start the 58 km Stage 7 time trial from Merignac l’Eglise to Correze. O’Grady put up a superb attempt to defend the jersey, losing by only 3 minutes 17 seconds to Ullrich instead of an expected eight minutes. ‘I gave it absolutely everything. To lose only three minutes to Ullrich is not too bad an effort after the last few days I’ve had. It took me a while to get going. In the first 20 km I was going at a good pace, but not really on top of it: you were never on the flat; you were going up and down, or turning a corner. It was a pretty extraordinary time trial. It was on the hard climb [to 34 km] when I started to get into a good rhythm and really start pumping the big gears. From 30 km to go, that’s when I started feeling really good.’ Even after losing the yellow jersey, O’Grady had not lost the buzz: ‘Putting on the maillot jaune and standing on top of the podium and receiving it. You just can’t beat it.’ • • •

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The six lines on Stuart O’Grady in the 18 July edition of L’Equipe was unfair to him and his team, but it was not surprising considering the dramatic turn of events in the Festina scandal, beginning with the team’s expulsion from the Tour after Roussel, Voet and Ryckaert were charged by police for trafficking drugs. The catalyst for the team’s expulsion was a statement from Roussel’s lawyer in which the team manager implicated his riders, stating that the systematic use of drugs in the team was organised by the team’s management, staff and riders. Tour organisers deliberated for three hours before handing down their judgment, but even then they could not have imagined the drama that would unfold the next day. Six of the nine Festina riders, including Virenque, voted to ignore their expulsion and planned to race the Stage 7 time trial as individuals. Neil Stephens opposed the plan. As his teammates left the hotel, he remained in his room until they were out of sight, then went downstairs where his brother Brian waited to drive him back to his home at Orliatzun in Spain’s Basque country. It was galling that Virenque and the other five Festina riders believed they could ignore the Tour organisation. Not only had the scandal marred France’s World Cup celebrations, but the Virenque-led defiance was poised to embarrass French president Jacques Chirac, who was to be at the stage finish in his wife’s home town. Jean-Marie Leblanc managed to cut the Festina riders off by meeting them in the Chez Gillou cafe, in Correze, near the stage finish. The disgraced Festina riders sat in a back room separated from the bar area by French windows, planning their demands. It was hot, humid, cramped and smelly. The longer they waited, the more anxious they grew. When Leblanc finally arrived, he entered the cafe without stopping and stormed into the tiny room where the six riders were waiting. As he strode by, all he said was: ‘If they insist on racing, their times won’t be taken and it will be a charade. They are out of the race period.’ After the meeting, Leblanc left as quickly as he arrived. The Festina riders remained behind closed doors for another fifteen minutes before allowing the media in. Then in one of the most pathetic scenes of any Tour, a teary-eyed Virenque tried to convince the world that the Festina riders were victims: ‘We have decided to quit the Tour after all the pressure

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we are getting from left and right. The guilty ones have been arrested. We are only witnesses in this affair. However, for sport, for cycling, for the Tour de France, we quit the Tour to allow a place for cycling to play its role. For our part, it’s very difficult. For me personally as a favourite for the Tour, and for my riders, to leave the Tour is very hard. At the start, there wasn’t just sporting opposition, but opposition from the media—I won’t say all—who were against us. The pressure got heavier and finally it was no longer possible to live with.’ What Virenque seemed to have forgotten is that they had already been kicked off the race ‘period’. He did not leave the race of his own will. • • •

The French returned their attention to the Tour in the 190.5 km 8th stage from Brive to Montauban when their countryman Jacky Durand won and Laurent Desbiens took the race lead from Ullrich. Although headlines were still ablaze with reports about the Festina scandal, it was clear that Virenque’s plea of innocence and claims of wrongdoing by Tour organisers had touched the public’s nerve. The hilly, sinewy route from Brive through the regions of the Correze, the Dordogne and the Tarn to Montauban were littered with banners protesting the team’s expulsion and supporting its riders. Attention remained on Roussel, Ryckaert and Voet five days from their first court appearance on drug trafficking charges and the mounting expectations that the five French riders on the Festina team—Virenque, Laurent Brochard, Pascal Herve, Christophe Moreau and Didier Rous— would all be called in for questioning. As the Tour headed towards the Pyrenees on the 9th stage from Montauban to Pau, evidence against the three charged Festina team staff members continued to mount—including allegations by Ryckaert’s lawyer that Festina riders had contributed a share of their ‘primes’ or bonuses to a slush fund to buy banned drugs. Meanwhile, it had been reported that EPO had been found by French customs in a car of the Dutch TVM team at a race in March. While not a Tour organisation event, it was a revelation that further harmed the race as it entered the Pyrenees on Stage 10 from Pau to Luchon. The stage was a thrilling one, though. With 20 km to go, Ullrich set a ferocious tempo

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at the front of the main bunch on the Col de Peyresourde, the last of four climbs, that left everyone gasping. Pantani responded by attacking with 3 km to go on the climb when there were only two riders from an initial three-man day-long break between him and the stage win. While Pantani finished 33 seconds ahead of Ullrich, it was not good enough to stop the German from taking the yellow jersey. All of Festina’s Tour riders had now been called in for questioning by police, with the possibility that another eleven riders and ten staff members could be summoned as well, even though at this point no Festina riders had been charged or suspended from racing under UCI anti-doping laws. Roussel accepted blame for his team’s situation, but in a statement said: ‘It is incumbent on me as team director to assume responsibility for everything, including that which I neither saw nor knew about.’ The TVM issue developed as well. The UCI told the Dutch federation to investigate the case and Tour organisers said if its riders were shown to have taken EPO, then the team would be expelled too. This did not sway Pantani from his siege on Ullrich’s Tour lead, though. He won the 170 km 11th stage from Luchon to Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees, but downplayed his odds of winning the Tour: ‘Anything is possible, but when I think of the overall classification it reminds me of the pressure I had at the Giro. It gives me a headache, and I am starting to feel that stress again.’ • • •

Any hope that the worst of the Festina affair was now history was shot to pieces on the morning of the 12th stage with news that Brochard, Moreau and Swiss rider Arman Meier had confessed to using EPO. Then in a radio interview Meier accused the police of treating the riders poorly. His claims angered the Tour riders, especially Laurent Jalabaert, who took the microphone from Jean-Marie Leblanc before the stage start to tell the Tour entourage of the riders’ fury. Jalabert said no rider, no matter what the circumstances, deserved to be treated like an ‘animal’. He also attacked what the peloton saw as excessive focus on the controversy by the media. Some riders responded by suggesting the Tour should be stopped

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then and there. After a two hour showdown, the stage resumed and was won by Belgian Tom Steels in a sprint. The peloton’s anger was further triggered by French television showing a reporter rummaging through rubbish bins at team hotels in search of needles and empty ampoules. But it was naive for the UCI, Tour organisers and the peloton to believe attention on the issue would stop by them threatening to not answer media questions about the doping problems—which is exactly what they did after a behind-closed-door meeting before the 196 km 13th stage. UCI vice-president Daniel Baal released the following statement: ‘We are not going to make any more comments or answer questions about doping. We will only talk about sport and cycling—the Tour de France. That’s what we are here for.’ • • •

Amidst all the uncertainty of the Festina scandal, one aspect not clouded by doubt was Stephens’ experience of being held ‘en garde a vue’ by French police in Lyon. When he left jail after his ordeal, he was close to tears. There were no cheers from the crowd. There were no fans seeking his autograph. The only signature asked from him during his 36 hours behind bars was for a pained confession recognising that he had unknowingly been administered illegal drugs, including EPO, by Festina team medico Ryckaert. It was the worst day of his fourteen year professional career and, ironically, one year to the day after his greatest: ‘When I signed the confession I saw the date. July 23 [the day he won Stage 17 in the 1997 Tour]. That nearly broke me up . . . one year after the happiest day of my career and here I am in the saddest.’ The events that followed his arrival at police headquarters in Lyon from his home in Orliatzun in Spain were harrowing. Entering his 4 x 4 m prison cell, he recalled: ‘There was no toilet, water or window, only a wooden bed without a pillow. The walls were covered in names written, or smeared on, with human faeces. We were told straight away that we would be held for 24 hours and if they didn’t get the information they wanted, then we would be held for longer. I wasn’t allowed a phone call, and told that if we were held for 48 hours, then we could make a one

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minute call. I was stunned. I went there voluntarily. My lawyer said we were only going as witnesses.’ He was interrogated twice by French police, the first time for eleven hours, and ordered to strip. Then ‘they took me downstairs. I had urine, blood and hair samples taken. Next I was given a full body search. I had to open my fingers, open my mouth, lift my tongue, lift my nuts and even bend over so a copper could look up my arse.’ What were police looking for? Information and evidence relating to drug trafficking charges against Roussel, Ryckaert and Voet, and information that might implicate him—not as a criminal, but as a cyclist who had raced under the influence of illegal drugs he said he thought were vitamins C and E. He was not prepared for the treatment he got later: ‘We were told that we were being remanded straight away. Then later, when we had to strip, they wouldn’t even let me have my handkerchief. They said I had no rights. The next day I asked for some medication for a stomach ulcer I have. They didn’t have it but gave me some anti-acid stuff and asked if I wanted to eat something. All they gave me was a three-day old brioche and some rotten coffee.’ One night and another interrogation later, Stephens cracked. The strain was too much. He accepted the evidence before him: ‘I understood most of the questions. Yet while I still had a translator with me, I never really could figure out what they were trying to get from me. I tried to clarify the situation, but then pushed and pushed . . . ‘I asked, “What do you want me to say? Just tell me.” I just wanted to get out of there, but they kept pressing me . . . telling me, “This is nothing. If you think this is bad, we can keep you here for another three days like this.” Finally, I gave what they wanted.’ Stephens, whose contract with the team required him to ‘agree to the medical philosophy of the team’, put pen to paper and confessed that Ryckaerts had administered EPO to him. As the last Festina rider interrogated, he walked away to pick up the pieces of his career and life: ‘I was worried about returning home. I was relieved to have got out. I didn’t take anything deliberately. It was given to me without me knowing what it was. I knew I was clear but felt terrible. I was also worried about how people would regard me. I heard that the riders who live in Switzerland

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and Germany had copped a lot of flak, that cars stopped, people wound down their windows and yellowed abuse. Thankfully, that was not the case for me in Spain. Most importantly, it is the reaction in Australia that I am concerned about.’ • • •

Stuart O’Grady became one of the stars of an otherwise tainted Tour by winning the 186.5 km 14th stage from Valreas to the foot of the Alps at Grenoble by the width of a wheel rim. He beat five riders in a magnificent dash to the line that showed all of his trademark courage. He couldn’t hide his elation after joining Phil Anderson and Neil Stephens as the only Australians to win a Tour stage: ‘The Tour de France has been like Disneyland for me . . . bloody fantastic. You come to the Tour with two dreams, two dreams that for most cyclists take a whole career to even come close to achieving—wearing the yellow jersey and winning a stage. Here I am, in my second Tour. And I’ve done both. I just can’t believe it.’ O’Grady was one of the most aggressive riders in a break made up of six riders from six nationalities that contained no threats to the overall classification. When he joined it after 52 km on a course of twisting roads and hills, he knew he was seen as the biggest threat because of his sprint, but was ready for attacks: ‘I knew I was the one they had to beat in the sprint. I knew they were going to work me. There were some sore legs out there and a heap of mind games going on.’ The attacks came as soon as the breakaway hit a flat 10 km stretch into Grenoble. Three came in the last 5 km. Each time a rider attacked, O’Grady chased. He should have been spent by the effort for the sprint: ‘Some of the guys started playing games [stalling], so I quickly positioned myself where I wanted to be. The Saeco guy [Giuseppe Calcaterra] then went up the left, so I quickly jumped on his wheel. I knew as soon as I drew up alongside him that I would win. I knew I could throw myself across the line well. It’s something I learned from track racing. I’ve won so many races in those conditions.’ And while O’Grady knew he would have heavy legs for the Alps, he had no regrets: ‘Over the last 20 km you can’t help but look at all the people cheering. It really motivates you. You also pray that it’s your day.

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The whole atmosphere just gets you going. I don’t know what is possible. I know I can win Tour stages. I know I can wear the yellow jersey. I am finding out so many things about me on this Tour. I think Australian cycling is finding out a lot of things about itself too.’ • • •

Marco Pantani emerged as the likely Tour winner by taking Stage 15, the first Alpine stage from Grenoble to les Deux Alpes, and the yellow jersey from Ullrich in a brilliant display of cycling. For a man whose career nearly ended in 1995 when he was hit by a car while racing and almost had his leg amputated, he had now set himself up to become the first Italian Tour champion since Felice Gimondi in 1965. Pantani launched his decisive move 10 km from the summit of the 20 km Col du Galibier—the third of four giant passes. ‘It was not planned,’ he said. ‘There had been several attacks already; it was more or less my turn. When I saw I was away, I just thought: “Why not go . . . all the way as hard as I can.”’ His bravado warmed the hearts of thousands of fans who waited on the Galibier summit in cold, wet and windy conditions for up to five hours to see the race pass. They got what they wanted. Pantani went over the top 2 minutes 50 seconds ahead of Ullrich’s group, and the perilous descent into a fog-filled valley made it even harder for him to be caught. By the time the race reached the bottom there had been plenty of crashes [one with American Bobby Julich] and the field had been decimated as Pantani raced away to take time on everyone. Suddenly, the Tour had been turned up on its end, although no one told Ullrich, who responded by winning Stage 16 from Vizille to Albertville. The sight of Ullrich bursting from a 22-man group on the last of five climbs for the day—the 20 km Col de la Madeleine—was in stark contrast to the previous day when he struggled to the summit of les Deux Alpes. This time, he leapt from the right of the pack with his legs spinning like an egg beater—only Pantani could follow him to the top of the mountain at 2000 m and down for 44 km to the finish. After, Ullrich appeared resigned to Pantani winning the Tour: ‘He’s in excellent form. He’s a real winner . . . winner of the next Tour de France.’

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• • •

The 1998 Tour resumed its farcical way during Stage 17 from Albertville to Aix les Bains. The peloton suddenly stopped after about 32 km in protest over the investigation of the TVM team, a raid on the team hotel and the night-time drug tests of its riders after Stage 16. Four riders taken for tests were not released until close to midnight and, as with the Festina team, their release was met by claims of poor treatment by the police. ‘The riders are fed up,’ said Pantani. So fed up, Jalabert and his ONCE teammates did not continue the race when it resumed twenty minutes later. A number of other riders agreed to ride on, but not race, only after taking off their race numbers. Organisers declared the stage as null and void. The Tour itself was on the brink of being abandoned. But even when the race got back under way—and not without argument between riders over what action should be taken—the Banesto and Rislotto teams also withdrew. This, however, did nothing to deter police action. After the 17th stage, the King of the Mountains Rodolfo Massi, French cyclist Vincent Lavenu, Mark Madiot (who was the sports director of the La Francaise des Jeux team) and the ONCE team doctor were all arrested. Going into the 218 km 18th stage, the Tour was still hanging by a thread of hope that all of the remaining teams would stay in the race to the finish in Paris. Jean-Marie Leblanc tried to appease riders by saying he would do all he could to ensure police investigations were more respectful, although riders’ spokesman Bjarne Rijs warned: ‘Everyone in the race wants to make it to Paris, but if police come to our hotel tonight then tomorrow it’s home.’ TVM took up the threat and indeed went ‘home’ following what was an aggressively raced Stage 18. All that stood between Pantani and overall victory were three inconsequential stages: the 19th stage from la Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland to Autun, the 52 km Stage 20 time trial from Montceau les Mines to le Creusot, and the 21st stage from Melun to the Champs Elysees, where O’Grady was thrilled to be in the hunt for another stage win: ‘To come round that last corner and see a few hundred thousand people cheering for you is great.’ After all that had happened, his passion for the Tour had clearly not been dented.

1998

The 1998 Tour de France podium 1. Marco Pantani (Mercatone Uno/Italy) 3875 km in 92 hours 49 minutes 46 seconds (average speed 39.983 km/h) 2. Jan Ullrich (Telekom/Germany) at 3 minutes 21 seconds 3. Bobby Julich (Cofidis/USA) at 4 minutes 8 seconds The Australians 38. Patrick Jonker (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 1 hour 16 minutes 49 seconds 54. Stuart O’Grady (GAN/France) at 1 hour 46 minutes 4 seconds (1 stage win, 3 days in yellow, 2nd on points for green) 89. Robbie McEwen (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 2 hours 36 minutes 32 seconds DNF. Neil Stephens (Festina/France) disqualified Stage 7

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1999 I’ve been on the death bed and I am not stupid. France is a country that is very strict on doping . . . from a [national] federation standpoint, a race standpoint and a police standpoint. I live in France. I race all year in France. I did my Tour de France preparation in France. I did training camps in France. I am always in France. If I had anything to hide I think I’d stay away from France. —Lance Armstrong 3–25 July (3686 km): le Puy du Fou–le Puy du Fou (Prologue), Montaigu– Challans (Stage 1), Challans–Saint Nazaire (Stage 2), Nantes–Laval (Stage 3), Laval–Blois (Stage 4), Bonneval–Amiens (Stage 5), Amiens–Maubeuge (Stage 6), Avesnes sur Helpe–Thionville (Stage 7), Metz–Metz (Stage 8 individual time trial), le Grand Bornand–Sestrieres (Stage 9), Sestrieres– l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 10), Bourg d’Oisans–Saint Etienne (Stage 11), Saint Galmier–Saint Flour (Stage 12), Saint Flour–Albi (Stage 13), Castres–Saint Gaudens (Stage 14), Saint Gaudens–Pau Engaly (Stage 15), Lannemezan– Pau (Stage 16), Mourenx–Bordeaux (Stage 17), Jonzac–Futuroscope (Stage 18), Futuroscope–Futuroscope (Stage 19 individual time trial), Arpajon– Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

As everyone gathered in le Puy du Fou for the 1999 Tour de France start, many in the race entourage anticipated the sound of police sirens rather than the whistles of race officials. Memories of the 1998 Tour were still raw: from the Festina team expulsion and police raids and arrests to the rider protests and go slows that nearly brought the Tour to its knees before the finish. And despite initial hopes that some good would come from all the bad of 1998—that the problem of doping would be addressed—the spate of drug scandals in early 1999 indicated that the cheats had not heeded the warnings. 136

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It was expected the authorities would step up the search for drug users and dealers who were probably using more finesse in their methods than had been revealed in the book Massacre a la Chaine by Willy Voet, the Belgian masseur whose arrest before the 1998 race start led to the Festina scandal. Stuart O’Grady, one of the five Australian riders in the 1999 Tour with Robbie McEwen, Patrick Jonker, Jay Sweet and Henk Vogels, described Voet’s ‘warts-and-all’ exposé of doping in the peloton as horrific: ‘It’s what you’d see in a gangster movie. Maybe I was being naive, but it’s stuff I thought wouldn’t happen. If it’s true, it’s pretty scary. I can’t understand people pushing the limits that far for success.’ However, week after week in 1999 there were doping scandals, the biggest being the expulsion of defending Tour champion Marco Pantani from the Giro d’Italia for an excessive hematocrit level in a blood test taken two days before the finish. He was not alone. Jan Ullrich and Bjarne Rijs, the 1997 and 1996 Tour winners, faced allegations from the German magazine Der Spiegel of systematic doping in their Telekom team. Neither started the Tour. Ullrich cited a knee injury that led him to quit the Tour of Switzerland, and Rijs a broken arm from a crash in the same race. Meanwhile, the world No. 1 ranked rider Laurent Jalabert had refused to race in his homeland of France since leading his ONCE team off the Tour in 1998 in protest of the treatment of riders. While losing patience with the constant publicity on doping, O’Grady applauded the pursuit of drug cheats: ‘It’s bad for the short term, but at least they’re finding people playing with stuff they shouldn’t. If they’re still going over the limit of the [hematocrit] level they must be cheating. They have to kick the Pantanis out to make them [cheats] jump, or it’ll get out of control.’ There was still a stench about measures taken against some of those cheats such as Richard Virenque, leader of the disgraced Festina team, who was now on the Italian Polti team after his six month suspension. The Tour race organisers had initially banned him, but the UCI overruled the decision and allowed him to start in a move that astounded everyone except Virenque and his fans. The UCI ruling only landed the Tour in more hot water as other teams and banned riders came out, saying they were prepared to seek

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compensation for missing out on the biggest event of the cycling year. One such team was the Italian Vini Caldirola team of Australian Matt White, who was yet to race the Tour. Its invitation was withdrawn when leader Sergei Gonchar failed a blood test. Suspicion surrounded the UCI’s lily-livered stand on the Virenque matter. Was it the fear of legal threats by Virenque? Was it the possible loss of a major sponsor in Polti? Had the pressure of television, which needed a revered rider like Virenque to get ratings, grown so strong that the UCI had no choice but to buckle? Or, was there a belief in the UCI that there was such a shallow pool of talent in France that the four times King of the Mountains and yellow jersey contender was needed for the sport’s marquee event to be considered a success? There was even a suggestion that it was all part of a hidden agenda of sabotage by the French political Left. After all, it was the leftist sports minister MarieGeorge Buffet who sent the Tour organisation, thought to be allied to the Right, spiralling into its gravest crisis by ordering the police raids on team hotels during the previous year’s Tour. With Virenque starting under a cloud of suspicion, it was argued police would have cause to continue the hard-line tactics. The Tour did feel the pinch. Crowds dropped in 1999 as the race became labelled by cynics as a sideshow rather than a legitimate sporting event. However, with neither Ullrich, Rijs or Pantani in the Tour, the race was destined to finish with a new winner, and that was some cause for hope. Several names emerged as likely successors to Pantani, but it was Lance Armstrong, who had won his battle against testicular cancer to race again, who would change the Tour forever. • • •

When Armstrong reached Paris on 25 July his victory was lauded as one of the greatest comebacks in sport. To cycling fans, it was up there with Greg LeMond’s return from his near-fatal shooting in 1987. To general sports fans, it was on par with golfer Ben Hogan’s revival to win three US Opens after suffering horrific injuries in a 1951 car crash, or with Formula 1 star Niki Lauda’s survival after a crash in the German Grand Prix in 1976.

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Armstrong’s win also started his seven year reign as Tour champion that would polarise many in the sport, despite all the good he brought to cancer awareness. Either way, for Armstrong it opened the floodgates to an incredible and very new source of wealth, starting with the renewal of his contract with the US Postal team for two more years at an estimated US$1 million a year. Add to that the US$35 000 starting fee he was able to command for the one-hour post-Tour criteriums, and the huge sponsorship deals which were estimated at being well into six figures. Armstrong earns far, far more today, but at the time his new wealth from the turnabout of his fortunes was a rich seed for what was to come. His win was remarkable considering he had been given a 20 per cent chance of living after his cancer spread to his abdomen, chest and brain. It was inevitable, however, that there would be suspicions at a time when cycling was plagued by so many doping scandals. Armstrong realised that whoever won the 1999 Tour, which had been dubbed the ‘Tour du Redemption’, would have high expectations to live up to: ‘It’s difficult because fifteen to twenty years ago I wouldn’t be alive, much less riding a bike, or starting the Tour de France, or even leading it. I can understand it and [that] whoever wins the Tour next year will have the same burden and responsibility.’ That meant scrutiny over the legitimacy of his win. Americans and many non-Europeans championed his feat, but in Europe—particularly in France—there were doubts. The revelation that he failed to admit he had a medical certificate to use cream that contained corticoids to treat a saddle sore didn’t help his case. Armstrong responded by saying that if he doped, he wouldn’t live in Nice on the French Riviera—as he and his wife Kristen did—or spend so much time racing and training in France where anti-doping measures were hardline: ‘I’ve been on the death bed and I am not stupid. France is a country that is very strict on doping . . . from a [national] federation standpoint, a race standpoint and a police standpoint. I live in France. I race all year in France. I did my Tour de France preparation in France. I did training camps in France. I am always in France. If I had anything to hide I think I’d stay away from France.’

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• • •

Armstrong heralded his return to the Tour by winning the 6.8 km Prologue at le Puy de Fou in western France. He had been expected to do well in light of his fourth place in the Vuelta a Espana in September 1998 and his fourth in the world time trial championship. His win handed the race organisers a dream start. By becoming the first American to wear the yellow jersey since LeMond in 1991, they knew their race was suddenly the platform for one of the biggest ever comeback stories in sport. Armstrong modestly embraced the frenzy of excitement: ‘I can only take credit for what I do on the bike. I can’t take credit for the work done by the medical community and my doctors. They were the ones who discovered a cure and put me back together. I know it will be a perfect example for all cancer patients that life goes on. Hopefully, I can prove that it’s possible to return to a normal professional life. Maybe I can prove that it’s possible to be better than you were before. I think that I am a better bike rider than I was. Certainly, I am a better person.’ But Armstrong didn’t waste the opportunity to defend the Tour against its image problems: ‘To assume everyone is doped in cycling is bullshit. To do something as hard as the Tour, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t love it. It’s a beautiful race that’s been around for 86 years . . . and not for bad reasons, [but for] good reasons. We have to fall back with cycling and we should start now.’ Stuart O’Grady, meanwhile, began the Tour intent on an all-out attempt to win the green jersey competition, in which he placed second to Erik Zabel the year before. He was not a pure sprinter, but could read a sprint excellently and had enough speed to give the pure bolters some real headaches. He also had the natural stamina developed through his earlier days as a track endurance rider to be up in the fray of the finishing bunch and intermediate sprints, which all offered time bonuses. He made a solid start by coming in fourth on the 209 km first stage from Montaigu to Challans. However, as much as his all-round attributes helped to make up for what he lacked in pure speed, he conceded that is was not easy against the

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likes of Zabel, Estonian Jan Kirsipuu, Tom Steels and fellow Australian Robbie McEwen: ‘It’s kind of hard being an all-rounder. You have to be here, there and everywhere. Also, in the start of the Tour, there’s a whole lot of [nervous] thoughts going through your mind. I’ll just be happy to get the first few days out of the way.’ The first stage finish reminded O’Grady of the unpredictability in bunch sprinting, too. It was crash-free, but extraordinarily chaotic due to the sweeping left-hand bend with 400 m to go which caught out most teams as they set up their sprinters for a winning dash to the line. O’Grady’s team was affected by the mayhem. His lead-out riders, Henk Vogels and Magnus Backstedt, rode themselves into the ground to try and get him positioned perfectly but he was caught on the other side of the road, adrift of their slipstream. ‘If Stuey had been on our wheel,’ Vogels said, ‘he would have won for sure.’ While Steels won the second stage from Challans to Saint Nazaire in Brittany, Kirsipuu’s second place on the stage in a bunch sprint saw him take the yellow jersey from Armstrong. This forced O’Grady to re-evaluate his tactics. He finished an exhausted ninth on the stage, was second to Kirsipuu in all three intermediate sprints and was now placed third overall at 22 seconds. But his fatigue was a reminder that there were still eighteen stages to go, and if he continued to chase points at every sprint he may not reach Paris, let alone contend for the green jersey: ‘If I go on like this I’ll never make it to Paris. I’ll probably have to take a step back and prepare to go on the attack. Kirsipuu’s team may try to chase me down, but maybe a move with a couple of kilometres to go will pull something off.’ O’Grady was not throwing in the towel. As he showed the previous year with his Stage 14 win into Grenoble, he could stay the distance. And Kirsipuu, while on song, had yet to finish a Tour from five starts. • • •

The best seat in the house for the Tour de France is to ride pillion on an official motorbike. Photographers, television cameramen, radio reporters, race medicos and officials are allocated places, but two spots are saved to be rotated among press journalists.

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You can be 100 metres away from the peloton one minute, then suddenly in the middle of it while weaving through narrow village streets. But how good a day on the motorbike is hinges on the drama of the stage. All the stars were aligned for me when I won the spot on Stage 2, 176 km from Challans to Saint Nazaire. The stage was full of rises and dips and, being so early in the Tour, the peloton was close to its full number. It was bound to be fast and potentially dangerous and it didn’t take long to be caught smack in the middle of the peloton as it shrank from four to two lanes—and then one! Apart from one rider who threw a soft drink can at my helmeted head because he felt the motorbike was too close, we—the peloton and the bike—snaked out of the village unscathed. Barely ten minutes later, everything in front suddenly came to a halt. With the sound of scraping metal, crunching bodies and the cries of riders ahead the reason was immediately evident. After 34 km, and just as the pack sped up for the first intermediate sprint, there had been a crash . . . and a big one! Even worse, tangled in the patchwork of bikes and bodies was Jay Sweet, an Australian sprinter from Adelaide who was riding for the French Big Mat team in his first ever Tour. He looked hurt, and it was clear why when he stood up to get back on his bike. He had seriously sprained his ankle. But many others were hurt too, including Dutchman Michael Boogerd whose bottom teeth had gone right through his lower lip and had to be prised away. Boogerd remounted his bike to chase the lead group as the wounds were cleaned and treated by the race doctor. As painful for Sweet, however, was his desperate and exhausting chase, which I was able to witness from start to finish because of my place on the motorbike. As he and others rode to rejoin the peloton, there was a mixture of pandemonium and panic as team cars drove up and back to their stricken riders to treat and assist them with advice and support— and in some cases illegal tows. I could hear Sweet’s heavy breathing as he pedalled furiously with two French riders and found his way in the crux position of his chase— right near the chief commisaire’s car 20 m behind the last riders. For Sweet and his French colleagues, who had been helped by the inevitable

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slipstream of traffic around them, that gap was all that stood between them catching the group and the risk of elimination. They needed to jump from the slipstream of traffic and into the assisting vacuum of the peloton. The two French riders leapt as if they were jumping across a canyon. Sweet? He took a giant last gasp, stamped on the pedals and accelerated, getting within several metres of the last rider, but fell agonisingly short. After several seconds of being caught in no man’s land, he was off the back. His Tour would become a struggle to survive. Even if he had made the jump, 45 kilometres later the peloton was in tatters again when, on a tidal causeway called the Passage du Gois, riders came down like skittles. Up front, a dozen riders crossed unscathed and broke free, and among them was Armstrong. For Sweet, it was one of many hazards to come. Seeing him up close at least helped me understand his struggle as he fell to last place, a struggle that was carried with great courage as the Tour continued. • • •

Armstrong’s savviness and that of teammate George Hincapie to position themselves near the front of the peloton as it hit the Passage du Gois was crucial to his eventual victory—even if it was not evident at the time. (Armstrong had already survived one scare: on the eve of the Prologue he crashed into a Telekom team car at 55 km/h, walking away with severe bruising.) By being in the lead group over the causeway and avoiding the crashes behind him he set the standard for an almost trouble-free ride to Paris. Armstrong lost his yellow jersey to the stage winner, Kirsipuu, but as the Estonian was not an overall contender this wasn’t a concern. If anything, it lifted the pressure off Armstrong and provided him with time to rest and recover as the Tour approached its next critical phase, the 56.5 km Stage 8 time trial at Metz. O’Grady’s Tour continued well. He was third on Stage 3 and Stage 4, in the latter finishing behind Mario Cipollini despite crashing at 80 km and taking 25 km to rejoin the peloton, which raced away to clock the fastest ever average speed for a stage. The same day he also rose to second

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place overall. Sweet and McEwen were tenth and eleventh respectively on the stage. As Cipollini began his quartet of stage wins, expectation mounted that the ‘Lion King’, or ‘Il Magnifico’, was planning to abandon the Tour before the mountains. As fast as he was in a sprint and as popular as his antics, chest beating bravado and showmanship were, Cipollini’s fear of the mountains was as well known. Quitting was not hard, yet he still made an art of it. But first he chose to discredit O’Grady, who came in second behind him in Stage 7: ‘For me to have won four stages is as if I had won the Tour de France. But for the sprint, I would have preferred to have beaten Erik Zabel or Tom Steels than O’Grady.’ Zabel, to be fair, should have been closer to Cipollini on the stage, but he crashed with 40 km to go and sustained deep cuts to his chin, right shoulder and knee. After rejoining the race and getting into an ideal position to sprint, he then sent the pack scattering in all directions with 100 m to go, and at 70 km/h, when his feet slipped from the pedals. It was a miracle he did not crash again and take down others with him. O’Grady, meanwhile, had already passed Zabel to get onto Cipollini’s wheel: ‘I knew Zabel was going to be struggling after his crash. He had half his chin hanging off. I knew I had to be on Cipo’s wheel and to really drive into the wind to kick around Zabel. It wasn’t going to be an easy job getting Zabel off Cipo’s wheel but it worked. Then as I did, Cipo kicked it up to the 11 [sprocket] and I tried to hang on.’ O’Grady felt he had earned his place at the pointy end of the stage. He was also growing in confidence with every sprint finish—his second place was his seventh in the top ten in as many stages. When told about Cipollini’s remark, he fired back: ‘Well . . . we’ll see who wins in Paris then.’ O’Grady knew Cipollini would not be in Paris—at least, on a bike. Soon after, the Italian quit the Tour. When he did, O’Grady was still within striking range of Kirsipuu’s green and yellow jerseys. His tail was up, while those of many others were down.

1999

Shooting the messenger . . . their own! The scandal of doping continued to fester on the Tour, especially when a report in L’Equipe claimed that one of the samples of four tested riders detected corticoid steroids, a derivative of cortisone used as an antiinflammatory for the recovery from injury. The UCI immediately debunked the report, saying the rider concerned had a medical certificate to justify the drug’s presence in his urine. The four riders tested were Armstrong, Spaniard Manuel Beltran, Dane Bo Hamburger and Colombian Joaquim Castelblanco. Armstrong said he had not received any notice from the UCI and re-iterated that he supported the new anti-doping measures. At the same time, another rider was being pilloried for spreading his own anti-doping message. Christophe Bassons, a rookie Frenchman on the La Francaise des Jeux team, was not a star and, were it not for the brouhaha over his daily column published in the French newspaper Aujourd’hui, chances are the rest of the cycling world would never have heard of him. Bassons’ columns focused on his belief that a rider could race the Tour ‘on water’—meaning, without drugs. He was not the only rider in the peloton advocating a drug-free sport, but he was the only one who was publicly willing to dispel the claim by the former five-times Tour winner Jacques Anquetil ‘that you can’t race on mineral water alone’. It was the reaction of Bassons’ peers that was so shocking. Some saw it as a headlining act by a rider ranked only 151st in the world. Others thought Bassons was claiming he was the only rider who was clean—even those who didn’t speak or read French. He was soon ostracised. So strong was opinion that one rider yelled out to Bassons as he finished Stage 2 well behind the leader: ‘That’s what happens to those who don’t use drugs.’ Attacks even came from his teammates, who reportedly ignored him at team meals, as did his sports director Marc Madiot. Even Tour director JeanMarie Leblanc had misgivings about Bassons, telling Aujourd’hui: ‘He took himself to be Mister Proper. It was as if he is the only rider who is beyond reproach.’ The sledging increased every day. Armstrong even suggested that Bassons quit the sport altogether if he didn’t like the way things were, although he later clarified his comments, saying Bassons could pursue a career other than cycling. Either way, Bassons was on the brink of psychological collapse. Then, finally, during Stage 13 from Saint Flour to Albi, news spread that he had quit the Tour in the early hours before breakfast. He could not take the antagonism for his stand any more.

• • •

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The rumble of thunder and crack of lightning that swept the Alps during the first mountain stage from le Grand Bornand to Sestrieres in Italy announced the beginning of Armstrong’s steps up to the throne of Tour champion. As the heavens opened on the 213.5 km 9th stage, he unleashed an unforgettable attack that secured him a virtually unbeatable lead of more than six minutes. ‘I wasn’t trying to attack,’ Armstrong said. ‘Johan [Bruyneel, US Postal’s team director] told me on the radio that I had a gap, so I rode a little faster tempo. Then he told me the gap was bigger, so I tried to go.’ Even more impressive was that this ride came the day after he won the Stage 8 time trial at Metz to take the yellow jersey off Kirsipuu. Armstrong played his lead down: ‘I know these guys [second-placed Abraham Olano, third-placed Christophe Moreau and fourth-placed Alex Zulle]. They are real scrappers and they will make life hard for us. I respect them 100 per cent for it.’ But he conceded that overcoming cancer had helped him prepare for the pressure he felt would come his way: ‘I’ve learned well before now that having the yellow jersey is certainly not the most stressful thing in life. Perhaps my illness and situation in the past has helped me deal with it all a lot better.’ The 220 km 10th stage from Sestrieres to l’Alpe d’Huez also attracted attention, but more so for the drama involving the Italian stage winner Giuseppe Guerini. Attacking alone, he came a cropper 800 m from the finish line when a spectator standing in the middle of the road to take a photograph froze when Guerini charged into his view: ‘There I was, experiencing the greatest moment of my life—winning the biggest race of my career. Then, suddenly, I was experiencing the worst moment of my life.’ Guerini got back up on his bike and ‘rode as hard as I could to the finish’ to win. • • •

Jay Sweet was known as a handy sprinter, but by the time the Tour was in the Alps the last thing he was drawing on was his turn of speed. He was focused on trying to turn the pedals, at any speed. As Armstrong led the Tour, Sweet was struggling in last place overall, more that two hours behind. But being the lanterne rouge can be lucrative. Sweet was already

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being asked for interviews by journalists wanting a view of the Tour from the back of the race. Were he to ‘defend’ that position to the finish he would actually become a Tour celebrity, boosting his appearance fee for the post Tour criteriums. In past years, so keen were riders to win the lanterne rouge that they missed stage starts and hid from their ‘rivals’ to ensure they remained last overall. So farcical had the contest become that in 1980 Tour organisers scrapped it. Sweet had managed to win over many hearts in the 9th stage to Sestrieres. He showed resilience against the odds in the miserable conditions and on a brutal route after being dropped 3 km from the top of the first of five major mountains, the 12 km long Col du Telegraphe, and then endure a 113 km solo chase to the finish in vain. ‘My plan wasn’t to get dropped first, but as soon as I hit the Telegraphe I wanted to get into my own rhythm because I knew we basically had 30 km of climbing ahead,’ Sweet explained. ‘There was a small descent after the Telegraphe, but nothing much before you started the [18 km] climb to the Col du Galibier. The problem was I didn’t eat on the Telegraphe and it was really cold. Then when I started the Galibier I got really, really cold and hunger flatted straight away. With hunger flat you basically have no energy in your whole body. Not just in your legs. Your arms won’t even hold you up and your head feels like it weighs a ton. So I kept climbing on my own. It got colder and colder. I was sweating really bad and shivering at the same time. When I finally got to the top my team director was waiting. I put my jacket on and he said he didn’t want me to continue because I was really white. My eyes were half-open, but weren’t focusing on anything. He said all he could see were the whites of my eyes. But I ate a lot of food and said, “Let me go”. I descended the mountain and it was freezing. Then before I got to the bottom all the sugar I ate kicked in. I felt strong, so I drove it [the pace] for about 10 km. Then I “sugar dumped” and I went back into my hole again.’ Sweet fought all the way to the final 11 km climb to Sestrieres: ‘I was determined to finish and had [the broom wagon] following me. I kept asking how my time was and the driver said, “You’re doing well, you’re doing well”. I asked my director how I was looking for time. He said I was going to have to go flat out up the climb. So I went as hard as I could

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and have never suffered like I did then. I even sprinted the last kilometres to try and make as much time as I possibly could. I was three minutes late [out of the time limit], but the organisers saw what I went through. I got back to the hotel, showered, jumped into bed and I was out like a light. Forty minutes later my director came in, woke me and said, “Go and have a massage, you’re riding again tomorrow”.’ Sweet had been reinstated in the race. After enjoying the warmth of his bed and accepting his Tour was over, he could not believe what he was hearing. He really was living a nightmare. Sweet would never reach Paris, though. While he earned the distinction of being reinstated by organisers after his gutsy ride to finish the stage, he was eliminated on Stage 15 in the Pyrenees after riding 150 km of the 200 km stage alone and again missing the time limit. ‘I can’t say I’m having fun because I’ve had more bad experience than good experience. It’ll make me look at other races differently . . . I’ll say this isn’t as hard as the Tour.’ This time he did go home. • • •

O’Grady would not normally call Sestrieres a place of fortune, unless it was in reference to the 1999 Tour when Jan Kirsipuu abandoned and elevated him into the green jersey competition lead. ‘Now I have something out there to chase,’ O’Grady said. ‘It has given me a lot more motivation to fight and battle through the mountains.’ He had sensed the green jersey could be up for grabs at Sestrieres. ‘I suspected they [Kirsipuu and Cipollini, who also abandoned] might have difficulty and this may happen. One of Kirsipuu’s teammates even told me his morale was not up.’ All O’Grady had to do was finish in the time limit, which he did, arriving at Sestrieres in the main bunch more than 40 minutes behind Armstrong, but with 187 bonus points, while his nearest challenger Zabel had 174 points. O’Grady defended his green jersey through to Stage 11 before losing it to Zabel, but remained in contention to the end. By Stage 17 he was within striking distance of taking the green jersey back. The close battle was also starting to unsettle Zabel. O’Grady’s incessant attacks kept forcing the German to chase him down and were tapping into reserves he felt he

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might need near the end of the Tour. Zabel said of O’Grady: ‘He’ll be a threat right up to Paris. He is a crazy, crazy, guy.’ And O’Grady gave no indication that he would change his tactics: ‘[Zabel’s] always there, every day, shadowing me for the 30 km. I know he’s there, so I just try and get away, surge or change the tempo to make things hard. Whatever happens, I don’t want him thinking he’ll get an easy ride all the way to Paris.’ The finish of Stage 17 in Bordeaux was a prime opportunity lost for O’Grady, however. He crashed with 1.2 km to go, nearing a left-hand corner just as the top sprinters were preparing to establish their positions. As one of six riders jostling for a position in the slipstream of Zabel and Tom Steels, O’Grady was suddenly skidding at 60 km/h before coming to a halt with cuts and abrasions to his shoulders, right elbow and hip. He was vague about the accident because it all happened so fast: ‘It was a pretty rough sprint. And I went into Robbie’s [McEwen] wheel. I don’t know what happened in front of him, but suddenly I was down.’ Steels won his third stage, while McEwen edged closer to that elusive victory with a second place and Zabel finished third to extend his lead on O’Grady by 40 points. O’Grady would not get closer to Zabel’s green jersey, despite finishing the Tour strongly. If anything, he suffered more misfortune. He crashed again at the feed station on Stage 18 and punctured a tyre with 5 km to go in the Stage 19 time trial. But the Tour would hear plenty more from O’Grady in years to come. • • •

Armstrong’s biggest concern throughout the Tour was the increasing speculation about his use of drugs. Claims against Armstrong were published by the French newspaper Le Monde and shown to him by a French television reporter at the finish of Stage 15 at Piau Engaly. He was too exhausted to take in what was being said. However, as someone who thrived on one-on-one confrontation—many believe this gave him that extra competitive edge—he wanted to face his accusers. The issue came to a head at a press conference after the 16th stage from Lannemezan to Pau. The UCI confirmed that Armstrong had recorded a small reading of corticoids, but that it was way below the maximum and that he had a medical certificate justifying the trace that came from

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an ointment to treat a saddle sore. Armstrong denied it was a doping scandal: ‘If Le Monde wants to call that a doping scandal, they are free to.’ He also told his accusers that they had motivated him in the hardest moments through the Pyrenees: ‘What they wanted was for me to crack on the bike and I wasn’t going to.’ When the press conference ended, Armstrong stood and walked out. He drew a line in the sand in his relations with the media. They would never be the same again. The final days of the Tour were largely inconsequential, although the 57 km Stage 19 time trial at Futuroscope saw Armstrong sign off on his overall victory with another win. His ride was astounding, beating Zulle by nine seconds and fellow American and US Postal teammate Tyler Hamilton by 1 minute 35 seconds. But clearly the rage sparked in Pau still fuelled him. Asked if he was a happy Tour champion-to-be, he said, ‘Am I finishing a happy man? Absolutely. Because all of the innuendo and speculation that has gone on is minor. Manolo Saiz [ONCE sports director] summed it up best when somebody asked him about all this. He said: “You don’t understand that what you are writing and speculating is going out to about ten if not twenty million people”. This is going to give hope and inspiration to people that never had it or believed in it. So when I ride onto the Champs Elysees will I look back on it as a tainted Tour? No way. My mind is clear I did the hard work and I was with people who believed in me and I finish a happy man.’ • • •

On the last day of the 1999 Tour Robbie McEwen became the fourth Australian to win a stage by beating Erik Zabel by three lengths in the bunch sprint down the Champs Elysees. It was an emphatic show of strength by the Queenslander, who was ecstatic: ‘I can’t believe it. It’s fantastic. To have won on the Champs Elysees, that’s something else.’ One of the responsibilities for the winner of the last stage in a Tour is that he must attend a press conference, unlike the overall winner who gives his final press conference the night before. McEwen didn’t waste his time. Speaking in English and Dutch he expressed his joy, but also used the occasion to clarify his position on the fall-out with his Rabobank

Phil Anderson’s trademark aggressive riding left him short of a third claim to the yellow jersey, but in 1983 it helped him finish ninth overall. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Allan Peiper (right) dreamt of helping Phil Anderson. His chance came in the 1987 Tour when Anderson needed to re-start after a flat tyre. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Another day on the Tour, another day of punishment. On Stage 13 to Marseille in 1989, Phil Anderson ‘celebrated’ Bastille Day with a crash at the feed station that left him battered, bruised and bloodied. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Phil Anderson scored his second Tour stage win in the Breton town of Quimper in 1991. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

. . . But the big story at Quimper during the 1991 Tour was the mass exit of the Dutch PDM team including Irish star Sean Kelly, who explained what happened to me (left) and journalist John Wilcockson (centre). (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Neil Stephens and his ONCE directeur sportif Manolo Saiz talking tactics during the Tour. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

After carrying the trophy for the 1994 VeloNews International Cyclist of the Year for the entire 1995 Tour, I finally got to hand it to its winner, Miguel Indurain, on the eve of the Clasica San Sebastian. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

A win for the domestiques. Neil Stephens’ victory in the 17th stage to Colmar was one of the most popular of the 1997 Tour. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Smiles all round for Stuart O’Grady (left) when he claimed the yellow jersey early in the 1998 Tour, but for Neil Stephens (right) the celebration was short-lived when he became embroiled in the Festina affair. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

The win by Stuart O’Grady (left) over Giuseppe Calcaterra (right) on Stage 14 to Grenoble in the 1998 Tour still rates as one of his hardest fought victories. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Left: What the victory on Stage 14 of the 1998 Tour meant to Stuart O’Grady could not have been clearer. (Courtesy of Graham Watson) Right: A crash with 80 km to go during Stage 5 of the 2000 Tour could have ended Stuart O’Grady’s race then and there. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

. . . But he remounted, took his medicine—literally—from race doctor Gerard Porte, and rode all the way to the finish. Only then was O’Grady ruled out with a broken collarbone. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Stuart O’Grady’s defence of the yellow jersey during the 2001 Stage 5 team time trial to Bar le Duc was a tribute to his teammates as much as to him. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Baden Cooke wins Stage 3 of the 2003 Tour after a terrific lead-out by Australian teammate Brad McGee. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Lance Armstrong (left) was not as controlled in the 2003 Tour as he looks here with Baden Cooke (right) during the Australian’s early spell in the green jersey. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

The most crucial sprint of all for Baden Cooke (centre) was his second place finish over Australian Robbie McEwen (right) in Paris in 2003 to take the green jersey from McEwen for keeps. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Baden Cooke (right) shares the relief and joy of not just finishing the 2003 Tour but winning the green jersey with Australian teammate Brad McGee (left). (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

A yellow-jersied Lance Armstrong crashes on the climb to Luz Ardiden on Stage 15 of the 2003 Tour after a fan’s bag caught his handlebars in one of the most dramatic moments of the race. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Robbie McEwen, wearing the green and gold Australian champion’s jersey, wins Stage 5 of the 2005 Tour—the first of three stunning stage victories that year. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Left: Robbie McEwen celebrates another green jersey win in the 2006 Tour on the podium in Paris with his son Ewan. (Courtesy of Graham Watson) Right: Floyd Landis (left), in the yellow jersey he would lose for failing a dope test after finishing first overall in the 2006 Tour, with Australian Michael Rogers (right), who would move up to ninth overall as result. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Crashing out of the 2007 Tour on Stage 8, Stuart O’Grady broke five front ribs, three back ribs, a shoulder and a collarbone, and also suffered a punctured lung and a blood clot to the brain. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Left: Michael Rogers’ dream for yellow ended when he crashed on the descent of the Cormet de Roseland during Stage 8 of the 2007 Tour and was forced to abandon after he dislocated his collarbone. (Courtesy of Graham Watson) Right: Victory in the 2007 Tour went to Alberto Contador (centre) whose teammate Levi Leipheimer (right) was third. But Cadel Evans (left) produced an Australian first with his second place overall. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Above: The day after crashing in the 2008 Tour, Cadel Evans (in front) took the yellow on Stage 10 from Pau to Hautacam. Behind him (from left to right) are Riccardo Ricco (yellow and white), Christian Vandevelde, Carlos Sastre and Denis Menchov. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Right: Cadel Evans was unapologetic about showing emotion for the Credit Lyonnais Lion whenever he was in yellow, as he was here after Stage 13 to Nimes in 2008. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Cadel Evans (in yellow) en route to losing the yellow jersey to Frank Schleck (left) on Stage 15 of the 2008 Tour to Prato Nevoso in Italy. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Stage 15 in 2008 wasn’t all bad news for Australia. Simon Gerrans reached the finish line at Prato Nevoso in first place . . . the first Australian to win a Tour mountain stage. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Right: Stuart O’Grady leads the peloton on Stage 16 of the 2008 Tour from Cuneo to Jausiers. Behind him are six CSC-Saxo Bank teammates—in total control of the Tour. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Below: Up l’Alpe d’Huez on Stage 17, Cadel Evans (right) has no answer to an attack by Carlos Sastre, who has already ridden away to win the Tour. With Evans and yellow-jersied Frank Schleck are (from left to right) Christian Vandevelde, Alejandro Valverde, Bernard Khol and Andy Schleck (white jersey at back). (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Left: A last moment of respite for Cadel Evans before Stage 20 of the 2008 Tour—a 53 km time trial from Cerilly to Saint Amand Montrond. (Courtesy of Graham Watson) Below: Despite having No. 1 on his back and all of Australia behind him, Cadel Evans was unable to produce the Tour winning Stage 20 time trial that so many predicted. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

The 2008 Tour podium (from left to right): second placed Cadel Evans, winner Carlos Sastre and King of the Mountains champion Bernard Khol, who was third. (Courtesy of Graham Watson)

Receiving the Trophee de la Fidelite from Tour race director Christian Prudhomme (left with microphone), five-times Tour champion Bernard Hinault (second from left), and two-times Tour winner Bernard Thevenet (right). (Courtesy of Casey Gibson)

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team. He was leaving the team, but was angered by the Dutch media’s reporting of his decision. ‘I was quoted as saying I don’t give a stuff about Rabobank, that Rabobank knows nothing about tactics. I wouldn’t say things like that. Then the directors chose to believe everything they read in the press. The point I was trying to get across was that morale in the team during the race seemed so low that our guys were beaten before they started.’ McEwen’s morale was anything but down. He arrived at the Hotel La Concorde de la Fayette—where the riders would be staying—on the back of a motorbike, still in his Rabobank gear and holding the winner’s golden trophy. It was a memorable way to finish the Tour. O’Grady’s bid for the green jersey had been thrilling and Armstrong’s comeback incredible, despite the tension with media over the doping innuendos. I was especially happy for McEwen. I had seen him progress from the amateur to professional ranks, and then over the years mature as a Tour sprinter. He may have been accused by other riders of being selfish—or self-absorbed—but he was definitely a winner. I telephoned him the next morning to ask something I had forgotten amidst the celebrations: was the memory of his best mate Darren Smith still a driving force? Smith and McEwen were like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They rode their BMX bikes together as kids and graduated to road bikes, riding together until Smith was tragically killed when he was struck by a truck while training on the Gold Coast. Smith was a 1992 Olympian who many said was destined for bigger and brighter things. He could climb, had a sprint and was a wizard with tactics. ‘I think about him a lot,’ McEwen said. ‘I always have. I always feel he is there. He is my best mate. I am sure he was up there popping open the champagne.’ The 1999 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal Services/USA) 3686 km in 91 hours 32 minutes 16 seconds (average speed 40.276 km/h) 2. Alex Zulle (Banesto/Switzerland) at 7 minutes 37 seconds 3. Fernando Escartin (Kelme/Spain) at 10 minutes 26 seconds

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The Australians 94. Stuart O’Grady (GAN/France) at 2 hours 30 minutes 7 seconds (3 days in green, 2nd on points for green) 97. Patrick Jonker (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 2 hours 32 minutes 20 seconds 121. Henk Vogels (GAN/France) at 2 hours 49 minutes 17 seconds 122. Robbie McEwen (Rabobank/Netherlands) at 2 hours 49 minutes 23 seconds (1 stage win) DNF. Jay Sweet (Big Mat/France) eliminated Stage 15

2000 I don’t think we are born with aggression. Our lifestyles, upbringing and our parents give us that. You are not born with a killer instinct. There is something there that shapes your character, the way my mother taught me to be a fighter, to never quit. —Lance Armstrong 1–23 July (3662 km): Futuroscope–Futuroscope (Stage 1 individual time trial), Futuroscope–Loudun (Stage 2), Loudun–Nantes (Stage 3), Nantes– Saint Nazaire (Stage 4 team time trial), Vannes–Vitre (Stage 5), Vitre–Tours (Stage 6), Tours–Limoges (Stage 7), Limoges–Villeneuve sur Lot (Stage 8), Agen–Dax (Stage 9), Dax–Lourdes Hautacam (Stage 10), Bagneres de Bigorre–Revel (Stage 11), Carpentras–Mont Ventoux (Stage 12), Avignon– Draguignan (Stage 13), Draguignan–Briancon (Stage 14), Briancon– Courchevel (Stage 15), Courchevel–Morzine (Stage 16), Evian–Lausanne (Stage 17), Lausanne–Freiburg im Breisgau (Stage 18), Freiburg im Breisgau–Mulhouse (Stage 19 individual time trial), Belfort–Troyes (Stage 20), Paris–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

The back of an Air France sick-bag summarises my 2000 Tour de France. I had scribbled on it every plane and train journey I took on a six week trip to cover not only the Tour, but a bevy of other sporting events throughout Europe. I was told by Colin Gibson, my sports editor at The Australian, that if I wanted to go to the Tour, I had to justify being there. With Robbie McEwen having won a stage and Stuart O’Grady having challenged for the green jersey in 1999, and a number of other Australians emerging as riders who would give the battle for a stage win a shake, I thought that was enough. But Gibson had other ideas: ‘Let’s see what else we can find for you to do over there.’ The Tour, if I got there, would just become a transit zone. 153

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The Australian had taken my stories on the Tour since 1987, first on a freelance basis. When I rejoined the paper, where I worked full-time from 1981 to 1985, in late 1998 it contributed partial expense so long as another non-competing outlet such as VeloNews contributed the rest. In 2000, the deal was that The Australian would foot the whole bill, but on the understanding that the main mission was not the Tour. Gibson felt the Tour lacked credibility because of its history of doping controversies. It was hard to argue the point in light of the events of 1998 and 1999. • • •

There was barely time to think about the Tour when I landed in Paris. The start at Futuroscope near Poitiers was only days away, but first there was Olympic 400 m gold medal hope Cathy Freeman’s race at the International Association of Athletic Federations’ (IAAF) Golden League meeting at Stade de France in Paris. That was followed by a short trip to Glasgow to cover boxer Mike Tyson’s non-title bout against Texan journeyman Lou Savarese. No sooner had I returned to Paris, believing I would get time to absorb the form of both riders and teams in the Tour, than I was sent to Athens for Freeman’s next race. One cross-channel train trip to London, another train journey to Luton followed by a late night easyJet flight to Athens and a cab ride to my hotel later, I knew that what awaited me in two days was a 5 am flight back to Luton, followed by train trips to London, Paris and Poitiers for the 2000 Tour start. But it did not end there. Three days into the Tour I was heading off to Lausanne in Switzerland to rejoin the Cathy Freeman and Jose-Marie Perec circus for the IAAF Grand Prix. It was exciting to see Freeman race again, although the atmosphere of an athletics meeting is so different to that of the Tour. Absent was the hype, mayhem and organised chaos. It was strange to see athletes warm-up on a separate track cordoned off from the public and the controlled environment in which they race. It was hard not to wonder how they would handle what Tour riders face at the end of each stage when, still breathless, they are swarmed by television, radio and print media within seconds of finishing. After missing the 70 km Stage 4 team time trial and Stage 5 from

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Vannes to Vitres, I was keen to leave the athletics in Lausanne and rejoin the Tour. This I did after a train trip from Lausanne to Paris and another to Tours, to arrive at the finish of Stage 6 with just 1 km to go. • • •

Stuart O’Grady has always impressed on the Tour—if not for his ability to win a race, then for his toughness of mind. This he showed in the 2000 Tour when he rode the last 85 km of the 198.5 km 6th stage from Vitres on the edge of Brittany to Tours with a broken collarbone sustained in a crash with nine other riders while riding at an estimated 60 km/h. Where many other riders would have abandoned, O’Grady got back up on his bike and continued racing in agony. Bloodied and bruised, he pedalled on and on, eventually reaching Tours in a group of ten riders 22 minutes 26 seconds behind the Dutch stage winner Leon Van Bon. I was stunned to hear of the crash. O’Grady was one of Australia’s key riders for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, so not only was his Tour compromised, so were his Games. He would later say his decision to resume racing after the crash was made in the hope that he had not broken a bone. But the pain was written all over his face as he rolled to a stop in Tours, was prised off the bike and hurried past fans, media and his parents Brian and Fay into the team van, all the while clutching his cut right arm to his chest. After being taken to hospital, doctors confirmed the worst. He had broken his collarbone and his Tour was over. ‘Deep down I knew it was broken,’ he said in a phone call from the hospital, ‘but I rode to the finish praying that it wasn’t. In truth, the further that I went, the more trouble I was in.’ He also revealed how the crash had occurred. One rider mistook the sound of two spectators playing drums for that of a crash and suddenly braked, leaving the other riders to concertina into him: ‘One dickhead panicked and shoved on the brakes and went down. I jumped over him and thought I was okay, but I needle-dived and landed on my head.’ O’Grady’s misfortune was all the more devastating considering he had only just returned to top form after recovering from being mugged in Toulouse the previous year, sustaining two skull fractures and a blood clot to the brain. But as he spoke of this latest incident, he was worried

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more about his Olympic campaign than the Tour: ‘I think it is a pretty clean break, but I am concerned about how it will affect my preparation for Sydney.’ • • •

No sooner had I rejoined the Tour than I was leaving it again. The next day I was back on the train to Nice for more athletics, this time to watch Freeman’s nemesis Perec. It was a bizarre feeling, though, to be one day in the thick of the drama of the Tour and the next to be parachuting into another major French sporting event. But the Tour was not far from my mind as the 203.5 km 8th stage from Limoges to Villeneuve sur Lot ended with Dutchman Erik Dekker taking the first of his three stage wins. One Australian was still in the race, sprinter Robbie McEwen, but my thoughts were with O’Grady, who lay in hospital in Bordeaux after having his shoulder wired and two screws inserted. The news was not good. His journey to full fitness would be a lot tougher than he had originally hoped for. Not that this lessened his determination to do all he could to be ready for the Games. ‘I want to be there and will do all I can to be fit and ready. It would be easy to sit here and feel sorry for myself, but I have been helped a lot from the support I have already got.’ He didn’t regret riding the 85 km after the crash, even though he may have risked aggravating the break: ‘I just didn’t want to abandon, to go through all that and then find out it was only bruised. If that had been the case, there is no way I could have re-started.’ O’Grady was already talking about his comeback. His immediate plan was to regain enough condition on his indoor trainer and join the Australian track squad, then coached by Charlie Walsh, for its pre-Games high altitude training camp in Colorado the following month. ‘I want to get re-focused on something quick, and that something is the Olympics. Charlie has already spoken to me about it. He has said he would have me right now [at the training camp in Buttgen, Germany] if I wanted, but I need to get everything else sorted out first.’

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No joke . . . THIS is the story I opened my eyes. The sound of rain and thunder woke me. It was going to be a classic day in the Pyrenees, wet and windy for the first major mountain stage of the Tour, which included a finish on the summit of Hautacam. Then the phone rang. It was the office in Sydney, Nick Blackburn, a sub-editor from the sports desk: ‘I just thought I’d give you a heads up, but I just heard Colin talk about wanting you to go to London where Cathy Freeman is training.’ I thought Blackburn was pulling my leg. I hung up and started to drift off to sleep. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Gibson. He said Freeman was back in London and training at an as yet unknown location. And yes, he wanted me to go to London and find her. And no, I couldn’t stay on the Tour to report on the first mountain stage. Freeman was the story, ‘so I want you in London . . . and today’. This was not a gee-up. With little time to spare, I was showered, packed, and farewelling the VeloNews crew once again before heading off to the airport.

• • •

Taking away some of the lustre of Lance Armstrong’s 1999 Tour win were not only the insinuations of doping, but also that a number of ‘stars’ were missing from the race—Pantani, Jalabert, Virenque and Ullrich. Some critics suggested Armstrong’s win was hollow because of it, but a win is a win and history doesn’t record who was not there, only who won. There was no dispute, however, that such a suggestion would stoke Armstrong’s fire when he came back. He was ready to take them all on. One name would stand out from the pack as number one on his hit list—Marco Pantani. Their rivalry was the theme of the 2000 Tour. It even surpassed the issue of doping. The seed to the rift was planted during a rain stricken 205 km 10th stage from Dax to the summit finish at Hautacam in the Pyrenees. Armstrong—who loved the wet and rainy weather that prevailed, unlike many of his rivals—attacked the group of favourites that included Pantani with 10 km of the 13 km climb to the finish line to go. He caught and passed a group that was chasing Spaniard Javier Ochoa, a Basque rider who was cheered all the way to his first ever professional win by local fans. Armstrong still finished at 42 seconds

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behind Ochoa, but he had taken time on Pantani, who was stung by his inability to catch the Texan. Armstrong’s second, after reducing his gap on Ochoa from 4 minutes 58 seconds with 5 km to go to 42 seconds at the finish, was a response to the critics. After one mountain stage, his overall lead was already 4 minutes 4 seconds. He rejected the temptation to celebrate and refused to drink champagne that night, as is customary after a stage win or claiming the yellow jersey: ‘They brought out the champagne, but I didn’t want any of it.’ Two days later the finish of Stage 12 from Carpentras to the summit of Mont Ventoux in Provence became the platform on which the Armstrong–Pantani rivalry would develop from competitive to fiery. Pantani won the stage, beating Armstrong, who joined him in a lightning solo chase on the scree-sloped mountain finish. The pair danced on the pedals to the top and after turning right for the last 100 m Pantani sprinted to win. Armstrong later said he let Pantani win—a claim the Italian rejected, adding that Armstrong was not even the strongest of the two on the mountain. Pantani was incensed but waited until Stage 15, a 173.5 km leg from Briancon to the ski resort of Courchevel, to respond. Here he attacked Armstrong with 13 km to go on the final climb and won after they had worked together to chase down a lead group. Pantani felt his win had silenced those who believed Armstrong’s assertion of the Mont Ventoux finish: ‘It’s much more satisfying to finish alone. There’s a different taste to the victory when you leave everyone behind.’ While Pantani gained a minute on Armstrong with his win at Courchevel, he was angered again after hearing the Texan’s comments at a press conference the next day—the rest day. The spectacle of that press conference made my circuitous journey back to the Tour from Lucerne in Switzerland where I was sent for three days to cover Australia’s fortunes in the World Cup rowing regatta well worthwhile. Armstrong told the gathering of media: ‘The last few days his [Pantani’s] actions and words are a little disappointing. It’s unfortunate that he is showing his true colours. “Elafantino” has another [chance to win a stage] and I would be lying if I didn’t say [winning the stage] was at the back of my mind.’

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Pantani responded: ‘If [Armstrong] believes that it’s all over, he’s mistaken. In any case, he isn’t finished with me.’ He then used the rest day to plot his plan to make Armstrong suffer on Stage 16, 196.5 km from Courchevel to Morzine. He left an exhausted Armstrong in eighth place to a victorious Virenque. Hitting your head … After returning to the Tour from Lucerne my VeloNews colleagues showed little sympathy for me, especially when we checked in to our hotel on the rest day to discover we were one bed short. The night before John Wilcockson and Andy Hood didn’t even get a room, despite having a reservation—a not unusual occurrence on the Tour. They drove around the mountains looking for somewhere to stay when it became so late they had no choice but to sleep in the car on a very cold mountain road. As the Tour is about shared hardship, my colleagues had no hesitation in saying if anyone was going to sleep on the floor, it was going to be me. There would be no argument, even after I headbutted in frustration a wooden pylon at the hotel reception three times. I slept on the floor, but at least I was back where I felt I really belonged— on the Tour—and this time until Paris.

Pantani’s bid to hurt Armstrong on Stage 16 came at a price. He had the audacity to let loose with an attack on the Texan on the first of five mountains, the 15-km long Col de Saisie with 130 km to go. With several opportunists between him and the stage lead, Pantani rode away over the next two climbs to force Armstrong and his team into chasing. Pantani knew his chances of winning the stage from so far out were slim, but so long as Armstrong had an agonising day in the saddle he was happy to gamble. He reached the second last mountain summit, the Col de la Colombiere, in front and led to the bottom of the descent after two and a half hours and 81 km on the attack, but blew up at the foot of the last 23 km climb, the Col du Joux Plane, and with two teammates finished more than 13 minutes back. Citing stomach pains during the stage, Pantani was forced to withdraw from the race after a day that saw Ullrich place second and cut his deficit on Armstrong to 5 minutes 37 seconds. But Armstrong also paid for

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his efforts in chasing Pantani. Fading on the Col de Joux Plane, he dropped away from the group of Ullrich and Virenque. The sight was extraordinary. He had no apparent strength, his body seemed to slump into the saddle, and close-up television footage showed a dull rather than steely focus in his eyes. Armstrong had hit the wall, was suffering a hunger flat and rapidly losing time. To get to the summit and then to the finish in Morzine, all he could do was think of the rhythm rather than the strength of pedal stroke. He rode knowing that every pedal stroke would count in his defence of the Tour. ‘That was the hardest day of my life on the bike,’ he said. Armstrong kept his overall lead, but it was a lesson learned by the American. And no one would have been happier than Pantani, the rider who taught it, even if he did quit the Tour that night. With the Col de Joux Plane the last major mountain of the Tour Armstrong had escaped a potential threat although, despite his obvious distress suggesting he was not necessarily invincible, he was unable to avoid continuing suspicions over doping. As the Tour farewelled the Alps and headed towards Paris, L’Equipe reported Giorgio Squinzi, the Italian multi-millionaire who owned the world’s number one ranked team Mapei, as saying: ‘It is impossible to finish in the first five of a [major] stage race without doping. Our team doesn’t take any risk with blood doping. Even though we are rated the number one team on world rankings [from wins in one-day races], we can’t race on an equal level in stage races. I realise it is a very tough accusation but it is, unfortunately, the truth.’ Squinzi did not name Armstrong but, when pressed if the defending Tour champion could win with a natural hematocrit level, he said: ‘I repeat, no one is capable, in my opinion, of winning the Tour de France today with a natural hematocrit level.’ Squinzi’s comments were dismissed by many as ‘sour grapes’ due to his team’s failure to win a Tour. UCI president Hein Verbruggen lambasted Squinzi: ‘If you put a microphone under his nose he immediately loses his intelligence.’ Armstrong didn’t let these claims ruin his parade either, nor did his team manager Johan Bruyneel: ‘I could get mad. Squinzi can think what he wants, but what he said is tough. I can’t see how he could come up with such accusations.’

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Bruyneel said he would respond to Squinzi by sending him a photograph of Armstrong during a seven hour training ride in the Pyrenees in wet and miserable conditions. The shot, taken by English photographer Graham Watson, was a Bruyneel favourite and shows Armstrong climbing to the 1569 m summit of the Col du Peyresourde in May of 1999, two months before his first Tour victory. It would deliver Squinzi a simple message: that hard training is the key to winning the Tour. This was the same message Armstrong delivered earlier in 2000 in a television commercial broadcast in the United States: ‘What am I on? I am on my bike. What are you on?’ Armstrong’s run to Paris was otherwise trouble free. He beat Ullrich by 25 seconds to win the 19th stage time trial, 58.5 km from the German town of Freibourg im Breisgau through the Rhine Valley to Mulhouse back in France. His lead was never at risk, but the stage was memorable for his performance and the enthusiasm of the hundreds of thousands of Germans who lined the course to watch Armstrong and Ullrich clash on a course that included 38 km of German roads and passed fields of headhigh corn and many quaint villages. After the 254.5 km 20th stage from Belfort, which began under the backdrop of the city’s ancient ramparts and was won by Erik Zabel, Armstrong responded to the claims that his first Tour was ‘hollow’ because of the absent stars: ‘This Tour was more satisfying. It was definitely a vindication. Last year was special but I knew that Ullrich and Pantani weren’t there. But it is out of my hands. All I could do was to show up and race. You could have filled a team with people who said they could have won the Tour if Lance Armstrong can win the Tour. But they were here this time and they didn’t.’ He also addressed the issue of his apparently inherent aggression, citing several factors such as his father leaving him and his mother Linda when he was less than two years old, the beatings his step-father gave him with a paddle, and even the cancer that threatened his life: ‘I don’t think we are born with aggression. Our lifestyles, upbringing and our parents give us that. You are not born with a killer instinct. There is something there that shapes your character, the way my mother taught me to be a fighter, to never quit.’

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Armstrong did not need his aggression on the last day. The 138 km 21st stage that began and finished in Paris was for celebration. The only fireworks came after the Italian Stefano Zanini won when Dutch sprinter Jeroen Blijlevens belted American Bobby Julich near the finish line in full view of fans, officials, media and dignitaries in response to their contact in the bunch sprint. His hit on Julich drew blood, but earned a 200 Swiss franc fine and disqualification from the Tour. After racing the full 3662 km, he had nothing to show for it and was licking more wounds than a stunned Julich. On paper it may have appeared to have been a disappointing Tour for the Australians, with Stuart O’Grady not finishing and Robbie McEwen reaching Paris with an eighth place in the final stage. But from them and a new wave of Australians there was still much more we would hear and see, and for me every reason to return believing, naively or not, the best was yet to come. The 2000 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal Services /USA) 3662 km in 92 hours 33 minutes 8 seconds (average speed 39.545 km/h) 2. Jan Ullrich (Telekom /Germany) at 6 minutes 2 seconds 3. Joseba Beloki (ONCE /Spain) at 10 minutes 4 seconds The Australians 113. Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Adeco/Belgium) at 3 hours 4 minutes 28 seconds (2nd on points for green) DNF. Stuart O’Grady (GAN/France) did not start Stage 7

2001 When I get time to sit back and reflect on the last three weeks, I’ll see it has been a huge roller coaster. It has been stress from the Prologue to right now. —Stuart O’Grady at the Tour finish 7–29 July (3453 km): Dunkerque–Dunkerque (Prologue), Saint Omer– Boulogne sur Mer (Stage 1), Calais–Antwerp (Stage 2), Antwerp–Seraing (Stage 3), Huy–Verdun (Stage 4), Verdun–Bar le Duc (Stage 5 team time trial), Commercy–Strasbourg (Stage 6), Strasbourg–Colmar (Stage 7), Colmar–Pontarlier (Stage 8), Pontarlier–Aix les Bains (Stage 9), Aix les Bains–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 10), Grenoble–Chamrousse (Stage 11 individual time trial), Perpignan–Aix les Thermes (Stage 12), Foix–Saint Lary Soulan (Stage 13), Tarbes–Luz Ardiden (Stage 14), Pau–Lavaur (Stage 15), Castelsarrasin–Sarran (Stage 16), Brive la Gaillarde–Montlucon (Stage 17), Montlucon–Saint Amand Montrond (Stage 18 individual time trial), Orleans– Evercy (Stage 19), Corbeil Essonnes–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

The 2001 Tour was billed as one of the great head to head battles in the race’s history: Lance Armstrong, a dual champion chasing a magical three wins, versus the German wunderkind Jan Ullrich, who had won in 1997 and was on a path he hoped would lead back to greatness. But by the time they reached the start in Dunkerque much more was on the line. The future of the Tour itself, which had been under constant scrutiny because of ongoing doping scandals, was dependent on the 187 riders racing clean. The Tour could not afford another doping controversy, something that even Armstrong recognised: ‘Everyone has a responsibility to keep the sport alive.’ But Armstrong himself was again at the centre of suspicion, with the French media doggedly pursuing him after French 163

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police launched an investigation in November 2000 into allegations that a number of black plastic disposal bags seen to have been thrown from a US Postal Services team car contained illegal products. The team denied any guilt. Armstrong even upped the ante by demanding drug cheats receive stiffer penalties than were then in place. In April he called a press conference in Paris to declare his innocence once more and challenge his detractors in the French media to step forward and accuse him face-to-face: ‘The inquiry [into the disposal of the bags] is going to prove us innocent and show that the only thing we have taken is a bunch of hard work, and I am talking from the bottom of my heart. I challenge many of you to reconsider in light of the facts. On July 7 I plan on defending my Tour de France title . . . Where are Le Figaro, Le Parisien and Le Monde?’ All he received in reply was a timid response from one reporter: ‘I am here, representing Le Figaro.’ The silence that followed stoked the burning coals of Armstrong’s anger. It didn’t help that at about the same time Bruno Roussel, the disgraced former manager of the Festina team, claimed in his book Tour de Vices that the doping culture was too ingrained to beat. Soon after the press conference, during the Giro d’Italia, more than 200 police raided team hotel rooms, leading to 86 riders and team officials being named as under investigation by authorities. Even worse, the raids showed some drugs were really starting to look like rocket fuel instead of just working that way, including the experimental drug RSR-13 made in Denver, Colorado which enhanced oxygen flow from red blood cells rather than increased the amount of red blood cells as EPO does. Tests on lung and brain cancer patients showed there were serious side effects from the drug, including decreased kidney function, high blood pressure, fluid retention, brain oedema, anaemia, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, nervousness and rashes. Meanwhile, Tour organisers were accused of double standards for banning some teams and riders implicated in doping but letting others start, such as the Danish CSC Tiscali team of France’s Laurent Jalabert even though one of its riders, Bo Hamburger, had admitted to using EPO after testing positive. Then, on the eve of the Tour, Irish writer David Walsh, travelling in the VeloNews car, told us he would be outlining

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his suspicions about Armstrong’s association with the disgraced doctor Michele Ferrari in an article in the Sunday Times. However, word was also out that Armstrong had revealed his contact with Ferrari to a journalist working for the Saturday edition of the Italian sports daily La Gazzetto dello Sport in an attempt to gazump Walsh’s story. It didn’t take long for a buzz to spread through the press room that something was up. With all kinds of rumours and speculation circulating, a showdown was imminent, and with Walsh in our car we thought we would probably be the first to know when and where it would happen. US Postal Services’ hotel was a giant chateau surrounded by a wall and a lush green forest. It was the sort of place you would expect a two-time Tour winner to stay. Walsh hoped to meet Armstrong and his agent, the lawyer Bill Stapleton, so we thought we’d come along for the ride to possibly talk to Armstrong, and if not him then some of the riders and personnel on his team. We were not the only ones with the same idea. Within 30 minutes of arriving there was already a gathering of media. Standing in the ornate reception area of the chateau, it was soon apparent that neither Armstrong nor Stapleton were going to talk. But Mark Gorski, US Postal’s affable and relatively laid back sports director, was keen to have a chat over several beers. For a short time, the barriers that were developing between the team and the media seemed to be coming down. Armstrong’s team manager Johan Bruyneel joined us and even asked me how Australian rider Matt White had taken his last minute omission from the US Postal Services team for the Tour. White was devastated when he received Bruyneel’s telephone call at his home in Valencia, Spain, where he was living with his wife Olympic walker Jane Saville. ‘I was expecting to hear that I was in the team,’ White told me. ‘I had just come back from [the Tour of] Switzerland, my bags were packed. I had trained four-and-a-half hours a day and had extra massages. I was as ready as I ever had been for a race. But Johan told me I hadn’t made it. I can accept his decision. It was a hard one. We had twelve riders vying for nine places and with such a great team it wasn’t easy for him.’ White was one of the most popular and gutsiest riders in the team, but in this Tour, Bruyneel explained, he needed climbers, and as many of them as possible. White was many things, but not a climber.

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The atmosphere in the bar was warm and Armstrong and Stapleton were still absent. Then came the probing question about doping from one of the gathered journalists. Gorski read the change in wind, and with a smile invited a quick end to it: ‘Hey, I thought this was just about having a quiet beer.’ The expected showdown didn’t happen on this day. • • •

After Armstrong placed third in a rain-soaked 8.2 km Prologue at Dunkerque, he and I crossed paths near his team car. It was easy to see he was in a good mood. He even tried a little humour when referring to the dangers of the week ahead as the Tour headed into Belgium, where the narrow and sinewy roads and the wet conditions made the prospect of crashes all the more likely. When asked by a reporter in broken English if he was ‘scared about the Belgian [roads],’ Armstrong quipped, ‘Why, are there some bad people there?’ His response went over his inquisitor’s head, but the lightness of the moment was welcomingly refreshing. However, the shutters crashed down following Stage 1. That morning Armstrong woke to learn of Walsh’s claims in the Sunday Times that he had been working closely with Michele Ferrari, who was then subject to an Italian doping investigation. (In 1994 Ferrari had stunned the sporting world when he commented that the use of EPO was no more dangerous than drinking excessive amount of orange juice.) The story also alleged that Armstrong had used illegal drugs when he was on the Motorola team, and that a former US Postal team doctor, Prentice Steffen, had been sacked from his temporary position on the US Postal team in 1996—before Armstrong joined—because he would not implement a program of systematic doping. Armstrong was quick to respond. He admitted to having sought Ferrari’s advice with his personal trainer Chris Carmichael during a training camp in San Diego in 1995, and that Ferrari was still acting as a consultant: ‘His primary role has always been limited. Since Chris cannot be in Europe on an ongoing basis, Michele does my physiological testing and provides Chris with that data on a regular basis.’ Armstrong also explained that Ferrari advised him on methods of altitude training, hypoxic training and the use of altitude tents, ‘which are all natural

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methods of improvement’. However, Armstrong denied having used EPO, or even discussing its use with Ferrari, saying, ‘I have always been very clear on the necessity for cycling to be a clean sport’. As the Tour travelled north on the tricky roads of Belgium and back into France, survival now became the priority for Armstrong. • • •

Stuart O’Grady began his Tour with the ambition of winning the green jersey. He was well placed after the Prologue: ‘Now it is going to be time [bonuses].’ But he was also as wary as Armstrong of the risks of crashing in a flighty peloton: ‘You can already see what it is going to be like—grey, overcast and very windy. They are the ingredients to blow the bunch apart. So obviously the objective is going to be to stay in the front, keep out of trouble and avoid crashes.’ O’Grady discovered first-hand how the best laid plans can go wrong on Stage 2 from Calais to Antwerp in Belgium. He was perfectly poised to take the yellow jersey from Christophe Moreau—as well as the green jersey and the stage win, which offered the winner a $40 000 diamond as a bonus—but placed fifth on the stage won by one of his breakaway companions, Belgian Marc Wauters. Although Wauters deserved the win, attacking the group with one kilometre to go, O’Grady had to endure an agonising wait as officials calculated if he or the Belgian would take yellow. The result went against O’Grady, but the news got even worse. After being told he had taken the green jersey, he was called to the podium only to discover that a recount gave Jan Kirsipuu the points lead. ‘I have never screamed so much [in a race] in all my life. I hope they forgive me. Everything was going for the jersey and I was just trying to keep them [his teammates Jens Voigt, Bobby Julich and Anthony Morin] geed up as much as possible.’ O’Grady conceded he should have heeded his sports director Roger Legeay’s advice to save his energy for the finish: ‘Roger was telling me not to work in the final break. But I thought it was the only sniff of the yellow jersey I was going to get, so I gave it everything. I felt great.’ Twenty-four hours later in Seraing in south-east Belgium, O’Grady was all smiles after claiming the yellow jersey on Stage 3. Deemed an

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unlikely result before the stage left Antwerp, even O’Grady admitted, ‘I did think that it wouldn’t be possible’. This was payback to his teammates for all their work the day before: ‘It was such a blow to me and the team [not to win yellow on Stage 2]. It was probably the most disappointing day of my life on the bike.’ O’Grady’s fortune changed when Wauters was dropped from the front group on the last of three climbs with 12 km remaining. Despite a wave of surges up front, O’Grady hung on to the lead group, knowing he could make up his 12 seconds on Wauters. As the Belgian came in 6 minutes 36 seconds behind, all O’Grady could say was: ‘Thank God . . . A wave of emotion came over me. I had to just hang in there and give it everything I had.’ The effort was worth it, especially after stepping from the podium into the embrace of his parents Brian and Fay and fiancee Anne-Marie Clifford, to whom he proposed before the Tour started. O’Grady’s lead was 17 seconds on second-placed Moreau going into Stage 4 from Huy to Verdun. He was also third in the green jersey competition led by Zabel. But defending yellow was not easy. The 215 km 4th stage to Verdun was a ‘day from hell’ that erased the celebratory glow of the night before. The first dangerous attack came after 35 km when three riders, including Jalabert, escaped. With a 25 second bonus for the stage winner it was a threatening move, especially when the break’s lead reached two minutes and O’Grady had only two teammates with him. But even after the French Bonjour team helped to catch Jalabert and ensure a bunch sprint finish, the Frenchman attacked again inside the last three kilometres to win the stage. O’Grady placed eighth and hung on to the yellow jersey, while Jalabert’s panache was rewarded by moving into second overall. O’Grady, now second in the green jersey competition behind Zabel, said, ‘Jalabert’s attack was about the last straw. It was so hard the whole way. I thought a couple of times the yellow jersey was gone.’ For all the prestige and power the yellow jersey offers, it was ironic that in 2001 its winner would receive only 4000 French francs ($500) for each day he wore it—and that would, of course, go into the team kitty. The real wealth in wearing yellow lay in the contractual opportunities that followed for both the rider and his team. For O’Grady and his team, the

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timing was perfect. His contract—then believed to be worth $600 000 a year—was up for renewal and so too was his French team’s deal with Credit Agricole, which until then under that name had never celebrated a yellow jersey. ‘Success like this is certainly handy,’ O’Grady said. ‘It is like making a big deposit and then hoping along the way that you’ll get some interest back for it too.’ • • •

O’Grady has produced some remarkable rides in his career, but one of the best yet least recognised was his performance in the Stage 5 team time trial. When he woke up that morning the pain in his legs told him that his yellow jersey days were over. He didn’t want to get out of bed. The trouble was when he listened to his heart and soul he got a different message. Incredibly, he would survive another day. Not only did he extend his overall lead, his team created a huge upset by actually winning the stage in a deluge of rain in 1 hour 21 minutes 32 seconds, leaving CSC Tiscali and Jalabert, Festina and Armstrong’s US Postal Services in its wake. Credit Agricole’s win may have come out of the blue for most observers, but the team started buoyed by its fourth place in the team time trial the year before. It also spent three days training on the route the week before the Tour began. And as soon as racing started it was obvious the team sensed an upset was possible. It led at every mark in the race, while the other teams chopped and changed positions. Credit Agricole’s one hiccup came when Bobby Julich punctured a tyre after 48 km. He changed bikes and rejoined the team, which had slowed down for him to rejoin. However, O’Grady and his teammates were too motivated to let the race fall apart. ‘Every time it started hurting,’ he said, I just looked down and saw the yellow jersey on my sleeve.’ Big wrap from Big Mig . . . O’Grady never harboured the belief that he could win the Tour, but his aggression in 2001 earned the praise of two former champions from Spain, Miguel Indurain and Pedro Delgado. ‘O’Grady is a great rider who has made a great adaptation to European cycling. His success shows that cycling is a world sport and not just for us [Europeans]. So far, that is his biggest legacy,’ said Indurain.

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WHAT a RIDE Indurain was always wary about the first week of a Tour and the energy that could be unnecessarily expended as aggressive riders like O’Grady continued to attack, sprint and attack some more. ‘O’Grady is very, very strong. He also has great endurance and a lot of speed for the sprints. That is his key to winning races, especially here for the yellow jersey.’ Delgado was surprised that O’Grady was so good, especially after his mugging in Toulouse in 1999 and his broken collarbone in the 2000 Tour: ‘I believe he is stronger, mentally and physically. He is right at home. He is a very good cyclist: he has not only shown that this year, he has done it in other years. I am very happy for him after the difficult year he had last year and all he has gone through.’ These words mirrored the respect many in the peloton had for O’Grady.

• • •

O’Grady’s teammate Jens Voigt took the yellow jersey from him in the 162.5 km 7th stage from Strasbourg to Colmar. He was typically happy that Voigt had a chance to share the spoils that come with being the yellow jersey wearer: ‘It was the objective of the team for Jens to take it. He deserves it.’ Still, O’Grady’s time in the sun was not yet over. He was now just three points behind Zabel in the green jersey competition, and yellow again awaited. After slipping into a break of thirteen riders that stayed away for 206 km of the 222.5 km stage, O’Grady was stunned when he reclaimed the yellow jersey on Stage 8 from Colmar to Pontarlier. The breakaway split under several attacks with the winner, Dutchman Erik Dekker, finishing 35 minutes 54 second ahead of the peloton. O’Grady placed fifth on the stage at 2 minutes 32 seconds to Dekker, but he was more than 30 minutes clear of overall favourites like Armstrong and Ullrich in the general classification. ‘Half an hour isn’t going to get me anywhere sooner to Paris,’ he said after again taking the green jersey. Cycling legend Sean Kelly urged O’Grady to give it all he could: ‘It will be a new experience from here. And we will see a new O’Grady. He must fight to defend the jersey, but the only way he will is to minimise his losses. He must ride his rhythm and not go with the climbers, who will certainly attack.’ O’Grady realised he was venturing into the unknown. The one certainty was that ‘it’s going to hurt’. And hurt it did on Stage 9 from

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Pontarlier to Aix les Bains at the foot of the Alps. His efforts in the rain of the previous day left his legs feeling heavy and he had to draw on reserves he would have preferred to have kept for the coming days in the Alps. One of the riders in a three-man break that formed at 97 km was Australia’s Brad McGee, who had attacked alone after 36 km. Ironically, it was O’Grady who advised the Tour rookie when to go. McGee had tried to get into breaks in other stages, but all his attempts had failed: ‘I said to Stuey, “You have to help me out here. I don’t know how to get up the road. When is it [a break] going to go?” ’ McGee, who eventually settled for third place behind the victorious Serguie Ivanov and David Extabarria after cramping in the last 200 m, recalled O’Grady’s advice: ‘Stuey just said, sit back, wait, wait, wait. Then he said, “I think it is going to go soon”. Then two kilometres later we [he and Extabarria, soon joined by Ivanov] were up the road.’ While the break worked in O’Grady’s favour, it also took its toll on him. And he conceded that without the yellow jersey, he would have been dropped: ‘I’ve spent a lot of energy and I’m starting to feel it. It was a very difficult day. It hurt a lot. I think my legs were waterlogged from yesterday. I was feeling very average. I probably would not have finished in that [main] group. On the last climb [at 145 km] it was the fact that I was in the yellow jersey that got me over. But I think it is au revoir maillot jaune for now.’ He was right. He lost yellow the next day to Francois Simon on the 209 km 10th stage from Aix les Bains to l’Alpe d’Huez. But he and McGee were making it a terrific Tour for Australia between them. On the brink of physical ruin Shattered, exhausted, O’Grady climbed aboard the team bus. The door closed behind him, shutting out the hysteria of another stage finish. Saying barely a word, he collapsed into a leather seat, willing the pain that had gripped his entire body to go away, praying that his parched lungs would soon discover fresh breath. He was halfway into the Tour . . . balancing precariously on the brink of physical ruin. To see O’Grady now was very different to seeing him on the television screen, attacking, chasing and sprinting as if he had an endless

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• • •

Armstrong claimed back-to-back wins on Stage 10 to l’Alpe d’Huez and in the Stage 11 mountain time trial to Chamrousse. Francois Simon still had the yellow jersey, but Armstrong had taken back enough time

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to move up to third overall. He also revealed his terrific form and rat cunning. On Stage 10 he emulated Muhammad Ali’s famed ‘Rope-aDope’ tactic by feigning fatigue midway through the stage—on the Col de la Madeleine and Col du Glandon—to lure his rivals into the false belief that he was on the brink of exhaustion and about to crack. News of his grimacing as he rode near the back of the peloton was relayed to the riders by their sports directors, who watched the television broadcast from their cars. Jan Ullrich’s Telekom team started forcing a lightning fast tempo up front to try and break and drop Armstrong. After his win, Armstrong said: ‘Was it a bluff? Maybe. In cycling everyone is watching on television. Sometimes you have to play the game a little.’ To make up the 13 minute-plus he was down by after the Stage 11 time trial, Armstrong knew he would have to attack in the Pyrenees, but winning the stages in the Alps had done a lot for team confidence: ‘When I looked around the dinner table, I saw guys that were different. They were different guys, different yes, different faces. Like me, they know we are getting closer and closer to the yellow jersey. They are going to be heartened by that.’ Armstrong won two stages in the Pyrenees, starting with an emphatic victory in the 13th stage from Foix to Saint Lary Soulan, which included six mountains. He left his rivals broken in mind and body after some terrific help from his Spanish teammate Roberto Herras on the final climb to win and take the overall lead from Simon. He also found extra motivation on the Col de Portet d’Aspet when he passed Fabio Casartelli’s memorial: ‘When we passed the memorial I said there and then that I was going to win it for Fabio.’ Jalabert may have impressed by spending 162 km on the attack—110 of them alone—but Armstrong fought off two attacks by Ullrich and one by Joseba Beloki. The second of Ullrich’s moves on the descent of Col de Peyresourde nearly ended his Tour. After failing to drop Armstrong, he missed a left-hand corner and went off the road into a creek. Heeding the unwritten rule in cycling that a rider never attacks an opponent if they are forced to stop as a result of circumstances out of their control, Armstrong sat up and waited for Ullrich to rejoin the race. (Riders also wait if the peloton agrees to stop en-masse for what is called a besoin naturel, a.k.a

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a pee.) Armstrong was in a sporting mood. When he dropped Ullrich and Beloki on the final climb and went after Jalabert, he even beckoned the Frenchman to jump on his wheel as he passed him. Some commentators said that Armstrong’s expressionless face meant he won the stage easily: ‘My face shows the effort I put into training back in January, February and March. Come and look into my face in January when I’m at home trail running at my ranch in Austin, or in March [at training] when there are no cameras around, no one to see. Come and look then. It’s an ugly face.’ Despite his rebuttal, the message was clear: Armstrong was unbeatable. Even Ullrich said as much after the final day in the mountains on Stage 14 from Tarbes to Luz Ardiden when he reached out and shook Armstrong’s hand as he crossed the line to take third place. It was a gesture of thanks for Armstrong allowing him to gain the time bonus he needed to secure a podium finish in Paris. After, Ullrich said: ‘Armstrong is impossible to match this year. He is the best. I’ve tried everything and have no regrets. Now my goal is to race well until Paris and do well in the final time trial.’ Sparks fly . . . On the rest day in Pau, Lance Armstrong called a press conference in the salle de presse to address the continuing speculation over his association with Italian doctor Michele Ferrari. Taking a front-row seat in the crowded press room was Irish journalist David Walsh. Everyone knew he was going to play a major role in what happened next. As I sat down next to Walsh, he jokingly warned that I might get into trouble by just being seen near him. We laughed. I thought nothing more of it, then Armstrong strode in with aides in tow. It was just how Lance Armstrong liked it. He sat alone before the Tour media while his US Postal Services entourage stood in a line to his left, looking down stony faced at us—the ‘trolls’, as Armstrong called journalists. If there was anything predictable about the press conference, it was that the questions soon turned to Ferrari. Walsh led the way. A journalist from Le Monde supported Walsh, as did several others from other news outlets. Despite a strong serve of questions from Armstrong supporters hoping to deflect the discussion back to the race, the subject of Ferrari came up over and over. Armstrong repeated that the doctor was his friend, and he would stand by him until he was proven guilty.

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It was clear Armstrong was seething. It was clear, too, that the name of any journalist who raised a question regarding Ferrari was being noted, something I soon realised after asking if Armstrong had had any contact with the Italian doctor during the Tour. His curt answer was ‘no’. I was a goner. And several hours later I found out how. Waiting for an interview with New Zealand rider Chris Jenner, who was staying at the same hotel as US Postal, I saw Armstrong’s team manager Johan Bruyneel enter the reception. There was obviously something on his mind, and then he saw me. ‘What’s wrong with your friend [Walsh]?’ he said loudly enough for heads to turn. ‘Does he hate life? What’s wrong?’ I was stunned. ‘Why don’t you ask him,’ I fired back. ‘Go on, go out there and ask him yourself. He’s in the car park, in our car, waiting for me.’ Bruyneel didn’t reply. My shock then turned to anger. I wanted to follow him into the dining room and tell him what I really thought, but was sensibly held back by former world pursuit champion Tony Doyle, who was working for a US Postal Service sponsor. To his credit Bruyneel apologised to me several days later. But I still suspected there was more to come.

• • •

O’Grady had plenty to fight for after the Pyrenees. His lead on Zabel in the green jersey competition was tight. ‘I can see only two more bunch sprints before the end of this Tour,’ he said. ‘So it’s going to be close . . . I don’t think he [Zabel] has been troubled that much before. It is the first challenge that has been thrown down to him in five years.’ For his part Zabel, the five-times green jersey winner, now held the Australian in high regard: ‘He is very strong. Stuart is riding very, very well. He has put me under pressure. He is impressive.’ O’Grady’s one regret was not taking more points earlier: ‘I lost what could have been another 40 points by not placing better in the early days. There are points out there that I know I could have got. Now, every point from here to Paris will count. I had to survive the mountains. Now I have to think about going for another breakaway in the intermediate stages before Paris. That’s the battle plan.’ In light of Armstrong’s overall domination and Laurent Jalabert’s grip on the King of the Mountains jersey, the contest between O’Grady and Zabel gave the Tour some pure racing drama. It was also a welcomed

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distraction from the continuing fallout from Armstrong’s press conference in Pau. O’Grady started by cheekily asking Zabel if ‘he really wanted to win the jersey’. The response? Well, O’Grady admitted that ‘he just looked at me kind of weird’. The fireworks were postponed in the 15th stage, a stage that allowed O’Grady and two of his Credit Agricole teammates—Chris Jenner and Jens Voigt—the chance to enjoy some festivity when the Tour passed Labarthe sur Leze, the town where they lived. Huge crowds lined the road and the trio peeled off to enter a cafe above which hung a huge banner that read, ‘Bravo—Stuart, Chris, Jens’. Inside was a giant cake in the shape of the yellow jersey and another of France. O’Grady kissed and hugged his fiancee Anne-Marie and parents Brian and Fay and then waved to friends before rejoining the race. But fate soon threw up some hefty challenges. After his lead in Stage 17 dropped to 11 points, he was stung twice by bees during the 61 km Stage 18 time trial from Montlucon to Saint Amand Montrond. However, it was during Stage 19 that O’Grady’s real difficulties began. His day in the saddle started with his face still swollen from the bee stings. He then lost four points to Zabel in the first two intermediate sprints, after which his gear cable broke with 20 km to go, requiring a quick bike change with his teammate Jenner. After rejoining the peloton, he discovered he had barely any teammates to help him in the sprint, unlike Zabel who was surrounded by support. The pink Telekom train set up Zabel perfectly for his third stage win for the Tour. O’Grady took second place, but only after apparently using his elbows to sneak through the tiniest of gaps after finding himself boxed in by Latvian world champion Romans Vainsteins. The Latvian immediately raised a protest. O’Grady’s fear was that he would be relegated to last place on the stage but, he also knew that had Vainsteins beaten him for second place, he would have lost more points and the green jersey altogether. ‘I got into a couple of close calls with Vainsteins,’ O’Grady said later. ‘Guys like that are pretty dangerous in the sprint. They knew Zabel and I are having a full-on rivalry for the green jersey. They are interrupting it and making it pretty dangerous.

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It was pretty much desperation creek in the finish, especially in the last 20 m.’ The green jersey was still his, but only by two points. O’Grady and Zabel knew their battle would be decided on the very last day—in the very last sprint on the Champs Elysees. As the bunch, including a victorious overall winner in Armstrong, raced past the finish line, where Jan Svorada won, most riders stopped within 200 m and turned their bikes, but not O’Grady and Zabel, who rolled on another 300 m towards the Arc de Triomphe. They had raced hard and their silhouettes became blurred in the haze of the late afternoon sun. They rode back arm in arm, the destiny of both riders having suddenly changed. O’Grady, who had led the points competition for twelve stages, had ridden up as the green jersey wearer. It was now Zabel who rode back as the points competition winner for the sixth time. And for the twenty-deep crowd it mattered not who had won or lost. They celebrated the tussle between O’Grady and Zabel, and cheered and applauded them both as they came back to the finish line. O’Grady, who had brought so much pleasure to the Tour, was typically sporting as he accepted finishing second in the points competition for a third time: ‘Far out . . . it’s so close, eh? He’s an awesome athlete. I give all the respect to him. I was absolutely knackered. I knew it was going to come down to the finish, even if he had four points on me at the end [for the last sprint], it was still important to go through with it to the end. When I get time to sit back and reflect on the last three weeks, I’ll see it has been a huge roller coaster. It has been stress from the Prologue to right now.’ ‘Stuuuey . . . Stuuuey . . .’ chanted the Australians in the crowd. I could only agree with them. Downhill for a raise O’Grady was not the only Australian to make a mark during the 2001 Tour. Brad McGee rode an impressive Prologue time trial, showed aggressive form to get into the stage winning breakaway on Stage 9 to Aix les Bains, where he placed third after cramping with 200 m to go, and chased and caught seven riders during Stage 16, only to black out at the finish line,

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• • •

Armstrong said he was ‘happy, very happy’ as he prepared to ride into Paris as a triple Tour winner, but you could sense he was also angry, very angry as the divide with his doubters widened over his association with Ferrari. He still backed the Italian doctor: ‘I am confident of the relationship. I believe he is an honest man, a fair man, an innocent man.’ How happy Armstrong was nobody really knew, but he must have felt a little piqued when a L’Equipe photographer presented him with the Prix Citron (lemon award) for being the most unfriendly rider in the Tour after a collective vote by French photographers. Armstrong, who stung the French in 2000 when he responded to questions about his lack of endearment for them by saying the Tour ‘was not a popularity contest’, understandably refused to accept the award when it was presented on the podium after Stage 19. He didn’t hide his anger either, saying: ‘If you think I can be uncooperative, I can be more uncooperative than that.’ Jalabert, who not only won the King of the Mountains title but the Prix d’Orange (orange award) for being the most obliging rider on the Tour, added some more fuel to the fire by saying: ‘Armstrong . . . you either like him or you don’t. It is without a doubt his way of showing others that he is superior. He’s a winner and surely a champion. But in life you have to also know when to be humble.’

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Whatever his motivation, Armstrong was the winner and, incredibly, he had only begun winning, too. The 2001 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal Services/USA) 3453 km in 86 hours 17 minutes 28 seconds (average speed 40.070 km/h) 2. Jan Ullrich (Telekom/Germany) at 6 minutes 44 seconds 3. Joseba Beloki (ONCE /Spain) at 9 minutes 5 seconds The Australians 54. Stuart O’Grady (GAN/France) at 1 hour 36 minutes 20 seconds (6 days in yellow, 12 days in green, 2nd on points for green) 83. Brad McGee (La Francaise des Jeux/France) at 2 hours 17 minutes 54 seconds

2002 Those people are not sportsmanlike. A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. And if I had a dollar for every time they yelled ‘dopé’ [doped] I’d be a rich man. —Lance Armstrong on the jeers he heard on the climb up Mont Ventoux 6–28 July (3276 km): Luxembourg–Luxembourg (Prologue, Stage 1), Luxembourg–Saarbrucken (Stage 2), Metz–Reims (Stage 3), Epernay– Chateau Thierry (Stage 4 team time trial), Soissons–Rouen (Stage 5), Forges les Eaux–Alencon (Stage 6), Bagnoles de l’Orne–Avranches (Stage 7), Saint Martin de Landelles–Plouay (Stage 8), Lanester–Lorient (Stage 9 individual time trial), Bazas–Pau (Stage 10), Pau–la Mongie (Stage 11), Lannemezan–Plateau de Beille (Stage 12), Lavelanet–Beziers (Stage 13), Lodeve–Mont Ventoux (Stage 14), Vaison la Romaine–les Deux Alpes (Stage 15), les Deux Alpes–la Plagne (Stage 16), Aime–Cluses (Stage 17), Cluses–Bourg en Bresse (Stage 18), Regnie Durette–Macon (Stage 19 individual time trial), Melun–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

Before the 2002 Tour began whispers circulated of a plan to ambush Lance Armstrong. The trap lay not in the traditional hazards of flat stages of the first week but in the rugged, forested and steep slopes of the Pyrenees bordering France and Spain. If anyone was to beat Armstrong, they had to take time on him there before the race hit the smoother mountain roads of the Alps. It seemed to many observers that Armstrong preferred it when the Tour went the opposite way—passing the Alps before the Pyrenees. This allowed him to tackle the rough roads of the Pyrenees, where a race is harder for a team to control, knowing that he could let most attacks escape as all but one or two rivals of his would be out of contention by then. But with the Pyrenees coming first, Armstrong could not be so generous, especially on a terrain where the Spanish and 180

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Basque climbers would let fly with attacks to please the fans who flock to the mountain route. Jan Ullrich and Marco Pantani also preferred the Alps, and their absence in 2002 would add to Armstrong’s challenge as normally their teams would have shared the responsibility of controlling the race with US Postal Services. But with Armstrong on his own as outright favourite he knew the Tour risked exploding earlier than he would like, especially with a number of dark horse threats such as Spaniards Joseba Beloki and Iban Mayo in the field. Armstrong was confident but wary: ‘The race will be more open. If a breakaway takes five minutes the first day everybody will turn to the US Postal team and will tell us it’s our job to catch them.’ Some Armstrong supporters claimed the course had been chosen to make it hard for him. But even if that were the case, when Armstrong had his back against the wall he usually produced the very best of himself. • • •

The 2002 Tour was not just about Armstrong, at least for Australia. The exploits of Stuart O’Grady confirmed that Australian riders had a lot to offer. Many Australian road cyclists earned reputations as strong sprinters, if not through their sheer speed then through their tactical nous and bike handling skills, which were often carried across from track racing. Of the four Australians in the 2002 Tour, three were sprinters: O’Grady, Robbie McEwen and Baden Cooke. The fourth, Brad McGee, was a time trialist who had shown in his 2001 Tour debut that he was not afraid to attack. Unfortunately the 2002 Tour didn’t start well for the Australians. Stage 1 in Luxembourg reminded them just how tough and merciless the Tour can be. McEwen, who finished third behind Rubens Bertogliati and Erik Zabel and competed in the Australian road champion’s jersey he won in January, raced with a pinched nerve he sustained in the Prologue. Even after receiving urgent osteopathic treatment, McEwen felt so much pain he couldn’t even put his cycling shoes on by himself. O’Grady placed sixth in the sprint finish but did so without teammates, who were trying to help their struggling overall contender Christophe Moreau.

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McGee’s strong ride to place twelfth confirmed his best bet would be to attack rather than throw himself into the helterskelter of a bunch sprint. And Cooke was to lament a disappointing 21st place for a sprinter of his calibre. McEwen knew a win was close after his second place on Stage 2 from Luxembourg to the industrial and university city of Saarbrucken in Germany where an estimated one million-plus people lined the roads to the finish. Second can be the worst result for a sprinter, but McEwen turned his disappointment around by winning Stage 3, 174.5 km from Metz to the Champagne capital of Reims. He was king for the day: ‘I wouldn’t go around saying I am the best sprinter in the world. Whenever one sprinter wins they are the best on that day. Today, I am the best.’ It was O’Grady however, who was at the centre of drama. He suffered a tachycardia attack 55 km from the finish just as the stage was hotting up. The attack sent O’Grady’s heart rate rocketing to 220–235 beats per minute, making it understandably uncomfortable for him to breathe. Despite being in need of medical attention, he kept racing. Tour doctor Gerard Porte attended to him three times during the stage from his car behind the peloton. His recovery was remarkable. After having a cardiogram in his team van following the stage, O’Grady explained what happened: ‘All of a sudden you are having a chat and then the heart is racing at 230 bpm. It was obviously a little difficult to breathe. I felt lightheaded so I stayed down the back of the bunch. I think they [the riders] were freaking out about it more than I was. I have had it a few times but not for a couple of years now.’ O’Grady might have downplayed the attack, but no one else did. Fellow riders were especially worried when they saw him drop off the back of the pack to seek treatment from Porte. He underwent more tests overnight before the UCI would allow him to race Stage 4—a 67 km team time trial from Epernay to Chateau Thierry. The team, and O’Grady in particular, rode strongly to place eleventh. It was not the glory result of twelve months earlier when they won the team time trial in pouring rain to defend O’Grady’s yellow jersey, but it was important because theirs was the only team to finish with all nine riders together. It also finally handed the team a trouble free day in the 2002 Tour.

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O’Grady suffered no ill-effect from his tachycardia attack. He ate normally, slept well and woke up feeling as prepared as he had ever been for a team time trial. ‘Stuart was very courageous,’ said team manager Roger Legeay. ‘He rode very well and did all the relays at the front that he was meant to.’ He did, however, admit to a little fear: ‘I was more worried about the after-effects of having the heart beat at 235 bpm. When you know the next day you are going to smash yourself over 67 km, you wonder how you will recover.’ There are two forms of tachycardia, one serious and the other less so: ‘Hopefully, I have the good one. There is medication you have to take every day, but it is for something that may only happen every now and then.’ Australian confidence that Zabel’s reign as the green jersey champion could be brought to end was boosted on the 195 km 5th stage from Soissons to Rouen. While he was still leading the sprinters category, he had McEwen (second, 11 points), Cooke (third, 80 points) and O’Grady (fifth, 74 points) right on his tail. McEwen sensed Zabel was not 100 per cent: ‘He didn’t feel that confident. I heard he was back at the team car and the doctor’s car.’ O’Grady also suspected that not all was well, but wondered if it was due to the frustration of not having won a sprint. An F1 driver’s perspective The first week of any Tour is characterised by crashes. Which may well have been good cause for Australian Formula 1 star Mark Webber to decline an invitation from the French tyre manufacturer, Michelin, to follow a stage of the 2002 Tour in a car belonging to McGee and Cooke’s team, La Francaise des Jeux. Unlike so many VIPs who parachute in for a day Webber was a true lover of the Tour and avid cyclist, who rode as a vital part of his F1 conditioning program. In 2001 he took on one of the most notorious cycle routes in the United Kingdom, the 1700 km ride from Land’s End in Cornwall in south-west England to John O’Groates in north-east Scotland. Webber’s passion for cycling and his willingness to suffer on the saddle also led him to become friends with Lance Armstrong and join him on punishing training rides: ‘It’s not very sport specific for what we need. Leg power is not that crucial. But it is still a good base for conditioning. It also breaks up the monotony of just swimming. I like to go out training and this is a way to do it and smell roses.’

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• • •

He may have been an Olympic, Commonwealth Games and world championship track star, but it took a stage win in the Tour for Brad McGee to really cut the mustard as a professional cyclist. And were it not for the persistence of his team sports director and former professional rider Marc Madiot to recruit McGee to the La Francaise des Jeux team, the Sydneysider may never have ridden the Tour. McGee’s turning point came on Sunday, 13 July when he won the 176 km 7th stage from Bagnoles de l’Orne to Avranches with a brilliant solo attack in the last 800 m. Madiot, a former Paris–Roubaix winner, was the first person he thanked: ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Marc. I am not like every other cyclist, or most who grew up wanting to ride the Tour or be a professional cyclist. I finished at Atlanta in 1996, went home and started drinking beer and having a good time. Then this guy Madiot kept calling. He wouldn’t let it go, insisted I look at a contract and start thinking about being a professional. It is through his insistence that I am celebrating this.’ Madiot’s influence didn’t end with him signing up McGee in 1998. He also played an important role in the Australian’s stage win: ‘Marc had spoken to friends who lived in the area. Word was that it was a hard finish and that it would suit me more to lead out with about 800 m

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to go. Then we would have Baden [Cooke] up there on the wheels. In case I got caught he would profit from the fact the other sprinters would chase me down. It is not often plans go that well, but it’s obvious that this is what you have to do to win a stage of the Tour.’ Madiot had also warned McGee to be ready for the unexpected, such as the two crashes that occurred in the last 10 km of the stage—one involving twenty riders with 5 km to go almost taking McGee down. McGee’s win was great for Australian cycling. But it had added lustre with all four Australians placing in the top ten—McEwen fourth, O’Grady sixth and Cooke eighth. McEwen was growing in confidence about his green jersey prospects. After Stages 8 and 9 he was two points behind Zabel: ‘I have to finish what I started. But Erik is going to fight all the way to Paris. I know that for a fact.’ And Zabel was more than willing to respond by saying, ‘I am the one in control, not he.’ The green jersey was out of reach for O’Grady, but knowing what it is like to challenge Zabel he backed McEwen: ‘The hole has been made. Zabel is going to be having nightmares about another Australian now, Robbie.’ He also offered McEwen some advice: ‘He has the speed to hit out before Zabel. I was talking to Robbie on one of the first days. I said, You have to jump before him. If you try to wait you are not going to make it. I am not the kind of sprinter that has the kick Robbie has. If anyone can do it, Robbie can.’ The Tour, meanwhile, threw up some unexpected misfortune at Armstrong when he was caught behind a crash near the finish of Stage 7. He didn’t fall, but he was forced to stop and put his foot on the ground. The delay caused hysteria in the press room and saw Armstrong finish 27 seconds behind a victorious McGee. The reigning champion played down the time loss, which left him in eighth place, saying all it meant was that ‘I’ll now have to ride a little faster’ in the 52 km Stage 9 time trial. Still, it did show he was human. And if anyone doubted that, they were given a reminder in the time trial. Instead of winning and taking the yellow jersey as expected, Armstrong was second at 11 seconds to Colombian Santiago Botero, leaving him placed second overall as the

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Tour headed into the Pyrenees: ‘I am disappointed because I didn’t win the stage and didn’t take the jersey.’ It was Armstrong’s first time trial loss in the Tour since his first win in 1999. It also meant he would go into the mountains chasing the yellow jersey rather than defending it. To pull that off he needed to overcome a strong and confident ONCE team that had the Spaniard Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano in the lead and Joseba Beloki waiting in the wings. Armstrong was ready: ‘We will ride aggressively and attack. The only way to win is to take back time. There are two ways: they [ONCE] crack or we attack.’ • • •

McEwen needed a fresh approach for the mountains after taking the green jersey from Zabel on the 147 km 10th stage from Bazas to Pau on the doorstep of the Pyrenees. To save himself for when the Tour returned to the flat, he would usually slip into the shadows away from the battle between the pure climbers. But with the green jersey now his, he had to defend it. He would have to compete for points in at least the first intermediate sprints in the mountain stages before he and the others sprinters were dropped. After securing a one point lead over Zabel, he said: ‘The important thing will be to stay with Erik, make sure he doesn’t get any points I don’t. The first [sprint] of the day before the first mountain will be important. We will be going full gas there. Then we’ll have no legs and will probably be the first two dropped when we hit the first climb. That’s all right, so long as I finish in front of him and take an extra point.’ Zabel’s morale took a blow by losing the green jersey: ‘I am not getting any younger and my legs are not getting any stronger. The only thing I have left is experience.’ And McEwen felt he had the upper hand: ‘In the last days I have beaten him in a number of situations. It is good for my confidence that I have been able to win by coming from behind, next to him and in front of him.’ His green jersey also soothed Australian disappointment over O’Grady’s foiled bid to win the stage. Still, it was Australia’s sixteenth top-ten place. But what should happen usually doesn’t in the Tour, and nobody could have guessed that a long-standing feud between McEwen and Armstrong

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would be at the centre of the drama that followed on Stage 12 from Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille. McEwen lost the green jersey to Zabel despite the German being dropped on the 20 km-long climb of the Col d’Aubisque. He rejoined the US Postal Services peloton, but there were claims that Armstrong saved Zabel by ordering his riders to slow down to help him get back on, knowing this would set Zabel up to take green from McEwen in the intermediate sprint. That morning, Cyclingnews.com had posted a story by John Trevorrow quoting McEwen saying his falling out with Armstrong stemmed from 2001 when Armstrong accused the Australian of breaking protocol by attacking while he stopped to relieve himself. McEwen reportedly told Armstrong to ‘get over it’. However, as he discovered in the 2002 Tour Armstrong had done everything but get over it. In fact, earlier in the 2002 Tour Armstrong had made a wise crack at McEwen when he slipped off the edge of the road: ‘[He] tried to belittle me. I told him, “Shut your mouth or I will fill it with my fist” . ’ It was 24 hours before the story really gained legs—ironically on the day McEwen took back the green jersey from Zabel after the 171 km 13th stage from Lavelanet to Beziers. However, it was not the green jersey that was the focus of the media’s attention, but McEwen’s blow up with Armstrong that other riders in the peloton overheard. Unsurprisingly, McEwen was none too pleased. His first words after recovering at the finish were: ‘Which one of you guys wrote that story about me and Lance?’ With McEwen’s stinging ‘thanks a lot’ still resonating in the air after Trevorrow admitted it was him, I followed the Australian to the team bus where he said he understood why Armstrong would be unhappy about the report: ‘I wouldn’t say it is totally cleared up. He is obviously not happy about it. So he should be. We had words the other day, but as far as I am concerned I have already put it behind me.’ Armstrong would not comment. His spokesman Jogi Muller flatly said, ‘We don’t even want to go there’. But everyone knew the Texan had a reputation for paying back those who dared cross him. While the Armstrong–McEwen spat continued to intrigue the Tour, the Australian story was taking another turn: leading the bunch home nine minutes 56 seconds behind stage winner David Millar was Tour

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debutant Baden Cooke. To win the sprint the Victorian beat McEwen, O’Grady and Zabel, who labelled Cooke a revelation of the 2002 Tour. Cooke’s ‘win’ immediately raised speculation that he would be a contender for a win in the final stage into Paris. He was gaining strength with every bunch sprint and earning his teammates’ confidence. It also helped that McEwen and Zabel were having to expend energy by vying for the intermediate sprints in the battle for the green jersey: ‘It had been really important I win these bunch sprints when there are breakaways to get the confidence of the team. They set me up real well today. Now we are all ready for them to lead me out in Paris. They [McEwen and Zabel] are slowing because they have been racing each other so hard. Hopefully they will be busy watching each other and that will leave an opportunity for me.’ Horsing around . . . Arriving at the summit of the Col d’Aubisque in the Pyrenees on the 158 km 11th stage from Pau to la Mongie, I could not help but be struck by the difference between what we’d just passed through and what awaited us on the other side. On the ascent we had woven our way through hundreds of thousands of fans waiting in anticipation for the race to arrive from the valley below. But as we dipped over the summit, before us was a panoramic view of open space and sinewy mountain roads where only a trickle of fans had settled to watch the riders descend at breakneck speeds of 100 km/h-plus. We wanted to stay well ahead of the race. As riders travel so much faster than cars, to be caught on the descent was a terrifying prospect. By our calculations we were 45 minutes in front, so after several winding kilometres and with the summit in clear view to give us enough warning of the race’s approach, we stopped at an idyllic vantage point to watch a wild mare and her foal happily standing by the roadside eating grass. They were as curious about us as we were of them, especially when I unwrapped a pastry laden with sugars and preservatives that the foal wolfed down when I naively offered it to her. She proceeded to nibble my arm and as I stepped away and walked around the car she followed, putting her head through the open rear window to sniff the back seat. As if that wasn’t enough, she turned and rubbed her backside up and down on the door. She was taking ownership.

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Then we heard motorbike sirens and cries of the approaching Garde Républicaine, who were leading the race to ensure the roads were clear of cars and spectators. Our 45 minute start had whittled right away. Meanwhile, the race was nearing the summit of the Col d’Aubisque. McGee, who was fourth to pass the top, was brimming with confidence. On the descent, he and the Basque rider David Extabarria were going for broke and gaining on Laurent Jalabert with every kilometre. In the car, we could hear McGee’s progress on Radio Tour. There was just one climb to the finish line. While not pure climbers, they were all strong riders, but McGee, having changed his pedalling style to the high cadence stroke used by Armstrong, was climbing like never before. It was then as I wondered if the foal had scarpered that we suddenly heard ‘Chute, Chute [crash, crash]’ Radio Tour. It couldn’t be . . . not McGee. Surely not. With 90 km to go, McGee had ridden off the edge of the road and into a barbed-wire fence from which he had to be delicately extricated by the race officials and medicos. He was a human patchwork of cuts and grazes and would later suffer from numerous ligament strains. But he was lucky not to have broken any bones and be forced out of the Tour. After taking a spare bike from his team, and in an extraordinary show of strength, McGee set off in pursuit of the main group. Jalabert was caught with four kilometres to go by a group that included Armstrong, who won the stage to take the yellow jersey. McGee finished at 9 minutes 45 seconds to Armstrong: ‘I thought it was a good move to jump across. It wouldn’t have taken more out of me to be up with Jalabert than sitting in the bunch. It would have been nice coming into that last climb with the legs I had on the Aubisque.’ So how did McGee crash? He had been distracted by the noise of a motorbike kick stand dragging on the road behind him. The screeching of metal and bitumen led him to believe the bike had crashed. He turned to look, but suddenly the road was veering to the right and he was hurtling straight ahead—over the edge. Was there a sign of a mare and her foal near the road? I didn’t dare to ask . . .

• • •

We were at the foot of Mont Ventoux on Stage 14 from Lodeve when traffic slowed. The crowd on the side of the road had thickened and it was stinking hot and humid. Suddenly a hand reached into the car and

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grabbed VeloNews European correspondent Andy Hood’s arm. A man yelled and peered into the car with venom and anger in his eyes. There was an extraordinary tension surrounding that year’s Tour, which again appeared destined to end in another win by Armstrong. And while the Texan may have been on course to win another Tour, he was becoming less and less popular, particularly with the French, who jeered him all the way up the 23 km climb to Mont Ventoux. That those jeers hurt and shocked him was clear. Visibly shaken by the experience. Armstrong said: ‘It’s disappointing, to be honest. Those people are not sportsmanlike. A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. And if I had a dollar for every time they yelled “dopé” [doped] I’d be a rich man.’ There were still rewards for Armstrong, however, on a day when temperatures soared to around 35°C and on a route his friend Hollywood actor Robin Williams jokingly described as ‘like the moon with a nipple on it’. After placing third, he increased his overall lead to 4 minutes 21 seconds going into the 15th stage from Vaison la Romaine to les Deux Alpes. McEwen also extended his lead in the points competition after finishing 33 seconds ahead of McGee, whose own finish was remarkable considering his crash in the Pyrenees two days earlier. McEwen almost made it sound simple: ‘I just rode up easy, and came up to the top to collect my jersey.’ And as hard as it was to get up to the finish, most riders wanted to get down the mountain as quickly as possible—none more so than Armstrong.

Medellin with trouble Colombian Santiago Botero rode conservatively up Mont Ventoux with a view to saving his energy for a winning coup on Stage 15. His gamble paid off and he triumphed with a solo attack that saw him fend off a chase group that included Armstrong. His win was ‘all about suffering’, said the 29-yearold, who had spent most of his career in fear of being kidnapped whenever he trained back home in Medellin. Known as home to many Colombian drug lords, kidnappings, murders and maiming were common and high profile sporting identities such as Botero faced constant danger. Two former professional Tour stars—Luis ‘Lucho’ Herrara and Oliviero Rincon—had already been kidnapped for ransoms.

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So worried was Botero that he would never train at home in his Kelme team gear. He also rode the same route every day, back and forwards between his home and the airport. Why? Because it was heavily policed.

• • •

Immediately after the Tour, most stars head off to race in the lucrative European criterium circuit. But in 2002 McGee, O’Grady and Cooke would be going to Manchester and the Commonwealth Games. Doubt existed that McGee would have recovered enough from his crash in the Pyrenees to line up on the track for the qualifying rounds of the 4000 m individual pursuit. These doubts followed the Australian through the Alps from les Deux Alpes to la Plagne in Stage 16, where he conceded he hadn’t recovered from the crash as well as he had hoped, into the final mountain leg on Stage 18 from Cluses to Bourg en Bresse, which included seven mountain passes. Australian head coach Shane Bannan left it as late as possible to decide McGee’s fate, time that came in handy as his improved form in the 50 km time trial on Stage 19 from Regnie Durette to Macon showed—he placed fifteenth to a victorious Armstrong. The Australian was on song from his first pedal stroke to his last, as he rode through the maze of vineyards on an undulating and twisting course. Gone was the pained struggle on the bike we had seen in recent days; back was his trademark relaxed posture and deft turn of pedal that made racing at a breakneck speed look so easy. It appeared as if he was born for one thing alone—to ride, and ride beautifully. The smile on McGee’s face as he sucked in the oxygen after finishing said it all. It had been a ‘roller coaster’ Tour: ‘In the first week I was stomping. Then it was crash and burn for a week. But in the last few days I have been feeling better and am now back to strength. I am feeling a lot better. I have assured him [Bannan] that I don’t want to change a thing.’ McGee was not the only Australian to have suffered, though. Cooke, who was to ride the Games road race, had been wincing at the slightest bump on the mountain roads due to a massive cyst on his backside. So bad was the pain that he cut a hole in the left side of his saddle to alleviate the pressure when he sat down. After finishing 36 minutes 34 seconds

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behind the winner, Dutchman Michael Boogerd, in Stage 16 he said: ‘I had to do a fair bit of work on it [the saddle]. I tried it out, did some more. I did it again during the stage. I reckon I’ll need to do more for the next stage.’ Could there have been any saddle left by the time he reached Paris? • • •

At his Tour winner’s press conference on the eve of the Stage 20 finish in Paris, Armstrong announced he was already planning a fifth win in 2003. Whether he was playing with his rivals’ minds or being serious, there is no doubt he surprised us all. He wanted to equal Miguel Indurain as the only rider to win five Tours in a row and join Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault to win five Tours in total: ‘I don’t think I am getting stronger, but I’m not getting weaker. It’s hard to win this race year in, year out. But so many things can happen, and I know that.’ But there would be changes. ‘On the team there are guys that have a contract that’s up, guys that only have a one year contract. We have to start thinking about keeping them, negotiating with them, signing them, thinking about training, training camps, and what races we will do.’ Only one rider would race with Armstrong in all seven Tour wins, American George Hincapie. Still smarting at his failure to win the Stage 9 time trial as expected, Armstrong said that for the 2003 Tour he also planned to undertake wind tunnel testing of his bikes and riding positions at Texas A & M University near his hometown in Austin. ‘I didn’t go to the wind tunnel last winter, which I think was a mistake. I need to go back.’ Still, Armstrong allowed himself to share his joy over a fourth win, even with the media he was showing mounting disdain for. When asked to describe his fondest memories of the Tour, he laughed before recounting how some of his foreign teammates struggled to adapt to the American ways of his team, in particular Roberto Herras and the blues rock band ZZ Top, whose music was often played in the team bus: ‘Whenever I hear ZZ Top I will always remember . . . Roberto saying, “Who is ZZ Top? Por favor. Do we have to hear this again?” ’

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• • •

Good things can take a long time coming. McEwen’s victory in the green jersey category was secured by him charging onto the Champs Elysees at the end of the 144 km stage from Melun. His win represented the first call-up of an Australian to the final-day podium for a jersey since Phil Anderson won the white jersey as best young rider in 1982. That it came after a threat from Armstrong that he would order his teammates to derail McEwen’s bid only added to the excitement of the win. McEwen and Armstrong officially tried to pour water on the growing interest in their fall-out. But speculation on what Armstrong would do were McEwen to join him on the podium in Paris continued. Armstrong obviously fancied McEwen’s chances. After the 17th stage from Aime to Cluses he said: ‘McEwen is faster. You can see, nine times out of ten he wins in the sprint.’ When asked for his reaction to their apparent rift he nodded in acknowledgement, but his face turned to stone when asked for an elaboration. I had seen that look before. All he said was: ‘No elaboration.’ Armstrong felt the green jersey battle would go to the line in Paris: ‘Last year they [O’Grady and Zabel] were still competing for the green jersey. It will be the same this year. The final day will be a race for those guys and their teams. It’s unfortunate because on the last day everyone wants to take it easy. You take pictures, put on wigs.’ McEwen began the last stage with a one point lead on Zabel, who had won the green jersey six times already and clearly had Armstrong’s support. After McEwen extended his lead to three points by winning the first intermediate sprint, the American advised Zabel against contesting the next sprint. Armstrong’s ploy was to keep McEwen from winning more points and allowing Zabel to rest for a planned winning sprint in the stage finish. He ordered his team to take the first nine positions at the front of the peloton and set such a high tempo that no other rider could ride fast enough to take any points. McEwen knew what was happening: ‘I heard him [Armstrong] talking to Zabel. I could hear him because I was sitting on the wheel of Zabel. I heard him say, “I don’t think you should go for the second sprint because then McEwen will have five points. Then you won’t be able to beat him

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any more.” I thought, that’s fine by me. I don’t want to sprint anyway. I’ll save my energy and gamble everything on the last sprint too because I felt confident and also had good legs . . . Okay, okay, he was supporting [Zabel]. But I had guys in the race supporting me too. A lot came to me saying, I hope you win the green jersey. It is normal that guys choose one way or the other.’ McEwen settled the matter emphatically, taking advantage of Zabel’s error on the final turn. As Zabel went wide, McEwen jumped from his wheel to win with arms splayed wide. Cooke placed second and Zabel finished a distant seventh, just behind O’Grady. McEwen’s win was timely. It ensured he could command up to 12 000 French francs (A$22 300) for each appearance at the post Tour criteriums, of which he planned to race sixteen. It also elevated him into the top three on the world rankings, after having started the year placed 100th, and it boosted his value in ongoing negotiations with the Lotto-Adecco team. And, unlike O’Grady, Cooke and McGee, his next objective was not a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games but to win the Grand Prix of Hamburg World Cup race and the world championships at Zolder, in Belgium, where he would take silver before ending the year with 22 wins. McEwen was not backward when asked what impact his Tour success would have: ‘More money.’ It was also a glorious end to the best ever Tour for Australian cycling—with the green jersey, three stage wins (two to McEwen and one to McGee) and nineteen top-ten places. • • •

Within minutes of finishing the final stage into Paris to win his fourth Tour, Armstrong’s mobile phone rang. It was the United States President George W. Bush. Armstrong was standing in 35°C heat on the cobblestones of the Champs Elysees, having just been introduced for a live interview on French TV. He didn’t hesitate to walk away from the camera to take the call. Within seconds he was back with the French reporter, explaining who called: ‘He is a nice guy. We are both Texans and he loves cycling a lot. He said he saw me on the television and to come over to the White House.’

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Bush and Armstrong had a strong association. After his first Tour win in 1999 when Bill Clinton was President, Bush—then Governor of Texas—sat with Armstrong at a public reception and before thousands of adoring fans in his hometown of Austin. In 2002, Armstrong was appointed to President Bush’s Cancer Panel—an advisory position he took very seriously. The final day of the Tour was a mere formality for Armstrong—the general feeling was that he had finished with energy to spare. Third placegetter Lithuanian Raimondo Rumsas’ success, on the other hand, was very short-lived. Within 24 hours, his wife was arrested at Chamonix in the Alps when customs found suspicious products and two prescriptions in her car. The scandal continued for some time, but having a podium finisher caught up in a doping controversy so soon after the race had finished was the last thing the Tour needed. Armstrong did not remain in France. He had a meeting planned with Bush at the White House. He was entered in the Grand Prix New York and the Grand Prix San Francisco. There were television appearances, interviews and sponsors’ commitments. Armstrong’s life didn’t slow down after the Tour—it sped up. The 2002 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal Services/USA) 3276 km in 82 hours 5 minutes 12 seconds (average speed 39.909 km/h) 2. Joseba Beloki (ONCE/Spain) at 7 minutes 17 seconds 3. Raimondas Rumsas (Lampre/Lithuania) at 8 minutes 17 seconds The Australians 77. Stuart O’Grady (Credit Agricole/France) at 3 hours 0 minutes 22 seconds (3rd on points for green) 109. Brad McGee (La Francaise des Jeux/France) at 2 hours 39 minutes 2 seconds (1 stage win) 127. Baden Cooke (La Francaise des Jeux/France) at 2 hours 39 minutes 2 seconds (4th on points for green) 130. Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Adecco/Belgium) at 3 hours 3 minutes 30 seconds (2 stage wins, 8 days in green, 1st on points for green)

2003 I won’t make the same mistakes again. Perhaps it was good to have a rough year, because winning by five or six minutes can get boring. —Lance Armstrong after his most problematic but fifth Tour win 5–27 July (3428 km) Paris–Paris (Prologue), Saint Denis Montgeron–Meaux (Stage 1), la Ferte sous Jouarre–Sedan (Stage 2), Charleville Mezieres– Saint Dizier (Stage 3), Joinville–Saint Dizier (Stage 4 team time trial), Troyes– Nevers (Stage 5), Nevers–Lyon (Stage 6), Lyon–Morzine Avoriaz (Stage 7), Sallanchess–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 8), Bourg d’Oisans–Gap (Stage 9), Gap–Marseille (Stage 10), Narbonne–Toulouse (Stage 11), Gaillac–Cap Decouverte (Stage 12 individual time trial), Toulouse–Ax 3 Domaines (Stage 13), Saint Girons–Loudenvielle le Louron (Stage 14), Bagneres de Bigorre– Luz Ardiden (Stage 15), Pau–Bayonne (Stage 16), Dax–Bordeaux (Stage 17), Bordeaux–Saint Maixent l’Ecole (Stage 18), Pornic–Nantes (Stage 19 individual time trial), Ville d’Avray–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

The 2003 Tour de France was memorable for many reasons. For starters it was the Centenary Tour, celebrating 100 years since the race’s inception in 1903 as a publicity stunt for the French newspaper L’Auto. It also began in Paris with Australian Brad McGee winning the Prologue and claiming the yellow jersey and was bookended with Baden Cooke winning the green jersey at the finish in Paris in a two-way fight with compatriot Robbie McEwen. There were also plenty of other Australian successes to follow, with Stuart O’Grady winning the one-off ‘Centennaire’ classification (and 50 000 Euros prize money) as the rider with most accumulated points based on his places in the six cities where the first Tour went: Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bayonne, Bordeaux and Paris. There was also the strong climbing of Tour rookie Michael Rogers and 196

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the important roles played by two Aussie domestiques, Victorian Matt Wilson, who rode for McGee and Cooke, and New South Wales’ Nick Gates in helping McEwen. It was also memorable for Lance Armstrong claiming his fifth consecutive Tour title, placing him alongside Miguel Indurain, and the drama behind that win: his poor seventh in the Prologue, his near miss on Stage 9 to Gap where Joseba Beloki was not so lucky, his crash on the ascent to Luz Ardiden, and the public nature of his divorce with his wife and mother of their children, Kirsten. Add a zero count for drug scandals, and 2003 should have been the Tour of the century. But when the race reached the finish on the Champs Elysees, I was just grateful it was over. • • •

The media scrum at a Tour stage finish is like no other. Within seconds of the winning rider crossing the finish line, and barely before he gets his first fresh breath, he is swamped by the chaos of journalists demanding a comment and prodding microphones and TV cameras. There is little chance of escape. For those of us asking the questions and holding the cameras, the adrenalin rush of being there within feet of the winner has no parallel. This is where the raw emotion of the Tour is at its most heightened. McGee found himself the first ‘victim’ of the media scrum in the Centenary Tour after collapsing on the cobblestones of Paris’ Avenue Motte Picquet, 100 m after the Prologue finish line. Pulling himself up, he was surrounded by a wall of microphones, television cameras and tape recorders. The first push’n’shove of the Tour media had been fought and won, and somehow in his exhaustion McGee realised that with two riders to finish—David Millar and Armstrong—he had to speak with first impressions in mind. He didn’t want to jump the gun. ‘Let’s not get excited. Let’s wait for the last couple to come in. I’ve been there before and [have been] beaten by many seconds . . . With my [sports director] Marc Madiot and my brother Rodney in the [team] car, it was the perfect combination. I laid it out exactly as we planned. Can’t do better than that.’ So what was his race plan? ‘Not to explode on the hill, get in the

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tuck [position] and then just try to ride a bigger gear all the way home.’ Asked what the wait was like as Millar and Armstrong completed their rides, he said, still smiling, ‘My heart rate has been 140 [bpm] all day.’ Others may have preferred to escape the finishing line chaos to wait out the agony alone, but McGee remained where he was—smack in the middle of the media scrum. In the end, Millar did not better McGee’s time. He was held back when his chain jumped off the big chain ring inside the last kilometres, and he finished 0.08 seconds behind the Australian. Armstrong came in seventh, his first Prologue without a top-three placing since 1999. As McGee looked over to see Armstrong cross, his joy could not be contained. ‘I’ve got it . . . I’ve got it,’ he yelled. And the media pack walked away feeling like winners too . . . with McGee, the first to claim the yellow jersey in the 2003 Tour, having shared the moment with us all. • • •

After his win on Stage 2 from La Ferte sous Jouarre to Sedan on the French–Belgian border, Cooke was grateful for two things: that he had asked his mechanic to change the 53-tooth big chain ring on his bike before the stage to one that had 54 teeth, thus giving his pedal stroke more power as he raced for the sprint finish, and McGee’s brilliant leadout. It was McGee who set Cooke up to be in the best position for his winning dash to the line, although the sight of a yellow jersey leading out a sprinter was astonishing. McGee put his team’s interests above his own, something Cooke, who also took the white jersey as best young rider, recognised: ‘That a rider of his calibre is leading me out says a lot about the character of Brad McGee.’ Cooke’s win also said something about the increasing impact of Australians on the Tour, who after the stage were wearing three of the Tour’s four prize jerseys—Cooke in white, McGee in yellow and McEwen in green. The win also helped erase some of the stigma that had followed Cooke from that year’s Dauphine Libere, where he was blamed for a crash. Because of that incident, some accused him of causing the pile up involving about 50 riders on Stage 1 of the Tour in which American Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone. Cooke didn’t lose sleep over the crash, and was unapologetic for his sprinting style: ‘Since the Dauphine crash,

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I knew that I’d be blamed for any crash . . . I was not anyway near it. I come from a type of racing where you rub shoulders. Maybe that’s a little alien to European riders.’ ‘Allo . . . allo’ The success of the three Australians increased interest in the Tour at home. The day after Cooke’s win, Channel Nine’s Today Show booked an interview with me for 11.15 pm French time. The only landline I could find was behind the bar of a pizzeria in Saint Dizier, but when the producer called just minutes before my live interview, the background noise of eating, drinking and debating events in the Tour was just so bad that we had to do the interview on my mobile phone. Within seconds of finding a less noisy place, my mobile rang and I could hear Tracey Grimshaw introducing me. But the line was still very bad. Her voice came through like a whisper as I searched for an even quieter place, ending up in a closet-sized toilet. Barely had I shut toilet door than Grimshaw’s welcome came through. I pressed the phone into one ear and my finger into the other, and bent my head over the hand basin to answer her questions. All I could hear were the words ‘mountains’ and ‘McGee’ and ‘ever in the Tour’. And then the door flew open and three men tried to walk in. Clearly in shock they abruptly turned around, wondering what the hell I was up to.

As the Tour headed from northern France towards the Alps, the next days became a festival for Italian Alessandro Petacchi, who won three of the four stages. The stage he didn’t win, the team time trial, went to Armstrong and his US Postal–Berry Floor team. Its win reshuffled the overall classification, although Armstrong did not take the yellow jersey. Instead, it went to one of his domestiques, Victor Hugo Pena, who became the first Colombian to lead the Tour. As Cooke and McEwen began their tussle for points for the green jersey, it was only a matter of time before O’Grady stepped up to show his wares as well. His top-end speed was not what it had been, but he still had the rat cunning and determination to add another Tour stage win to his CV. His moment came on the 6th stage from Nevers to Lyon on the eve of the Tour moving into the Alps. Wearing the Australian road champion’s jersey, O’Grady attacked 35 km into the 230 km stage and took Frenchman Anthony Geslin with him. They got a maximum

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lead of 18 minutes before the peloton mercilessly caught them with only 500 m to go. Making it an even bitter stage for Australia was that Petacchi beat Cooke to the win and took the green jersey from McEwen who, with Zabel, crashed 10 km from the finish and missed out on points to defend it. Not that either Australian was too worried: it had already been rumoured that Petacchi was close to quitting and in fact had to be urged on by his teammates to contest the stage. As the mountains neared, McGee was still intent on fulfilling his pledge after the Prologue ‘to give it a nudge one day in the Alps and one in the Pyrenees. I will pick my day and gain some confidence for the future.’ Despite his track background, McGee had never been shy about his ambition to become a contender in one of the three grand tours. He had worked extra hard on his climbing, with gruelling training rides in the Alpe Maritimes behind Nice on the French Riviera where he lived: ‘All year we have been in training camps in the mountains. That’s what these grand tours are all about, [racing] up the side of a mountain.’ McGee also had a significant result to back up his confidence. In the ten-day Tour of Switzerland he was sixth in the first mountain stage, and were it not for one bad day when he lost twelve minutes he would have placed in the top twenty overall. ‘At the Tour de Suisse I climbed with the top riders. It was the first time in my life that I got the reality of riding for the general classification. I still have a long way to go, but I have it in my head that I can one day try for it.’ Getting in the black list Armstrong’s fifth Tour was by far his most unsettling and hardest to win. It began with a series of mishaps for his team, with its Belgian manager Johan Bruyneel lightheartedly admitting that on the morning of the Prologue a pigeon had actually pooped on his shoulder during a team meeting. Bruyneel’s laugh did not last long, nor did the laughter of most Tour observers when it became clear that Armstrong and his inner sanctum were more intent than ever on trying to stamp out the enemy—those who doubted the Texan’s record as a clean rider. Together with VeloNews European correspondent Andy Hood, I was one of those blacklisted and subsequently denied all access to Armstrong. What brought this on?

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It all came to a head on Stage 8 from Sallanches to l’Alpe d’Huez, while driving down the valley towards the Col du Galibier, when Armstrong’s media manager Jorgi Muller beckoned us to stop at a cafe in the next town. I naively believed Muller’s invitation for a coffee was just that. What we didn’t know was that he was under orders to find out with whom David Walsh, the Irish journalist on the Sunday Times who had broken the story of Armstrong’s relationship with the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, was travelling. Muller had heard that Walsh was with us, a tip off I believe that came from within the Tour press room. The reward for betraying media peers was access to the Texan. By 2003 US Postal’s sensitivity to doping allegations was verging on paranoia, so much so that Muller was seen taking photographs at press conferences of any journalist the team did not know or who asked difficult questions. It should have dawned on me, therefore, why Muller was so chuffed when Walsh stepped out of our car. My blacklisting was confirmed two days later, before the start of Stage 10 from Gap to Marseille and then when I approached Muller outside the press room. He told me that I had to choose my friends carefully because my access to Armstrong hinged on it. After I argued the point, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘I am just doing my job’. Then I let him know of my displeasure with a tirade of Aussie vernacular. Right then and there the US Postal Services team lost much of its integrity by my reckoning. It was hard not to feel it had become arrogant and bullish, although one positive in being ‘struck off’ was that I no longer had to wait for the tap on the shoulder and the invitation for a private fireside chat with Armstrong. Knowing it would never happen again spared me the anxiety. I also drew on that old cliché that no one person is bigger than their sport.

• • •

Armstrong came perilously close to losing the 2003 Tour, but escaped the clutches of defeat on so many occasions that one colleague quipped he ‘must have signed a pact with the devil’. It is hard to believe that had anyone else experienced the hurdles that came Armstrong’s way they would have gone on to win the Tour. It is hard to believe they would have even reached the finish in Paris. Armstrong took the yellow jersey from Richard Virenque on the second mountain stage of the Tour, Stage 8 from Sallanches to l’Alpe d’Huez, where an estimated 500 000 fans lined the road to the finish to

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see US Postal’s near-perfect assault. After ensuring the peloton remained intact over the Col de Telegraphe and Col du Galibier, it was at the foot of the climb up the 21 switchbacks to l’Alpe d’ Huez that US Postal lobbed the first hand grenade of the stage in the form of its newly recruited rider Manuel Beltran. Beltran’s lightning attack up the first and steepest pitch of the mountain was aimed at breaking up the group and discarding riders. But his surge was so devastatingly hard and fast, it almost caught Armstrong out unawares. ‘If it looked fast I can confirm it was very fast. A rapid tempo is a good thing, but that was supersonic.’ One of the first riders to go was Virenque with his teammate Michael Rogers. The Australian, who had placed fourth in the previous stage to Morzine won by Virenque in what was the best ever placed finish by an Australian in the Alps, had been granted permission to ride for himself up l’Alpe d’Huez, but because of his loyalty to his team leader he selflessly opted to help Virenque defend the yellow jersey. It wasn’t long before Beltran’s energy and enthusiasm petered out. And once it did, Armstrong became the target of his exhausted rivals’ wrath. Joseba Beloki, Tyler Hamilton, Alexandre Vinokourov, Iban Mayo and Hamar Zubeldia attacked the American, who countered them all. The stage winning move came from Mayo, whose attack was left unanswered by Armstrong. He had opted instead to cover Beloki, a tactic some riders saw as a sign he was not as strong as he had been, so they attacked him again and again. Armstrong finished third on the stage to take the yellow jersey, but after finishing 2 minutes 12 seconds behind Mayo and 27 seconds to Vinokourov he found the overall classification closer than expected. Armstrong later said he had suffered like never before on l’Alpe d’Huez and that because he was not ‘on a great day’ on the Col du Galibier, he had opted to ride a conservative race. His rivals’ tails were now up for Stage 9 from Bourg d’Oisans to Gap. It was expected Beloki, Mayo, Vinokourov and Ullrich would throw caution to the wind in the last Alpine stage, but nobody could have imagined how the stage eventually unfolded or how Armstrong evaded a Tour-ending crash like he did. There were attacks from the start of the 184.5 km stage but the main drama unfolded with about 12 km to

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go, near the summit of the third category Cote de la Rochette, when Vinokourov caught everyone off guard and rode off alone to eventually win the stage. When Armstrong tried to chase, his surge only served to take Beloki and Mayo with him. On the descent, Armstrong and Beloki took turns in front as they raced at break-neck speed to try and catch Vinokourov, but with two hairpins to go and with Armstrong on Beloki’s wheel disaster struck. Beloki sensed he was going too fast at 80 km/h as he came into the first of the hairpins—a sweeping right that dipped at its apex—and braked. The pressure led to his rear tyre puncturing and wheel swerving from left to right before he came a cropper and skidded on his side and then his back into the corner. Armstrong was right behind him, not knowing which line to take other than straight ahead over a field and down the 25 per cent dip to the road below. Beloki was left screaming in agony and shock after he came to a halt. With a broken right femur, elbow and wrist his Tour was suddenly over, unlike Armstrong, who miraculously remained upright. But even more amazing was that when he came to the edge of the paddock, where a steep drop stood between him and the road, he managed to stop, dismount, throw his bike on his shoulder, jump, land safely on the road below and remount his bike just as the next group that included Mayo, Basso, Ullrich and Hamilton passed. Within seconds, Armstrong was in their company and en route to a spectacular fourth place. His lead was safe, but only by a worrying 21 seconds on Vinokourov. • • •

If Armstrong had signed a pact with the devil, then the devil made him earn his keep. After the Tour crossed from the Alps to the Pyrenees, another race-threatening catastrophe struck. He lost the 47 km Stage 12 time trial from Gaillac to Cap Decouverte to Ullrich when he suffered dehydration, and the German moved into second place overall. And then on the climb to the finish of the 15th stage from Bagneres de Bigorre to Luz Ardiden, an official Tour souvenir bag caught Armstrong’s right handlebar and he fell. Mayo came down on top of him, but the Texan soon remounted his Trek bike and set off in pursuit of Ullrich, who had

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earlier launched a massive surge to tire him out but slowed on the last climb upon hearing what happened. Armstrong almost fell again when his foot slipped from his pedal and he came crutch down on the top bar of his bike. Every male watching was left wincing. The second accident only helped push Armstrong into a trademark fit of rage that drove him to win the stage. He was battered and bruised, but his comeback from adversity was rewarded with an extended lead on Ullrich and Vinokourov—enough to keep them at bay until the rainsoaked 49 km Stage 19 time trial from Pornic to Nantes. The conditions played into Armstrong’s hands. He placed third and kept the pressure on Ullrich, who had to make up time and was willing to risk all in his bid to win the Tour. The conditions cruelled Ullrich’s chances, and he crashed on the wet and slippery roads with 12 km to go on a right-hand turn through a giant roundabout. Armstrong’s fifth Tour was now in the bag. Ironically, for all his mishaps during the Tour Armstrong actually won over the French photographers, who two years earlier had presented him with the Prix Citron for the least liked cyclist on the Tour. Before the start of Stage 18 he was awarded the Prix d’Orange for being the most appreciated. Unsurprisingly, this time he accepted the award. As he led the Tour into Paris two days later, Armstrong was a little more circumspect about his chances of winning another Tour: ‘Now I’ve got both feet square on the ground. Before the Tour started I was very confident I would win, but I won’t be so confident next year. Now I know that guys like Jan Ullrich and Joseba Beloki are strong, if not stronger than before, and I’ve learned that anything can happen in the Tour de France.’ Ullrich, on the other hand, was thrilled with his second place after coming back from injury and a drug suspension: ‘I only came to the Tour hoping to prepare for 2004. I challenged Armstrong as I was only 15 seconds behind him after the 13th stage, but I’m a little surprised everything went well.’ Watching Armstrong celebrate were Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx, who had all won five Tours. (Jacques Anquetil died in 1987.) Armstrong was guarded about being put in their company: ‘I’m not sure where I fit in. We all won in different eras and in different ways.

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But I still put them up on a different level.’ Asked if he’d won or survived the Tour, he said: ‘A bit of both. I feel like I have missed or dodged a lot of bullets. I’ve not necessarily been on top of my game. You have to be able to survive the Tour to win it.’ He was coming back, however. ‘I won’t make the same mistakes again. Perhaps it was good to have a rough year, because winning by five or six minutes can get boring . . . I hope I know the moment to walk away. I know my time is limited, but I don’t plan a farewell year.’ Gates and Wilson . . . so close, so far We drove past Nick Gates, who had given so much to Robbie McEwen in the punishing mountain stages. He was near the crest of a hill shrouded by a lush Basque forest 22 km into the 197.5 km 16th stage from Pau to Bayonne. He was alone—off the back of the peloton. He had been struggling from the moment he rode out from Pau. Radio Tour had already announced twice that he was in difficulty. It was an uncomfortable feeling passing a rider that early in a stage. We knew his time in the Tour was numbered. But there was nothing we could do. We dipped over the crest and Gates, who was climbing ever so slowly, dropped out of view. His head was bobbing as he wiped his nose. Then and there his Tour was over. It would only be a matter of minutes before his abandon was confirmed. But it would be hours before I could catch up with him. The stage was surging towards a win by Tyler Hamilton, who was riding with a broken collarbone. His was one of the great stories of the Tour. Gates’ sorrow stood in stark contrast to Hamilton’s joy: ‘I am devastated. I might as well have not started. To get that close to Paris after the mountains and not finish . . . it all means nothing.’ Gates was the second Australian to leave the Tour in six days. Matt Wilson was eliminated for finishing outside the time limit on Stage 11. His demise was all the sadder because it could have been so easily avoided and came after an otherwise impressive Tour. Wilson’s problem was that he had forgotten to put the anti-histamine spray used to treat his asthma into the day bag usually left in one of the team cars that followed the peloton. Instead it was packed in his suitcase, which had been sent straight to the team hotel. When he realised his mistake, and after the Tour medico told him he wasn’t able to supply the medication, the stage rapidly became a race of survival for Wilson, one that ultimately led to his elimination.

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• • •

It was incredible that the green jersey again came down to the last sprint—this time between two Australians in Cooke and McEwen. The last stage into Paris was arguably the most tense of their three weeks, especially as the six-times green jersey champion Erik Zabel was still in contention. But it soon became a two-way race as the standings see-sawed between McEwen and Cooke, who both won 10 points on each of the final two intermediate sprints. Stage honours went to Frenchman JeanPaul Nazon, but in a push and shove finish for second place captured in freeze-frame by a posse of the world’s leading sports photographers, Cooke edged out McEwen to earn the extra points. It was enough to lift the boy from Benalla in country Victoria into first place in the green jersey standings: ‘I knew I had been beaten [for the stage win]. Then I thought maybe I would get scrubbed because I leaned on Robbie. Then he came up, patted me on the shoulder and said, “Good on ya, you’ve won.” ’ Winning the green jersey also boosted Cooke’s worth for the postTour criteriums. ‘All those people who didn’t sign me up will have to pay more now, won’t they?’ McEwen was philosophical about losing his title. ‘I saw it on the line. I knew I had been beaten. I don’t know if I could have done any more.’ When asked about the physicality of the finish, he said: ‘We were both giving it everything we had. We were going flat out for the sprint, we were both empty. Keeping your balance is the last thing you are thinking about.’ Despite McEwen’s acceptance of defeat, there was no tone of surrender. One of the intrinsic traits of the Australian rider—whether a domestique, time triallist, sprinter or yellow jersey contender—has always been their resolute spirit and their ability to deal with the result (whether good or bad) and move on. And like the typical Australian rider, McEwen would get back up and move forward. Even better, he would do so spectacularly. The 2003 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal–Berry Floor/USA) 3428 km in 83 hours 41 minutes 12 seconds (average speed 40.94 km/h) 2. Jan Ullrich (Team Bianchi/Germany) at 1 minute 1 second 3. Alexandre Vinokourov (Telekom/Kazakhstan) at 4 minutes 14 seconds

2003

The Australians 42. Michael Rogers (Quickstep-Davitamon/Belgium) at 1 hour 37 minutes 28 seconds 90. Stuart O’Grady (Credit Agricole/France) at 2 hours 41 minutes 24 seconds (1st Centennaire category) 133. Brad McGee (FDJeux.com/France) at 3 hours 52 minutes 49 seconds (1st Prologue, 3 days in yellow) 140. Baden Cooke (FDJeux.com/France) at 4 hours 4 minutes 10 seconds (1 stage win, 11 days green, 1 day white, 1st on points for green) 143. Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Domo/Belgium) at 4 hours 13 minutes 28 seconds (7 days in green, 2nd on points for green) DNF. Matt Wilson (FDJeux.com/France) outside time limit Stage 11 DNF. Nick Gates (Lotto-Domo/Belgium) abandoned Stage 16

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2004 No gifts this year. I have given gifts on the Tour and very rarely has it ever come back to help me. This is the biggest bike race in the world. It means more to me than any race in the world. I want to win . . . no gifts. —Lance Armstrong after his Stage 17 win 3–25 July (3391 km): Liege–Liege (Prologue), Liege–Charleroi (Stage 1), Charleroi–Namur (Stage 2), Waterloo–Wasquehal (Stage 3), Cambrai–Arras (Stage 4 team time trial), Amiens–Chartres (Stage 5), Bonneval–Angers (Stage 6), Chateaubriant–Saint Brieuc (Stage 7), Lamballe–Quimper (Stage 8), Saint Leonard de Noblat–Gueret (Stage 9), Limoges–Saint Flour (Stage 10), Saint Flour–Figeac (Stage 11), Castelsarrasin–la Mongie (Stage 12), Lannemezan–Plateau de Beille (Stage 13), Carcassonne–Nimes (Stage 14), Valreas–Villard de Lans (Stage 15), Bourg d’Oisans–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 16 individual time trial), Bourg d’Oisans–le Grand Bornand (Stage 17), Annemasse–Lons le Saunier (Stage 18), Besancon–Besancon (Stage 19 individual time trial), Montreau–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

Lance Armstrong was justifiably the favourite to win the 2004 Tour, but for the first time since Phil Anderson in the 1980s there was hope that an Australian could emerge as a contender for a top overall finish. An unprecedented number of Australians had been picked for the race—Baden Cooke, Allan Davis, Nick Gates, Robbie McEwen, Stuart O’Grady, Scott Sunderland, Matt White and Matt Wilson—with Michael Rogers and Brad McGee in particularly hot form before the 6.1 km Prologue. Rogers’ sights were on a top-ten finish, and he was confident that he was better prepared than ever before. He was feeling fresher than he did in 2003 when he came into the race off the back of wins in the Tours of 208

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Belgium and Germany and the Route du Sud in France, which all taxed him: ‘The change in build-up has been good. We decided to focus more on the Tour. If all things go well I’d like a top ten or fifteen.’ McGee was also positive about his prospects after placing eighth overall in the Giro d’Italia, where he kept up with the climbers and was dominant in the time trials. He also now knew how to identify the warning signals and handle the condition that robbed him of vital energies in the 2003 Tour, hypoglycaemia. With his confidence back, he was able to start the Tour with a clear pathway to future success. ‘Going for the overall victory next year [2005] is the goal and a very realistic one.’ Australian excitement was soured before the start, though, when Matt White, who had joined O’Grady on the French Cofidis team and was thrilled about finally getting a Tour start, crashed out while warming up before the Prologue. He was rolling slowly with O’Grady when his wheel caught a groove in a cable covering, sending him over the handlebars and injuring his shoulder. He could have started, but he knew he would not have finished. He also needed to think of the upcoming Olympic Games road race in Athens: ‘I couldn’t pull on the handlebars. I may have lasted a week, possibly two, but that would only ruin my shoulder for the season. I didn’t come to the Tour for a polo shirt and a cap. I came to do something . . . [I’m] not here to ride around France for two weeks.’ Australian misfortune didn’t end with White’s mishap either. Rogers crashed in the Prologue and while not seriously injured, lost time. Then in the 202.5 km 1st stage from Liege to Charleroi Nick Gates came a cropper, injuring his knee. He rode on, but finished outside the time limit. Meanwhile McGee, who struggled to finish, revealed he had a lower back and hip problem and might not continue. The injury was sustained while gardening at his home in Nice on the French Riviera the weekend before the Tour began: ‘I took time out to plant two olive trees. That night I felt a little back pain and I did something stupid. The next day, instead of taking it easy, I went out and did five hours, doing a climb and then a series of intense intervals.’ McGee would eventually abandon on Stage 5 and later discover that he was suffering a form of emotional and physical stress diagnosed in France as fybromyalgia. His problem also impacted on teammate Baden Cooke. McGee was vital to leading

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out the 2003 green jersey champion for the sprints. Without him 100 per cent, Cooke’s chances were compromised. The one glimmer of hope left after a miserable start for Australia was McEwen’s second place on Stage 1. While not a win it showed he had form, which he confirmed by winning the 192 km 2nd stage from Charleroi to Namur. The win in Belgium was perfectly timed by the rider who lives in Belgium, is married to a Belgian, and rides for a Belgian team. He was met at the finish by three of Belgium’s most prominent figures: King Albert II, Prime Minister Guy Vehofstadt and cycling legend Eddy Merckx. McEwen was as happy as I had ever seen him after a Tour victory, especially as the next day’s stage was to pass the Flemish town of Geraarsdbergen, where he lives with his wife Angelique and son Ewan. To beat Norwegian Thor Hushovd and Frenchman Jean-Patrick Nazon in what was a fiery sprint, McEwen had to draw on his BMX racing skills to negotiate a tricky and dangerous 300 m-long left-hand bend with 450 m to go, proving he was back in form. ‘I have re-found my 2002 legs. I did everything on automatic. I won’t say it was easy, but it went really nicely.’ But he had also carefully studied the finish: ‘I got the team boss to fax through all the details. I also had a really good look at the finish in the race book. I knew you couldn’t see the finish line until 200 m to go.’ The next day McEwen etched another first on his career successes, this time by taking the yellow jersey from Hushovd after placing third on the 3rd stage from Waterloo to Wasquehal, the fourth Australian to do so after Anderson, O’Grady and McGee. McEwen was elated, even if he had never made claiming yellow a priority: ‘A number of times I’ve been so close to taking the leader’s jersey in the Tour, Giro and Vuelta. This is the first time I’ve taken one in a grand tour. So I can now tick that off the list of things to do.’ • • •

There are few riders more exciting to watch than Stuart O’Grady. His Tour had been dogged by one problem after the other, but a victory on the 200.5 km 5th stage from Amiens to Chartres provided the answer to

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the question he asked after he crashed for the second time on a sector of cobblestones during Stage 3. After getting back on his bike and coming close to rejoining the peloton, he was stopped again when the gates of a rail crossing came down: ‘Can anything else happen, do you reckon? Hopefully this is the last touchdown for the Tour. It can’t get much worse.’ But as he said soon afterwards: ‘This is the Tour de France—just when you’re stuffed and everything is gone, you can come out the next day and win a stage.’ Which is exactly what he did by outsprinting four other breakaway companions to the finish in Chartres. The win helped expunge the misery of what had so far been a disastrous season. In January, his Cofidis team had been swept up in a doping scandal that involved the team suspending itself in April until it was cleared of any wrongdoing. In March, O’Grady’s grandfather died at home in Adelaide and that same month he broke his ribs in the Ghent–Wevelgem one-day race. Then in June, his Scottish teammate and world time trial champion David Millar admitted to using EPO. And just hours before the Tour Prologue was to start, teammate Matt White crashed out. And finally, there were O’Grady’s three falls, on Stage 1, Stage 3 and Stage 4. His second Tour stage win was well timed: ‘To pull it off is a massive relief. The feeling crossing the line first means a lot more than I can remember in any other victory. It’s been an emotional roller coaster. After the diabolical start I have had to the Tour, I just wanted to start a new Tour.’ O’Grady wasn’t the only rider smiling, however. McEwen had extended his lead in the green jersey competition by leading home the main bunch behind O’Grady’s break for 184 km into bitingly cold headwind and torrential rain. Fire with fire . . . Waiting outside a team van for a rider to emerge and answer questions can be frustrating. The ball is in the rider’s court. He can take his time, to shower, eat and recover, as it should be. It’s all up to him, if he wants to talk. But sometimes riders talk not to discuss their thoughts on the day, rather to give a blast. With the Internet, riders can learn what is written about them almost

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• • •

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Despite the smiles after reclaiming the green jersey from O’Grady on Stage 8 from Lamballe to Quimper, McEwen found himself in the middle of a dispute with a rival team. Rene Haselbacher, riding for the German team Gerolsteiner, had caused a massive pile up in the last kilometres of the 6th stage from Bonneval to Angers that cost McEwen the green jersey and left him with cuts, abrasions and bruising to both sides of his back. He let Haselbacher know who was to blame: ‘I walked over, saw he was on the ground. The medical staff were there. I was about two to three metres away. I said to him, “This was your fault. You’ve done it again.” And I walked off. That is all I said, end of story.’ McEwen got a frosty response from Haselbacher, who claimed the 60 km/h crash was due to his handlebars snapping. His teammate Peter Wrolech told Austrian television: ‘When you are lying on the road with broken bones and have abuse shouted at you, [it] is beneath contempt. McEwen doesn’t have any friends and won’t make any if he continues like that.’ The sharp words didn’t put McEwen off, though. After the rest day at Limoges in the Massif Central, and despite starting to feel tendonitis in his knee, the Queenslander claimed his second stage win of this Tour—and the fifth of his Tour career—in a tight and thrilling sprint finish in the 160.5 km 9th stage from Saint Leonard de Noblat to Gueret. It wasn’t until the right-hand corner before the finish that it looked like a sprinter had a chance as Italian Felipo Simeoni and Spaniard Igor Landaluze, who had both attacked after 38 km, still led—that is, until 50 m to go when they were mercilessly swallowed up. McEwen’s win was by only half a wheel, and it came over Hushovd and O’Grady and also extended his green jersey points lead. He explained his last gasp dash was out of desperation: ‘In the last 100 metres you feel your legs won’t do any more what you want them to do. I was pretty much throwing everything at the finish line. The moment is not painful. You are just trying to squeeze out everything that is in you. That’s when you hang on and win a stage by a few centimetres. After today I feel I have been, in the first half of the Tour, the best sprinter in the Tour. That gives me great satisfaction no matter what happens from here on.’ That ‘satisfaction’ was tested the next day in the Massif Central. McEwen struggled to finish the 237 km 10th stage from Limoges to

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Saint Flour won by Richard Virenque—he was 164th from 169 riders and more than 25 minutes behind: ‘It was one of the hardest stages I have ridden in the Tour. My knee is sore, my back is sore, my feet are sore, my legs are sore. Everything is sore. The roads were awful. I’m glad it’s over.’ • • •

As the Tour finally went south, through the Massif Central and towards the Pyrenees, Armstrong was starting to realise that his hardest challenge would not only be the mountains to come, but fending off the challengers to his throne who had been given hope by the apparent—yet impenetrable—chinks in his armour shown in 2003. The issue of drugs had also not gone away. Before the Tour began, the book LA Confidential: The Secrets of Lance Armstrong by David Walsh and former L’Equipe journalist Pierre Ballester insinuated Armstrong had used illegal drugs. It created a lot of talk within the Tour entourage and Armstrong knew the issue would raise its head again. So he came out fighting after seeing an English sign on the 11th stage from Saint Flour to Figeac that read: ‘Lance go home.’ The attacks on Armstrong were coming from all directions—from the French doping authorities, race organisers, the media and local cycling fans. The US Postal Services team, meanwhile, was also reportedly bracing itself for the enforced loss of Czech teammate Pavel Padrnos for his alleged part in a 2001 doping investigation carried out in San Remo in Italy. The biggest bomb to land in the Armstrong camp, however, came from Greg LeMond, who was extremely popular in France and a central figure in the Walsh–Ballester book. In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the morning of the 11th stage, he said he seriously doubted that Armstrong raced in France drug-free: ‘Lance is prepared to do whatever it takes to keep his secret. But I don’t know how he can continue to convince everyone of his innocence.’ Armstrong, who had undergone a random drug test after Stage 10, didn’t waste time in defending himself. Asked outside his team bus if he felt persecuted because of his call-up for the random test, he said: ‘Perhaps. You know what they say, the high trees get the wind.’ He then

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accused French television of stalking the US Postal Services team, saying the team’s hotels had been searched by a reporter: ‘Nothing against the French, but we know here in France they are after us, and they’re after the sport of cycling. It is not just the Ministry of Sport, it’s the media. Just this morning, for example, we had in the room a TV crew from France 3 after we left going to the hotel, to the owner, and asking for our room list to try and get into our rooms. They show up to ask sport questions to your face, but as soon as we leave they’re digging in the rooms looking for dirt.’ The divide between the media and Armstrong was growing, and by the time the Tour left the Pyrenees, where it had spent two stages, that divide would be too wide to bridge. As Armstrong rode triumphantly to the 1780 m summit finish at Plateau de Beille at the end of the 205.5 km 13th stage from Lannemezan, he was reminded that he was still not winning hearts. The hostility he encountered was similar to that he met on Mont Ventoux in 2002, with one sign reading, ‘Lance . . . dopé’. In the last two kilometres he was treated more like the enemy than a hero. He and breakaway companion, Italian Ivan Basso, were sprayed with water, spit, boos and insults. Many of the worst offenders were Basque fans in their trademark orange uniform. But Armstrong, who won the stage to remain 22 seconds down overall behind Thomas Voeckler, was gracious afterwards, saying they were just supporting Basque star Iban Mayo: ‘[With two kilometres to go] we had just passed a section of people, mostly Basque people who were, err, how should I say . . . excited. It was pretty amazing. They were very loud, very aggressive, not all bad. They were just expecting good things from Mayo. But I looked [at Basso], he looked at me. And man, it was unbelievable [that] we made it through there without getting killed.’ However, Armstrong would not have won over French television fans when he was again questioned about the doping allegations: ‘With things like that, it is better to say nothing. What is important is winning the Tour de France. The suspicion, the books, the journalists, I don’t care. What is important is winning, wearing the yellow jersey on the Champs Elysees and then . . . au revoir.’

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The money shot A murmur ran through the press tent of a photo taken by American Casey Gibson that captured the aggression of the crowd on Plateau de Beille. It was of Armstrong leading Basso within a metre of a crouched Basque fan giving him a one fingered salute with both hands. This was not a gesture laced with sporting spirit and it reflected an ugly side of the Tour. Armstrong, must have seen the man, but typically he focused on what was in front of him. Nobody in the press room wanted to use Gibson’s photo. The US media felt it was too anti-Armstrong and anti-American, the Spanish media felt it would reflect badly on them, even if it was a Basque supporter, while the Basque media regarded it as a poor reflection of the region’s notoriously fanatical supporters. Seeing Gibson’s photograph, it was clear to me that it was the ‘money shot’ that captured the mood of an increasingly confronting Tour. It was one of those photos that tells a thousand words, and would fit perfectly with the story I was writing for the Daily Telegraph. I asked Gibson to email a copy of the photo to my sports editor Jeff Dunne and I wrote my story. Dunne responded by giving the Tour full-page coverage in the Monday edition, using the photo with my story under the headline ‘Riding the Gauntlet’. The package of story and photo was complete . . . another Australian Tour coup!

• • •

Voeckler may have led the Tour into the Alps, but Armstrong was really the rider in control. By Stage 14 his main threat, Jan Ullrich, was already almost seven minutes behind him overall while Tyler Hamilton, fourth overall the year before, had withdrawn due to a back injury and Mayo had lost precious minutes in a crash. The sole danger was Basso. The 180.5 km 15th stage from Valreas to Villard de Lans is where he turned the screws. His win on a course that included seven climbs before the last one to the finish saw him take the yellow jersey for the first time in the 2004 Tour. What this 18th Tour stage win meant to Armstrong was evident from his double-fisted salute at the finish: ‘There’s something special about winning in a sprint. It’s much more intense than being alone. I can’t lie. It’s exciting to take the yellow jersey—whether it’s No. 61 or how many. There is a still a part of me that wants to ride up a legendary l’Alpe d’Huez in the yellow.’

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Armstrong had drawn a circle around the 15.5 km 16th stage time trial from Bourg d’Oisans to l’Alpe d’Huez months earlier. He saw it as critical to winning the Tour. Known for his extensive and intense stageby-stage reconnaissance of each year’s route, he had ridden up the climb a dozen times in the previous three months, testing a new ultra-light bike, seeking the right gears and the best line through the 21 hairpins. It didn’t help Armstrong’s cause that at the same time there was growing anti-Americanism due to the US military involvement in Iraq. In Armstrong, many Tour fans saw George Bush. What many didn’t know—including Armstrong himself—was that the night before the time trial up l’Alpe d’Huez threats had been made against the Texan and measures were being taken to tighten security around him for the stage. Besides having two personal body guards throughout the Tour, two agents from France’s crack Groupe d’Intervention de la Police Nationale were assigned to provide extra security but from a discreet distance. One followed him on a motorbike, while the other sat in the US Postal Services team car. Special emergency procedures were also put in place after consultation with the US Embassy. By the time Armstrong began the time trial—as the last rider to start—an estimated one million people had taken position on the 15.5 km route to the mountain top, and only half of the course had barriers. That meant every rider had to ride through a mass of fans that would open up just metres ahead. And in Armstrong’s case, he was met with as many jeers and spits as cheers. But this didn’t stop him from doing what he does best: winning. His time of 39 minutes 41 seconds was more than a minute faster than that of second-placed Ullrich and almost four minutes better than Basso. While happy for having extended his overall lead, Armstrong was as much relieved at having survived the ride and told French television that organisers should never hold a time trial on the mountain again: ‘There was a lot of emotion . . . a lot of public, a lot of fear for me. It was not a good idea to have a time trial on l’Alpe d’Huez.’ However, his reception on l’Alpe d’Huez was not as bad as his experience on the Plateau de Beille. ‘Plateau de Beille was scarier than today,’ he told the post-stage press conference. ‘But today, it was longer. At Plateau de Beille it lasted for one

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kilometre, while today there were four to five kilometres of it all the time. I don’t know that that is such a good thing for the Tour de France. I don’t think it is safe. I think you’d agree. I’m sure organisers agree.’ Tour race director Jean-Marie Leblanc, whose car followed Armstrong, said he had seen spectators spit at the American. ‘I was scared too and I felt relieved when we reached the section with barriers.’ Still Armstrong tried to temper the hype: ‘I have an interesting relationship with this country. It has made my career as a cyclist everything that it is. If someone asked what is my favourite country besides Texas, America, I would says France. I have come to love the country. I have lived in it. I have interesting relations with most of them [the French] . . . even though you might sometimes not see it.’ We certainly didn’t see it going up l’Alpe d’Huez. Not alone . . . Lance Armstrong was not the sole target for abuse in the Stage 16 time trial. Robbie McEwen was targeted with jeers and one finger salutes by a pocket of German fans. They saw McEwen as the enemy because he was keeping Germans Erik Zabel and Daniel Hondo out of the green jersey. It didn’t help either that the two German sprinters had publicly criticised McEwen for his sprinting style. McEwen, who extended his spell in green to twelve days in the mountain time trial, was not put out by the abuse that came his way. His taut reply when asked by a television crew why he thought those fans acted the way they did was: ‘Maybe they are just used to going to the football and behaving like arseholes. It is not directed at the Germans in general. It is directed at the minority who know who they are. They are bringing all their countrymen who come here with good intent into a bad light.’ This incident, and the abuse of Armstrong, reflected the changing nature of the Tour’s fan base. While Tour followers have been frenzied in their support from the beginning, the increasing prominence of riders from the many new cycling countries brought greater displays of nationalism. That nationalistic fervour was becoming ugly.

• • •

Armstrong had an extraordinary ability to turn personal attack into motivation. There was no finer example of this than his fourth win of the race in the 17th stage from Bourg d’Oisans to le Grand Bornand,

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which I dubbed ‘the Texas Chain Ring Massacre’. For his rivals—Ivan Basso, Andreas Kloden and Jan Ullrich—there was little if any hope of an upset now. It was not so much the time Armstrong gained in this five-climb Alpine stage that left such a mark, but the way he raced down the last climb before chasing Kloden and outsprinting him, Basso and Ullrich and teammate Floyd Landis, who attacked on the descent under Armstrong’s urging but was caught near the finish by Kloden. After finishing with both fists pumping the air, he later pledged to maintain his aggressive racing: ‘No gifts this year. I have given gifts on the Tour and very rarely has it ever come back to help me. This is the biggest bike race in the world. It means more to me than any race in the world. I want to win . . . no gifts.’ The remark stemmed from an exchange Armstrong had had with Bernard Hinault on the podium as he was presented with the yellow jersey. ‘No gifts . . . no gifts this year,’ Hinault said after commenting that Armstrong had ridden the perfect race. Armstrong’s newly focused aggression was seen by some as a turn about, especially after he allowed Basso to outsprint him to win Stage 12 when he heard that the Italian’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer. But his single-mindedness was not unique. Hinault was just as aggressive in his racing. And Eddy Merckx was known as ‘The Cannibal’ because of his insatiable appetite to win. Not that Armstrong saw himself as a modern day Merckx: ‘Am I the new Cannibal? Aagh . . . no. The answer is no.’ Armstrong’s 55 km Stage 19 time trial around Besancon was majestic. Despite his joy in winning, he had enough sting left to fire a broadside at the French and the French cyclist they adored, the record seven-times King of the Mountains winner Richard Virenque, who was known in every other cycling country as leader of the Festina team kicked off the 1998 Tour for systematic doping: ‘They [French fans] don’t know what they want. What kind of champion do they want? A champion who doesn’t work hard and doesn’t love his sport? But don’t boo me and cheer for someone else involved in the biggest doping scandal in the history of sport, that doesn’t make sense.’ Armstrong even had a dig at Ullrich, who had a propensity to put on weight in the off-season and lose it just

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before the Tour. Asked what made him so different to his rival, he said: ‘I know it’s a mix of talent and work. It’s a question about not being 10 kilos overweight six weeks before the Tour. It’s a full year commitment. That’s our secret.’ But then came the moment when even Armstrong’s supporters questioned their faith in him: Stage 18 from Annemasse to Lons le Saunier where his feud with Italian Filipo Simeoni took an ugly turn for the worse. The history between the two riders—superstar Armstrong and the little-known Simeoni—went back to March 2002 when Simeoni testified in court that he had used EPO under Michele Ferrari’s advice. When Armstrong declared that Simeoni’s claims against his friend were wrong, the Italian sued him for defamation. It was inevitable that when their paths crossed, as they did in this Tour, there would be a clash. But their dispute reached a new level on the road to Lons le Saunier when Simeoni chased down and joined a small breakaway, even though he was placed 114th and almost three hours behind Armstrong. Armstrong was soon in Simeoni’s company. That morning he reportedly declared that under no circumstances could the Italian get into a stage winning breakaway. And this break had that potential. When the breakaway group saw Armstrong with them—knowing he was there to stop Simeoni—the riders pleaded with him to drop back. He said he would if Simeoni went with him. As the pair rolled off the back to be caught by the peloton, Armstrong reportedly put his right hand on Simeoni’s shoulder and smiled as he said: ‘I have lots of time and lots of money. I will destroy you.’ There was no denying Armstrong’s intention. He was unapologetic after the stage and said that he was ‘defending the interests of the peloton’. He was not convincing. It was then that I realised this Tour was going to end with a sour taste, even though Australian interests would be buoyed by McEwen winning his second green jersey as best sprinter. Armstrong rode into Paris three days later triumphant as the first rider to win six Tours. It should have been a finale full of celebration, but instead it came with a backdrop of bitterness and the knowledge that the 20th stage from Monterau to Paris had been upgraded to a ‘high risk’ security event and that a survey had rated Armstrong as the third most unpopular sports star in France.

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• • •

What nobody knew about McEwen’s charge towards a second green jersey win was that he had been playing a poker game with his rivals— and everyone who followed his race—over his physical condition. He had spent two weeks riding in sheer agony from two broken vertebrae in his back sustained in the Stage 6 pile up. It was not until after the green was his for good in Paris that he shared the truth. X-rays taken in a Dutch hospital two days after the Tour showed he had fractured his L1 and L2 lower lumbar vertebrae, as his personal soigner Victor Popov suspected. The condition is called a transverse process, where the fractured bones are like little wings on the spine. So long as McEwen was able to put up with the agony, he would not worsen the fracture by continuing the Tour. It was Popov’s around the clock work to re-align McEwen’s back that got the Australian to Paris. Without him there was every chance that McEwen would not have been able to finish the Tour. For most of the year Popov was a masseur with the Brisbane Lions, but his experience in cycling went back to 1987 when he worked with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) women’s road team. It was during that year—in the Commonwealth Bank Classic—that Popov first met and became friends with McEwen, who was then a rising star on the amateur AIS men’s road team. The 2004 Tour was Popov’s first, but the impact of his magical hands ensured that he would become a regular on McEwen’s future Tour campaigns. Every night he would work on the Queenslander’s back for two hours before starting on other riders. After dinner he would continue his work on McEwen—on several occasions to 1.30 am. ‘We knew Robbie was badly hurt and immediately I suspected he had fractured a couple of vertebrae but because of the swelling it was impossible to diagnose it. However, I knew that it was really a pain issue. If Robbie could cope with the pain he wasn’t going to do any permanent damage. I asked him, “How much do you need to know?” He said, “Not much. If you say it is okay, I will race.” After that the job was keeping him aligned so that he didn’t experience any knock-on problems. He was in a lot of pain. We

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straightened him up every night, sometimes in the morning before the stage. It was touch and go some days. If the Tour had been a day longer he may not have made it.’ McEwen, unsurprisingly, did not win the last and 20th stage from Montreau into Paris—he was fourth behind a victorious Tom Boonen. But with an overnight lead of 11 points on Hushovd, all he had to do was cover the Norwegian to keep the green jersey. McEwen’s initial reaction at sharing the podium with Armstrong was to say that winning ‘the green jersey was more of a relief because I was so stressed there [in 2002]. It was my first time.’ Little did we know at the time how much of a relief it really was in light of his injured back. McEwen’s success aside, the Tour was also a celebration for the other Australian riders with only three of the eight starters failing to finish— White, McGee and Gates. Rogers, O’Grady, Cooke, Sunderland, Wilson and Tour rookie Allan Davis finished in various states of mind and body. The best placed among them overall was Rogers, despite a poor time trial on Stage 19, which he labelled as ‘one of the worst in my life’. Soon after Rogers would be anointed world time trial champion retrospectively after David Millar was banned from riding when he admitted to using EPO in 2004. Was Rogers the Tour diamond Australian cycling had been looking for? Armstrong, with six wins, had to retire some time. And Rogers still had plenty of development in him. My hopes were high. The 2004 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (US Postal Services-Berry Floor/USA) 3391 km in 83 hours 36 minutes 2 seconds (average speed 40.56 km/h) 2. Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile/Germany) at 6 minutes 19 seconds 3. Ivan Basso (CSC/Italy) at 6 minutes 40 seconds The Australians 22. Michael Rogers (Quickstep-Davitamon/Belgium) at 41 minutes 39 seconds (1st in teams competition) 61. Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis/France) at 1 hour 51 minutes 41 seconds (1 stage win, 4th on points for green, 2 days in green)

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96. Scott Sunderland (Alessio-Bianchi/Italy) at 2 hours 35 minutes 20 seconds 98. Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros/Spain) at 2 hours 36 minutes 16 seconds 122. Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Domo/Belgium) at 2 hours 59 minutes 18 seconds (2 stage wins, 1st on points for green jersey, 15 days in green, 1 day in yellow) 139. Baden Cooke (FDJeux.com/France) at 3 hours 15 minutes 45 seconds 144. Matt Wilson (FDJeux.com/France) at 3 hours 36 minutes 31 seconds DNF. Nick Gates (Lotto-Domo/Belgium) outside time limit Stage 1 DNF. Brad McGee (FDJeux.com/France) abandoned Stage 5 DNS. Matt White (Cofidis/France) crashed out before Prologue

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2005 To the cynics, the sceptics. I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles. But this is a hell of a race. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I’ll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets; this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. Vive le Tour, forever. —Lance Armstrong signs off after winning a seventh Tour 2–24 July (3595 km): Fromentine–Noirmoutier (Stage 1 individual time trial), Challans–les Essarts (Stage 2), la Chataigneraie–Tours (Stage 3), Tours–Blois (Stage 4 team time trial), Chambord–Montargis (Stage 5), Troyes–Nancy (Stage 6), Luneville–Karlsruhe (Stage 7), Pforzheim– Gerardmer (Stage 8), Gerardmer–Mulhouse (Stage 9), Grenoble–Courchevel (Stage 10), Courchevel–Briancon (Stage 11), Briancon–Digne les Bains (Stage 12), Miramas–Montpellier (Stage 13), Agde–Ax 3 Domaines (Stage 14), Lezat sur Leze–Saint Lary Soulan (Pla d’Adet) (Stage 15), Mourenx– Pau (Stage 16), Pau–Revel (Stage 17), Albi–Mende (Stage 18), Issoire–le Puy en Velay (Stage 19), Saint Etienne–Saint Etienne (Stage 20 individual time trial), Corbeil Essonnes–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Barely twenty metres separated Cadel Evans and Lance Armstrong as they warmed up on their stationary bikes, or rollers, in the shade of a tarpaulin outside their team buses for the penultimate stage of the 2005 Tour, a 55.5 km time trial out and back from Saint Etienne on a challenging course through the Loire. For both riders the stage would be career defining. For Evans it was the chance to secure a top-ten overall finish in his first Tour. For Armstrong it was an opportunity to sign off on his last Tour with a record seventh overall win. Evans, placed seventh overall, was due to start at 4.04 pm—18 minutes before Armstrong, who was the last of the 155 surviving riders to start. The image of the two riders warming up for 90 minutes—as 224

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they prepared to dig into their remaining resources for one last effort— represented a change of generation and possibly champions, although their warm-up areas were starkly different. Only a handful of journalists, associates and fans watched Evans on the rollers, while hundreds holding cameras stood three-deep to see Armstrong prepare for the last time trial of his career. The Tour was as good as wrapped up, and there was a lightness in Armstrong’s Discovery Channel camp with the realisation that very soon an incredible era was about to come to an end. Whether you loved or loathed Armstrong, his absence from the peloton would leave a mighty void in the cycling world. Watching Armstrong warm up was not hard. The whole event seemed to be choreographed for the occasion: from the moment he stepped out from the Discovery Channel bus to be met by a huge cheer from the mass of friends, family and fans to when he rode off to race. His fans respectfully kept their distance as they took photos and watched him ride the rollers into a steady rhythm while listening to music through his earphones. Then came the parade of final ‘best wishes’: first from his three children under the guidance of his partner at the time, country rock singer Sheryl Crow, then the dignitaries such as US Senator John Kerry, the sponsors and team personnel. One by one they stepped forward to say a few words and have their photo taken with the still relaxed Armstrong. It was hard not to reflect on the Armstrong I first met in 1992 when he had just signed with Motorola. I thought about his infectious enthusiasm as a rookie professional, his boyish curiosity to questions he didn’t know the answer to, and his willingness to tackle and challenge anyone or anything that got in his way. Inevitably, this led to conflict and my blacklisting twice. In many ways it was a rocky ride, but what a ride! Suddenly I was back in the here and now, with Armstrong’s body guard Serge Borle politely asking ‘guests’ to leave the warm-up area. Armstrong was, by now, no longer smiling. He had warmed to a steady sweat, he was constantly sipping on his drink bottle, and his cadence—or pedal stroke—was increasing rapidly. He was near or in the zone. Nearby, Evans had been in the zone for some time. He liked the

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solitude that surrounded him. Where Armstrong is gregarious and outgoing, Evans is very much a loner. There were no waves or smiles or off-the-cuff quips. He had barely entered into anyone’s reckoning as a Tour contender and, even though he could not win the Tour just yet from seventh place, he knew he needed to produce a strong time trial result to convince himself and his team that winning the Tour might just one day be possible. Unlike Armstrong, Evans still had much to prove. • • •

When the 2005 Tour began, the question on everyone’s lips, including Armstrong’s, was had he put his hand up for one Tour too many? ‘I’m absolutely concerned with that,’ he said. ‘I think all champions are concerned about losing. It’s the fear that drives them and gets them up early. I don’t want to lose number seven, but I didn’t want to lose the others, either.’ Working against Armstrong, besides history, was that he faced arguably the toughest ever line-up of rivals in German Jan Ullrich, Italian Ivan Basso, Spaniard Iban Mayo, German Andreas Kloden, Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov and former US Postal Services teammate Floyd Landis, who had switched to the Phonak team after falling out with Armstrong. There were also a record ten Australians, three of them overall contenders—Cadel Evans, Brad McGee and Michael Rogers. Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke, Stuart O’Grady and Allan Davis were all sprinters, while Simon Gerrans, Matt White and Luke Roberts rode as domestiques. And of the ten, four were making Tour debuts: Evans, Roberts, White and Gerrans. Rogers, who had just come off a second place overall in the mountainous nine-day Tour of Switzerland, reflecting his improved climbing, was brimming with confidence. Asked if his goal was to finish in the top three of the Tour, he said: ‘I hope so. It’s what Australian cycling needs. If you get an Australian on the podium it is going to be more appealing to sponsors [to establish an Australian team]. Let’s hope it happens this year. I just hope the same legs are there that I had in the Tour of Switzerland, if not better. I’ve also come in with a lot more experience. And I’m a lot lighter. That will be a bonus in the mountains.’

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Despite the tough competition Armstrong, nevertheless, felt he was as ready as he had ever been for a Tour. He had come fourth in the Dauphine–Libere stage race and his team was very strong. And while he was looking forward to the after-life of a Tour champion, he showed no sign of mellowing the ruthless win at all stakes philosophy he put to good use in 2004: ‘Sport is the law of the fittest within the framework of clearly defined rules. Spectators expect this fight without mercy. The bike is all-out war. If you take that away you can stop the Tour, races . . . cycling. I want to leave behind an image of a rider who never backed down, never gave up.’ Of course, we were all the sillier for believing Armstrong would have cause for concern. Within the first kilometres of the 2005 Tour—the 19 km Stage 1 time trial to Noirmoutier—he had already delivered his rivals a knock-out blow. He didn’t win the stage, placing second at 2 seconds to American David Zabriskie, but he was still far quicker than his rivals. The greatest indignity went to Ullrich who started second last, one minute before Armstrong, but had the American pass him with four kilometres to go. The White time is now Six years after being denied his first chance to ride in the Tour, Matt White finally made it to the start line as a member of the French Cofidis team. He didn’t crash as he had done the previous year while warming up for the Prologue. Nor was he left off the team as happened in 2002 when US Postal Services’ Johan Bruyneel decided he needed to stack the team with climbers. Nor were he and his team excluded from the race, as occurred in 2000 when he rode on the Vini Caldirola team. No, White had finally made it to the start and finished the first stage safely, allowing him to get on with the business of racing the next 3588 km as hard, fast and, no doubt, painfully as possible. His 101st from 189 riders in the time trial was as good as a win in light of his Tour history: ‘I have come so close so many times. I would have been more nervous five years ago in the weeks leading up; or when you are a little worried that you are not ready for the Tour. But I know I am and have done a lot of work in the last four or five months. If I had a dollar for everybody who said be careful in the last two days I could shout a few drinks.’

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• • •

With four Australian sprinters in the Tour, it was to be expected that there would be some fireworks among them in the opening week when speed, fitness, energy, hunger to win and risk-taking are at their peak. But no one could have predicted the sensational clash between O’Grady and McEwen in the finale of the 212.5 km 3rd stage from La Chataigneraie to Tours. Relations between the two had long been strained. McEwen had polarised many Australian riders throughout his amateur and professional career with his lust to win, but his two headbutts of O’Grady in the finishing sprint took tensions to a new level. The heart-stopping image of their clash as they crossed the finish in third and fourth place was replayed over and over on television that night, and was published in major newspapers around the world. It was a bitter way for the Tour to start for McEwen, who admitted he had botched his sprint the day before by going out too early. O’Grady felt McEwen was definitely in the wrong, saying: ‘The first [headbutt] happened when I started my sprint with 150 m to go. I saw Tom Boonen [who won the race] coming past me and the next thing Robbie straight out headbutted me.’ Asked if he thought McEwen’s actions were intentional, O’Grady said: ‘Yes. It was pretty dangerous. I mean, I’m coming fast and he throws out elbows and headbutts. There are always a few elbows thrown and no one crashes. But it was over the top.’ McEwen’s defence was that his right arm was caught under O’Grady’s left elbow and that, in the momentum of the sprint as he tried to dislodge his elbow, he threw his head into O’Grady. He also accused O’Grady of causing the incident: ‘If you look at the video replay of the sprint you can see that it was O’Grady who started things by leaning on me. He put his elbow out and I had to lean on him to stop myself from falling. I didn’t butt him. If you look at the video you can see my arm was trapped under O’Grady’s elbow. That twisted my body and pulled my head towards him. I couldn’t go left, couldn’t go right. I was completely boxed in. I was trying to get from behind Boonen, but Stuey was on my right and trying to get some shelter on [Boonen’s] wheel. We got tangled up.’

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McEwen’s claims fell on deaf ears. Jean-Michel Voets, who was presiding over the Tour race jury, said he and the three other jury members were unanimous in finding McEwen guilty for an ‘irregular sprint’: ‘The whole world saw what happened and we believe we made the right decision. We have to make these kinds of decisions to protect the image of cycling, especially on the Tour de France. Robbie McEwen is a charming guy, but he gave sprinters a bad image. We’ve looked at the pictures several times. Firstly we weren’t happy that he tried to go through a mouse hole. Then he gave Stuart O’Grady a few hits with his helmet.’ McEwen was fined and relegated from third to last place on the stage, which saw him drop from third to ninth place in the points competition, virtually putting him out of contention for the green jersey. ‘I can forget about wining the green jersey now,’ he said. ‘If you miss one day and don’t win any points at all you drop right down the standings. All I can do now is to try and win a stage in the next few days.’ That win would not be the next day, the Stage 4 team time trial that McEwen’s Davitamon-Lotto team was never destined to fare well in. Although, the rain-soaked stage did provide ample drama with race leader David Zabriskie crashing near the finish and Australian teammate, Tour rookie Luke Roberts, almost coming down with him. Roberts, picked primarily for his time trialling skills honed in years of team pursuiting that saw him win a 2004 Olympic gold medal, and his CSC team had posted the fastest time at every split and were on the cusp of winning when Zabriskie crashed at 70 km/h. It turned a probable two second win over Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team into a two second loss to it. It could have been worse. It was a miracle that Roberts, who was on Zabriskie’s wheel, or CSC’s team leader Ivan Basso, who was following the Australian, didn’t go down: ‘I’m not sure what happened, whether his chain jumped a little or his foot slipped in the pedal just accelerating after the corner and if that threw him off balance. But I had to break to get around him. If David had just kept sliding straight, I would have been down as well—but luckily he slid up a bit to the left and enough for me to miss him.’ With the crash happening so close to the finish and with the stage win up for grabs, CSC could not wait for Zabriskie. He was left to pick

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himself up, remount and ride to the finish line alone with his head bowed and all his left side grazed, cut and bruised. Who would now inherit the yellow jersey Zabriskie had lost as a result of the crash? The man the Tour had seen so many times in yellow—Lance Armstrong. But Armstrong felt for his countryman: ‘The team time trial is so hard. At the end everyone is a bit cross-eyed. It is so easy to make a mistake. It took everything we had to win. But he [Zabriskie] is someone I expect will be in yellow again.’ • • •

Wins by McEwen on Stages 5 and 7 reminded everyone how strong his green jersey odds would have been had he not been relegated on Stage 3 for headbutting. It was therefore little wonder that he was more animated than usual in showing his satisfaction at the finish of Stage 5 at Montargis. As he crossed the uphill finish line he pointed at his chest with both forefingers four times and then raised his clenched fist in triumph, leaving Tom Boonen and Thor Hushovd in his wake. McEwen was one of four Australians to finish in the top ten that day—O’Grady was fifth, Davis sixth and Cooke ninth—and his win was his sixth in a Tour stage from eight starts. McEwen, again racing in the Australian national champion’s jersey, agreed that the win was probably the best of his career in light of his relegation and that he had to come from behind Boonen’s wheel 100 m out, draw level with 25 m to go and then surge past, throwing his handlebars across the line. ‘It is for a moment like that, not just when you win a stage, but after a few days where it’s been a bit tough—where I had a tough call the other day—and obviously for the amount of work my team has been doing. Our guys really deserve this win to pay for all their work.’ McEwen outdid himself two days later after being caught in a crash near the end of Stage 6 from Troyes to Nancy. Then, on the 228.5 km 7th stage from Luneville to Karlsruhe in Germany, he produced another great win—with some comical mischief. Earlier, he had found himself in a breakaway with a one minute lead. It was a move on a mostly flat stage, expected to end in a bunch sprint to his liking, that he did not want to be

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in. Why waste his energy when he was a favourite for the sprint anyway? He decided to coyly drop back into the peloton: ‘I hid behind the bush until the bunch came past. I jumped back on from the back, so a lot of guys didn’t know I was back in it.’ McEwen’s win at Nancy revitalised his green jersey chances, although he only spoke of stage wins, not the green jersey: ‘When I came here I said I want to win a stage and as soon as I do that I will work on the second one, and as soon as I do that I will work on possibly a third one. I am going to stick to that promise.’ Six days later, in the 173.5 km 13th stage from Miramas to Montpellier, McEwen fulfilled that promise, outsprinting O’Grady and Freddy Rodriguez to bag his third win for the Tour. • • •

For Evans, Rogers and McGee, the Tour was nearing a crucial phase and their strong rides on the first climbing stage—the tough 231.5 km stage from Pforzheim in Germany to Gerardmer in France—provided the psychological tonic they would need for a solid assault in the Alps. Despite not having teammates to help them, all three Australians finished in a group of 31 riders, which included all the contenders, that came in 27 seconds behind Dutchman Peter Weening, who edged out German Andreas Kloden to win. The big sensation of the day came when Armstrong was isolated on the final climb—the 16.8 km long Col de la Schlucht, whose summit was 16 km from the finish. He appeared shocked to find himself chasing down a barrage of attacks: ‘Clearly, the team was not really on. I didn’t feel good either, and the other teams did feel good. With situations like that, it would be hard to win the Tour [if the attacks continued] day in, day out. Naturally, [it is] not a great situation to be alone in a field like that and with a fast downhill. I had to try and limit the damage, stay at the front and hope the other teams are interested [in chasing attacks].’ Evans had made a reconnaissance of the key stages and knew the 10th stage from Grenoble to Courchevel in the Alps well. At 192.5 km, including the 20.1 km Cormet de Roseland at 118 km and the 22.2 km ascent to the finish, it would be crucial to his Tour success. While he,

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Rogers and McGee were all well placed on the official standing, an unofficial ‘virtual’ classification taking into consideration their places against the seeded contenders told a better story. Evans, officially 25th overall at 6 minutes 4 seconds to Armstrong, was twelfth at 3 minutes 29 seconds, Rogers 15th and McGee 16th. Evans was a pure climber, but it was suggested the power climbers Rogers and McGee, while members of rival teams, could form an alliance to defend against the expected attacks. ‘If there is anything [that can work] with Dodger and I, and we are caught between two groups, why not?’ said McGee. ‘You could do it with anyone, but more [with him] because we can communicate.’ Rogers agreed: ‘When it comes down to it, I am sure that we are willing to chip along together. It depends on when the big attack goes, who can go with it and who can’t.’ Evans’ take on the stage was different: ‘Courchevel is going to be my real D-day, my real test. I know both stages [in the Alps] but Courchevel is going to give the first sign of the real Tour contenders.’ He was dead right. Armstrong didn’t win at Courchevel, but he dismissed any doubts about his attempt to win a seventh Tour title with a stunning ride after being set up superbly on the final climb by his teammates to take back the yellow jersey from German Jens Voigt. In his trail was a string of humbled stars like Ullrich, Kloden, Vinokourov and Basso. He was pleased: ‘It was the first great day for Discovery Channel. They are a superb team to give the right tempo in the beginning of a climb. Today I had good legs [but] I could not drop them all.’ It didn’t take much prodding to stoke the combative embers within Armstrong, however. Asked about CSC sports director Bjarne Rijs’ suggestion that Armstrong was ‘lucky’ to get the yellow jersey after Zabriskie’s team time trial crash, he responded: ‘I have to say we have tried to stay out of it [the brewing rivalry between the Discovery Channel and CSC]. We are not the team that says a guy who has won the Tour de France six times is lucky again to take the yellow jersey. How can you say those thing I have no idea. That’s not respectful. That’s not true. And that’s not reality . . . But at the end of the day we have to race against the riders, not the director. The riders are some of the classiest and nicest

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guys in the peloton. We can separate what the director said from what the riders do in the race.’ Meanwhile, Evans pulled off the best result in a mountain-top finish by an Australian in 24 years with his eighth place, hauling him from 25th overall to 13th: ‘It looks like I might be able to ride into the top ten if I am consistent and without problems. I heard some people say things in recent times that put a lot of doubt in my head. This gives me confidence.’ Evans’ fortune was not shared by Rogers and McGee, however. Rogers was with a group of Tour contenders for the first 3 km of the last climb, but faded to finish 22nd and found himself in 25th overall. McGee, who had started to experience sudden bouts of energy loss after a promising 8th stage performance, finished 61st and dropped to 50th overall. Maintaining vital glycogen levels, and therefore energy supply, is a problem all riders face, as Evans alluded to when discussing Stage 11 and the notorious Col du Galibier, which rises to an altitude of 2640 m: ‘We will probably climb the first half for about an hour and a half and then descend for one minute and 30 seconds before climbing to the Galibier summit. That is about 37 km of climbing at an average speed of about 15 to 16 km/h. That’s more than two hours at the top of our glycogen burning capacities. You’d never not eat for three hours in a normal stage. So I wouldn’t do it when you know it’s even harder. It’s a bit hard to stuff a power bar down when you are flat out.’ Even though the Tour was only just past the halfway point, by Stage 13 to Montpellier indications were that Evans had what it would take to improve his 13th place overall as the race moved towards the Pyrenees. He had nothing to lose on its narrow, lumpy and steep inclines, and being out of the top ten he was perfectly positioned to strike because there was less of a chance of him being chased down. On the eve of the first of three Pyreanean stages, French legend Bernard Hinault urged him to go all out in the toughest of them all—the 15th stage from Lezat sur Leze to Saint Lary Soulan (Pla d’Adet). Hinault felt a stage win there would be worth more to Evans than a calculated ride into the top ten: ‘He should play his cards. What does he risk? It is more important to win a mountain stage. In ten years who will people remember? Only Armstrong . . . The guy who is second or third, no one will remember them.’ What Hinault

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didn’t know as he spoke was that Evans had been racing the Tour with a cracked left collarbone that had been held together by tape. The fracture, the fourth of the same bone in 18 months, occurred eight weeks earlier when he crashed on the last descent while training for the Tour in the Alps—on Friday the 13th of all days! Stage 15, arguably the toughest of the 2005 Tour, was a ‘wild and wacky day at the races’. The 205.5 km leg was won by American sprinter George Hincapie, who was part of a fourteen-man break that got away after only 27 km. Even Hincapie was stunned after out-sprinting Oscar Perreiro for his first Tour stage win. Also in the break was Australian Allan Davis, who found himself riding alongside Armstrong and Basso after they caught him on the climb to Pla d’Adet. It was a rare experience for Davis: ‘It was awesome, something I will never forget. [It was] goosebumps stuff, to be there on the toughest day of the Tour on the toughest climb of the Tour, riding next to Lance and Basso with the crowds screaming—just unbelievable.’ Evans had struggled to stay with Armstrong’s group as they closed in on the stage leaders on the last two climbs. He finished 3 minutes behind the American, but still moved up one place to eleventh overall. His top-ten dream was now just one place away. Gasping for air between words at the finish line and knowing there was more suffering to come, he said: ‘The Tour’s by far and away the hardest race I’ve ever done. It’s the most amount of suffering I’ve been through, and I’ve done some pretty hard events.’ Armstrong, meanwhile, stirred a hornet’s nest of speculation after defending his lead by declaring Hincapie a ‘complete’ rider who should lead the Discovery Channel team the next year following his retirement. Adding to the drama was Ullrich, who was mistaken by a policeman as a cyclo-tourist as he rode down the mountain after the stage. With his hand on his pistol, the police officer corralled Ullrich near the barriers until he realised his blunder. • • •

Monday, 18 July was unlike most nights on the Tour as I discovered the next morning when my sports editor Jeff Dunne rang, saying, ‘Did you hear the news?’ The previous evening Australian road cyclist Amy

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Gillett had been killed and five teammates were seriously injured when a car driven by an 18-year-old woman hit them while training near Leipzig in Germany. I knew exactly what Dunne wanted: reaction to the tragedy from the Australian riders on the Tour. It was a difficult but understandable request. The Australian riders, many of whom knew Gillett and the women’s team well through the Australian Institute of Sport or time spent with Australian teams at the world titles or Olympic and Commonwealth Games, would be devastated. But when we arrived at Mourenx for the Stage 16 start, it was clear that the entire race had been touched by the news. While most riders did not know Gillett, the death of a fellow rider brought back memories of 1995 and the passing of Italian Fabio Casartelli. That one more death in the cycling family came on the same day Casartelli had died, and one day after the peloton wore commemorative armbands in his memory, made the tragedy all the more real. Armstrong spoke on behalf of the peloton: ‘Once again we’re reminded how dangerous a sport cycling is. It’s not just physically hard, but every time we go out on the bike we’re taking our lives into our own hands. No one likes to hear news like that. Our love and hearts go out to the girls and their families. It’s a tough loss.’ All of the Australians wore black armbands in the stage. As Matt White left the team bus to go to the start, he said: ‘It is devastating for everyone involved.’ McEwen was still stunned: ‘It’s tragic. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I found out this morning.’ Evans said: ‘I don’t think words can do anything. I don’t know how many people have to get killed before society realises how dangerous motor vehicles are. I feel sorry for them, their friends and family. Very sorry.’ And O’Grady: ‘The other day I was wearing an armband for Casartelli. Now I am wearing an armband for a fellow Australian rider. I’m devastated. I’m shocked. It’s hard for everyone. It’s hard to continue and go out and race. We have to get on with our job. Unfortunately, what we do is very dangerous.’ If anything, asking O’Grady for his reaction to the news was the hardest. He and Gillett were both from South Australia, where the cycling community is extremely tight. And at first he didn’t take to me asking, but as he mounted his bike to soft pedal to the start his hand

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was suddenly on my shoulder, his smile returned and he said, ‘There’s no worries, mate . . . you know that. It’s just a shit day.’ • • •

When Evans said he doubted ‘words’ could do anything to pay homage to Amy Gillett, it was clear by the end of Stage 16 from Mourenx to Pau he meant action could do a lot more. Defying the pleas of a number of riders in a sixteen-man breakaway not to attack them on the Col d’Aubisque, Evans pulled off the ride of his life. Evans was the highest placed rider in the breakaway, which feared that if he attacked the chase from behind by the overall contenders would pick up and catch the group, thus ruining any chances of a stage win. Eventually Evans did attack and got distance, but as the breakaway’s protests faded into the distance, three riders were soon on his wheel: Oscar Perreiro, Xabier Zandio and Freddy Mazzoleni. The size of the group suited Evans as it was easier to work together than in a large group. He wanted time, not so much the stage, while the three others wanted the win. With 50 km to go they were more than happy to let Evans do all the work at the front of the group to save as much energy for a crack at the stage win. Evans was rewarded for the hard work. While he placed fourth on the stage won by Perreiro, he gained enough time to move up to seventh overall. Asked at the finish if it was a performance motivated by the Gillett tragedy, he said: ‘It was the least I could do.’ For Armstrong, the last day in the mountains was as comfortable as his overall lead on Basso and Rasmussen: ‘We sometimes talk about feeling no chain on the bike, but there was no chain on my bike. Perhaps it is because of the rest day [the previous day] or the fact it was the last day in the Pyrenees and I knew that if I made it through the day I was a lot closer to victory.’ One Australian motivated by Evans’ ‘inspiring’ feat was Tour debutant Simon Gerrans, who got into the winning four-man break and placed third in the 239.5 km 17th stage from Pau to Revel before collapsing from exhaustion. As he sat on the ground near the finish line, pouring water over his face with a team soigneur by his side offering help, he said: ‘That is the hardest thing I have ever done.’ Like Evans, the plucky pint-

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sized Victorian (who was the last rider on his French Ag2r team picked for the Tour) revealed he had been driven by the Australian women’s road team: ‘I thought if I cross the line first I’d dedicate the win to the girls. I didn’t quite get there but I still dedicate the ride to the girls. My heart goes out to them.’ That Gerrans is even a cyclist is a fluke of sorts. He only turned to cycling after injuring his knee as a 17-year-old in the Victorian motocross titles. During his rehabilitation at home in the high country of north-east Victoria, his ‘neighbour’ Phil Anderson suggested cycling as an ideal way to strengthen his knee and offered one of his bikes for training. Gerrans didn’t know Anderson’s cycling pedigree. ‘I just knew him as Phil, the guy who had the farm up the road . . . not Phil Anderson the cyclist.’ Fittingly, Anderson was at Revel to see Gerrans finish, although he was astonished by his protégé’s ride: ‘I never thought he would make it, let alone make a Tour team.’ There were two downsides to the stage, however, for Australia: the first was Evans dropping from seventh to eighth place overall after being caught behind a crash; the other was O’Grady falling behind in the battle for the green jersey in a Tour that was hurtling along at a record average speed of 41.824 km/h. As he conceded: ‘It looks more and more difficult to close the gap.’ If looks could kill Hendrik Redant, Evans’ sports director on the Davitamon-Lotto team, smiled when told that the Australian had angered Armstrong by jumping past him just before the finish line of the 18th stage from Albi to Mende to take eleventh place. After sitting on Armstrong, Basso and Ullrich’s wheels all the way up the final 3.1 km long climb to the finish line on an aerodrome, it was expected the four riders, who were eleven minutes behind the stage winner, would slowly roll across the line in the order they reached the top of the hill. But, suddenly, out from the blue, Evans stood up on his pedals and sprinted past Armstrong as if he were going for the stage win. Armstrong’s look could have killed. Evans was unfazed by his audacity, and candidly admitted: ‘Armstrong was angry at me because I sat on and sprinted the group. Put a finish line in front of me, I sprint for it. I’m sorry.’ Redant was almost happy to hear Evans’ comment. He wanted to see more mongrel in his rider: ‘That’s the spirit I want to see and he has it. He is

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• • •

Armstrong had never finished a Tour without winning a stage, but he almost failed in 2005 until he won the 55.5 km Saint Etienne time trial. In a race against the clock on a windswept and hilly course, he came from behind and overtook a fast-starting Basso with a winning time of 1 hour 11 minutes 46 seconds. Armstrong’s win, his 22nd individual stage victory in the Tour, also ensured his career tally of 83 days in the yellow jersey would be second only to Belgian great Eddy Merckx’s 111. As much as an era seemed to have come to its end with Armstrong on the podium as a stage winner and the yellow jersey wearer, I hoped one had begun with Evans’ seventh place in the time trial. His three-week race was even more remarkable considering Davitamon-Lotto committed barely any resources to helping him. The Belgian team openly said after signing up Evans from T-Mobile, where his career had stalled due to injury and a lack of faith in him, that it wanted to see what he could offer before it repaid him in kind. With eighth overall on debut (the best result by an Australian Tour rookie), an attacking ride in the Pyrenees, two strong time trial results and consistency throughout, surely help would be on its way in 2006? For Evans, it was an issue he would deal with in the off season. As exhausted as he was, it was now time to enjoy the moment and party in Paris. • • •

It had been a tumultuous Tour for many reasons. But in 2005 there was really only one raison d’être for Stage 20, and that was Armstrong.

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However, the celebration was soured when an editorial in L’Equipe declared that never before had the retirement of a sports star been so welcome—a sentiment shared by many non-French in the press room too. Clearly angered by the ongoing suspicion that he had doped, Armstrong broke with tradition at the end of the presentation ceremony on the Champs Elysees to speak. ‘To the cynics, the sceptics. I’m sorry you don’t believe in miracles. But this is a hell of a race. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I’ll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets; this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it. Vive le Tour, forever.’ With those sombre, almost terse words Armstrong closed the book on a glorious era. It was time now for a new one to begin. The Armstrong years had been hard. For all his feats on and off the bike, there had been so much conflict that I couldn’t raise a glass of champagne in celebration of the career of one of world sports’ biggest stars when it came to its end in Paris. I stuck with the house rosé. The 2005 Tour de France podium 1. Lance Armstrong (Discovery Channel/USA) 3595 km in 86 hours 15 minutes 2 seconds (average speed 41.654 km/h) 2. Ivan Basso (CSC/Italy) at 4 minutes 40 seconds 3. Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile/Germany) at 6 minutes 21 seconds The Australians 8. Cadel Evans (Davitamon-Lotto/Belgium) at 11 minutes 55 seconds 41. Michael Rogers (Quick Step/Belgium) at 1 hour 24 minutes 32 seconds 77. Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis/France) at 2 hours 27 minutes 19 seconds (2nd on points for green) 84. Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros/Spain) at 2 hours 34 minutes 40 seconds (5th on points for green) 102. Luke Roberts (CSC/Denmark) at 2 hours 54 minutes 12 seconds 105. Brad McGee (La Francaise desJeux/France) at 2 hours 55 minutes 59 seconds 123. Matt White (Cofidis/France) at 3 hours 23 minutes 41 seconds 126. Simon Gerrans (Ag2r/France) at 3 hours 27 minutes 3 seconds 134. Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto/Belgium) at 3 hours 41 minutes 52 seconds (3 stage wins, 3rd on points for green) 142. Baden Cooke (La Francaise des Jeux/France) at 3 hours 47 minutes 17 seconds

2006 Whoever expected Floyd to do what he did today? He was like a motorbike. He was unbelievable. — Michael Rogers on the winning attack on Stage 17 by Floyd Landis 1–23 July (3657 km): Strasbourg–Strasbourg (Prologue, Stage 1), Obernai–Esch sur Alzette (Stage 2), Esch sur Alzette–Valkenburg (Stage 3), Huy–Saint Quentin (Stage 4), Beauvais–Caen (Stage 5), Lisieux–Vitre (Stage 6), Saint Gregoire–Rennes (Stage 7 individual time trial), Saint Meen le Grand–Lorient (Stage 8), Bordeaux–Dax (Stage 9), Cambo les Bains–Pau (Stage 10), Tarbes–Val d’Aran (Pla de Beret) (Stage 11), Luchon–Carcassonne (Stage 12), Beziers–Montelimar (Stage 13), Montelimar–Gap (Stage 14), Gap–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 15), Bourg d’Oisans–la Toussuire (Stage 16), Saint Jean de Maurienne–Morzine (Stage 17), Morzine–Macon (Stage 18), le Creusot–Montceau les Mines (Stage 19 individual time trial), Antony (Parc de Sceaux)–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

There was a sense of liberation at the 2006 Tour de France start—the first without Lance Armstrong for seven years. During his reign everyone knew that if Armstrong was on the start list then Armstrong would probably be the winner. With him now out of the picture the entire landscape had changed, as Cadel Evans was quick to point out within hours of the curtain falling on his 2005 Tour debut: ‘[Armstrong’s retirement] is going to change the style of the race completely. It will be thrown wide open.’ And wide open it was by the time the 2006 Tour began. Would it be the Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso or the 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich? Perhaps Alexandre Vinokourov or Alejandro Valverde? Maybe even one of Armstrong’s former teammates, Levi Leipheimer, Floyd Landis or the 240

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wildest card of them all, George Hincapie. Could it even be Cadel Evans or Michael Rogers? There were so many questions. So many possibilities. Basso, who was unafraid to be counted as the favourite, said as much before the start: ‘Seven to ten riders are capable of climbing on the podium, but you don’t win the Tour by watching your adversaries. You have to ride your own race. I would rather they watch me than the other way round. If someone wants to win the Tour he should come and fight me for it.’ Amidst the air of excitement about a Tour sans Armstrong, the only disappointment for me was that my employer—this time Sydney’s Daily Telegraph—wasn’t interested in covering the Tour, even though there was every chance Evans could make the podium. So once again, I joined the VeloNews crew to provide stage reports and columns for the website. There would be no shortage of news. • • •

Just as we were all preparing for the beginning of a new era, thirteen riders were removed from the start list—including Basso, Ullrich and Vinokourov—in the aftermath of a police raid on the offices of Spanish doctor Eufemniano Fuentes on 23 May after the Spanish newspaper El Pais published evidence from the 2002–03 doping investigation that became known as Operacion Puerto. Nine Tour riders were named in the evidence, but with five of them coming from Astana-Wurth the entire team was barred from racing because it did not have the minimum number of riders to start. Fifty-eight cyclists were on the list of 200 names, including Alberto Contador, Joseba Beloki, and Allan Davis, whose declared innocence was later proven. Little resulted from the investigation, but its timing was a bombshell for the Tour. Stuart O’Grady, who was a teammate of Basso and had prepared for the Tour motivated by the thought of riding for him, was gutted over his leader’s exit. After the 7.1 km Prologue time trial in Strasbourg, O’Grady said of team CSC’s new race plan: ‘I really have no idea. [Basso’s exit] was pretty hard for the team, but I really believe we have a super strong team. We still have eight of the best riders of the world and can make something out of this race. The strength of the team shows when times

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are tough and hard. This team isn’t number one in the world because of results and wins. It’s because of how we work together. This is going to be a testing moment. I don’t know what my role is going to be—if I am going to sprint, or if we convert Carlos Sastre into team leader. I don’t know.’ Rogers also warned against discounting his T-Mobile team without Ullrich, saying, ‘Anyone who wants to win this race has to take control of it. I feel we have some good possibilities,’ referring to 2004 Tour runner-up Andreas Kloden. With four Tour contenders in Basso, Ullrich, Vinokourov and Francisco Mancebo out of the race, Evans’ chances of improving on his eighth place of the year before rocketed: ‘If you do your maths, yes. Take out the four or five not in the race any more. That will put me into third or fourth. Importantly [it will] in terms of being a contender.’ Evans was also aware that with Astana-Wurth gone, and CSC and T-Mobile losing their leaders, more responsibility would fall on riders like him and his American teammate Chris Horner: ‘That is where someone like me who didn’t have a big team to control the race had to really profit off the work that they did and ride according to what they did. It is going to make it more open. I’m actually a bit more nervous now. If things are going to go well for me I am going to have to take a role. Before I was sort of hidden and could wait. Now it is going to be on right from the beginning.’ One rider who was ‘right on’ was Australian Robbie McEwen, who won three action-packed stages—Stages 2, 6 and 8—and gained a 10 point lead in the green jersey competition. His third win in the 189 km 6th stage from Lisieux to Vitre was his eleventh in the Tour, equal to his score in the Giro d’Italia where he also claimed three wins that year—and in the same stages. He even predicted his successes in France: ‘It may seem I have an obsessive compulsive disorder, but at the Giro I won three stages. I won 2, 4 and 6. I said at the Giro, right, that’s eleven Giro stages I have won. Now I need to win eleven stages on the Tour, so I have to win three here to keep the balance. I rang my wife today and said I am going to win today. I told her I have won Stages 2 and 4. I don’t make predictions, but it just sounded right. Now I am going to try and get over that compulsive disorder and win another stage and try and be normal.’

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McEwen’s attention to detail also showed itself in the mental dossier he kept on his rival sprinters: ‘I do watch my rivals until the moment I pass them. But also when I am at home and there is a race on TV, I will watch it and store everything into my memory bank. So then I will have a feel of what guys are going to do in the set-up before the sprint in the last kilometre from seeing who has help, who hasn’t, who is pulling the sprint, to how far [out] is their last man beginning, so I have all the information,’ he said. ‘[When I race] I just concentrate on the tactics for the finish and go with it, but I am prepared to change it at any second in case someone comes up with a surprise.’ McEwen’s first win in searing heat and wind on Stage 2, 228 km from Obernai to Esch sur Alzette, was a reminder that he had not yet lost his famed top-end speed despite being 34 years of age. After beating Tom Boonen and Thor Hushovd, whose consolation for not winning the stage was to take the yellow jersey, McEwen said: ‘They say the older you get the slower you get. I haven’t been slowing down.’ Hushovd was lucky to still be upright after the stage, let alone on the podium in yellow. With 100 m to go, and at about 70 km/h, his foot slipped from the pedal. He miraculously avoided crashing, as he did in the Stage 1 finale when he was struck by a giant green hand—a promotional item—being waved by someone in the crowd. He sustained a five centimetre cut to his right arm that immediately started spurting blood over himself and his rivals in the sprint before he came to a halt and lay down in shock. McEwen was relieved to have got the Stage 2 win after a hurly-burly finish that was marred by a crash with 2 km to go. Asked if his tactics went to plan, he said: ‘If you call it tactics, I didn’t do anything. It’s not much of a tactic really.’ He did concede, however, that his winning odds were increased by not going for the intermediate sprints and using up energy as the others did. ‘I can say for sure it helped to stay fresh for the finish. [But] some riders like to get a sprint or two in before the finish . . . by doing so they get the motor going.’ McEwen was out of the fray on Stage 3, but he was in a better position than a number of other riders who crashed out, including his principal lead-out man Freddy Rodriguez. Also to go was Alejandro Valverde with a broken right collarbone and Dutchman Erik Dekker. Stuart O’Grady

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Ballet on wheels The lead-out to a sprint is arguably the most choreographed element of road racing, and at no event is this more spectacular than in the Tour de France when the teams are at maximum strength and in the best form of their season. Of course, not every team will engage in a lead-out for a sprint—only those teams with sprinters capable of winning the bunch finish on a flat stage will race them. And even then, some teams with sprinters won’t necessarily provide a lead-out for its sprinter, as the team may not be up to executing the job properly or may need to save reserves for a rider in contention for overall victory. Australian Robbie McEwen is a case in point. Many of his stage wins in the Tour have come with relatively little team assistance, and through his own rat cunning in the bunch to use the lead-outs of rival teams and riders. At its best, with every rider in a team taking a role in what is known as a ‘train’, lead-outs are poetry in motion. Each rider has a specific role in the lead-out that can start 5 to 3 km from the finish, and that role is to set a breakneck tempo at the front and then peel off to allow another teammate to take over. Each rider is designated a time to ride at the front for a specified distance. The sprinter should be the last to go as he launches off the energy saving slipstream of his teammates. However, because it is so fast the train should not only set up the sprinter, but also stop rivals from passing. A sprint finish will often see two or three trains form with the strongest eventually getting the space and territorial advantage in the pack. Making such a finale even more spectacular is that even at the end of the day’s racing, the result can still come down to a photo finish.

also crashed, finishing 11 minutes 35 seconds down and in agony. X-rays revealed he had fractured his L4 vertebrae, but incredibly he started the 207 km Stage 4 from Huy in Belgium to Saint Quentin in northern France the next day, although he didn’t bother pretending he was all right: ‘I have felt better. I am not the best. The fracture itself doesn’t hurt so much. It is the muscles and nerves around it. It is like a knife in the back.’ So what motivated him to continue? ‘It’s the Tour de France. I have been preparing all year for it. And maybe, one day, in one week’s time, two week’s time—if I can get through today—then I can be of use to the team.’ O’Grady was realistic enough to know though that his Tour was still in doubt. He had yet to get on his bike, let alone ride it. When asked about his chances of finishing the race, he said: ‘Right now—not so good. But

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I think I’ll find out pretty quick. If I can push the pedals, I will find out in the first five kilometres because we hit a hill pretty early. So I am either going to be pretty fast in the cars [chasing] or . . . if I can hang in there. I am not going to do anything stupid. It’s my back. I am not going to play with my health. You have to put everything into perspective. But I will try [to finish the Tour].’ Throwing his leg over the saddle, a wincing O’Grady rode off slowly to sign in at the start. He did make it to the stage finish in Saint Quentin after 4 hours 59 minutes 50 seconds of racing that saw him placing 118th in the bunch finish. Afterwards, he declared: ‘That is definitely one of the toughest days of torture I have been through.’ He knew that more torture was to come. But from one Australian’s agony came another’s ecstasy, with McEwen winning Stage 4 by three lengths. It was a stunning effort, especially as he was without Rodriguez. McEwen also found himself back in the green jersey with an 11-point lead on Boonen, who still had the yellow jersey although only by 12 seconds on McEwen. Seasoned observers, including Irish champion Sean Kelly, only had praise for the Australian. The five-times green jersey winner, who is today a discerning critic for Eurosport TV, could only say: ‘What about that? Robbie was absolutely amazing.’ Also impressed was retired Italian superstar Mario Cipollini, the most successful sprinter of modern Tour history with twelve stage wins to his name: ‘The explosiveness of McEwen is something extraordinary.’ McEwen’s win on Stage 6 from Lisieux to Vitre was also as impressive as any in his career. He beat Italian Daniele Bennati and Belgian Tom Boonen, who was in the yellow jersey, by three lengths—an incredible feat again considering he was without Rodriguez. Instead he had to rely on Belgian teammate Gert Steegmans who, the day before on Stage 5, made his move too early for McEwen. ‘Yesterday [Steegmans] made a mistake, but he really made up for it. I told him not to go one metre before the 450 m mark, to make sure which side opens up and at 400 m just go. I really had to jump to go with him. And if I had to jump to get on him, I knew nobody else could go.’ The win also helped silence those who doubted the significance of

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McEwen’s wins with Italian Alessandro Petacchi absent due to a broken knee-cap from a crash in the Giro. Although, McEwen never had any doubts: ‘I have proved I can beat him in the Giro. It would change the nature of the sprint, but the quality of the field here is very high. But I don’t think anyone could have beaten me in the last two sprints I have won.’ Not your average Ferrari . . . As Lance Armstrong discovered, any association with Michele Ferrari was a damaging one, something Michael Rogers found out when word spread in the press room that he had an association with the Italian doctor. (In 2004 Ferrari was found guilty in a Bologna court of trafficking and supplying drugs. The verdict was overturned on appeal when the judge found the investigation had been flawed.) Rogers, to his credit, didn’t baulk when I asked him to confirm the association after the second stage to Esch sur Alzette: ‘I have been working with him for this year and a little of last year, obviously [just] with training programs and whatnot,’ he acknowledged. ‘I rated him because I think he is the best coach in the world. Just look at some of the athletes he has worked with. He has made some mistakes and I think he has learned from them. But with me, he has never mentioned anything of that [drugs]. It was just hard work and training. I have nothing to hide . . . Of course, all the German press are expecting me to say, “No, no, I don’t know him. I have never seen the guy.” But yeah, I know him. I work with him. There are some other guys who work in the team with him.’ Rogers, who has never been accused of doping, understood why there was criticism of his association with Ferrari, particularly since his T-Mobile team had announced it would enforce stricter internal anti-doping policies upon the orders of its German telco sponsor. ‘I have complete transparency,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to hide . . . There will be a new rule and I have been told that I am unable to work with him from now on. If the team says it, it’s fair enough. That’s the new rule of the team. They’re really scared about the bad press at the moment and don’t want to ruin the image of T-Mobile. Once the Tour is over, I will ring him and tell him. [But] I’ve no doubt he will read the press anyway.’ Rogers, an unflappable character, certainly didn’t let the issue weigh him down. The next day, on Stage 3, he took second place to move up to second overall behind Tom Boonen.

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Rogers and Evans confirmed their contention for the Tour title after placing fourth and eleventh respectively in the 52 km Stage 7 time trial from St Gregoire to Rennes. It was won by 2000 world time trial champion and Rogers’ teammate Serguy Gontchar from Ukraine, who also took the yellow jersey. No single rider had emerged as a standout successor to Armstrong, but there was a major shift in the balance of power from Discovery Channel to T-Mobile. And with only 2 minutes 30 seconds separating first place and 17th, the Tour was up for grabs. After Stage 7 Rogers found himself in third place overall and Evans was eighth. For both Australians, the Tour was developing perfectly. ‘It was really hard,’ Rogers said after the time trial. ‘Not a bad ride, a bit off the pace. I would have liked to have done better. But hey, it is the Tour de France. And I can’t be too disappointed . . .’ Evans was happy, too: ‘I didn’t think it would suit me so much, that course. I was more concerned to limit my losses rather than do anything really special. But we still face the mountains. It is still early days.’ Evans received a strong endorsement on the rest day in Bordeaux two days later from his teammate Robbie McEwen during an entertaining press conference at their team hotel. McEwen was a showman, and the media enjoyed its exchanges with him. With the weight of the world off his shoulders after three stages wins, McEwen placed the load of pressure on Evans, saying: ‘You know me. I am never backwards coming forwards. Cadel Evans is going to win the Tour de France 2006.’ Asked to elaborate on why he thought Evans could win, he said: ‘He’s the best. He is the most natural general classification rider here in the field. The other guys are time trialists trying to turn themselves into climbers or the other way round. Cadel has the best mixture of [time trialling and climbing] naturally. He doesn’t have to force himself to go one way or the other.’ Looking at Evans, McEwen grinned: ‘I’m making him sweat now. I’ve seen Cadel more assure of himself within the team and the peloton,’ he continued, no longer joking. ‘It’s an obvious progression from top ten last year . . . And I have seen him improve in the Tour. I just don’t see anyone else is going to beat him.’ Evans then spoke of what awaited him in the Pyrenees on Stages 10 and 11. His would be a very different race to McEwen’s, who would ride

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with the aim of just finishing and saving as much energy as he could for the sprints to come. Fanning his compatriot with a magazine, McEwen joked, ‘I think that’s about as much help I’ll be for him in these next days’. Different strokes for different blokes . . . For riders, rest days are mostly spent doing what they were doing in the days before and what they would be doing in the days to come—riding their bikes! But gone are the mental and physical demands of the race. Gone too are the instructions from trainers and doctors. For once, they can ride as they please. They can also catch up on lost sleep, have extra massages and take time out to see family and friends. In Bordeaux Evans and McEwen spent their rest days very differently, perhaps reflecting their personal styles. Evans rode for two-and-a-half hours, including a spell at high speed behind a car: ‘I need to otherwise my legs blow up and I can’t pedal so well the next day.’ McEwen, on the other hand, spent only about one hour of his two-and-a-half-hour ‘sortie’ actually riding. He stopped at a cafe, ordered a coffee and ‘watched the world go by’, an approach also favoured by Australia’s three other riders: O’Grady, Gerrans, and Rogers.

• • •

On the eve of the first mountain stage, from Cambo les Bain to Pau, Simon Gerrans looked into his crystal ball when asked about the two days in the Pyrenees to come: ‘T-Mobile could let a break go and let the [yellow] jersey go to take the pressure off. I’ve been told quite often the big Pyrenean stage [Stage 11] is a non event because the big leaders hesitate. Then nothing really happens until the last mountains. We will need to be really alert.’ Gerrans was right, in part. In Stage 10 Rogers’ T-Mobile team did let a break go. It was made up of Gerrans’ French teammate Cyril Dessel, who took the yellow jersey off Gontchar after they finished nearly seven and a half minutes ahead of the main peloton. But Stage 11 from Tarbes to Val d’Aran was anything but a ‘non-event’. Won by Russian Denis Menchov, it was the most decisive stage of the Tour so far. It saw the Tour leave the Pyrenees with a new race leader in Floyd Landis and a top order that still had Evans and Rogers placed well.

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Evans’ ride was brilliant even though he could not match the last attack with 2.5 km to go on the last of five backbreaking climbs to the finish. Now fourth overall, he was in a positive frame of mind: ‘I am happy with how the race panned out. I would have liked to have gone with the last move, but maybe the effort they made there [after riding for over six hours] will play into my hands later on. They may have extended themselves and perhaps it will cost them later.’ It was a good day for all the Australians in different ways. Rogers finished twelfth on the stage after working tirelessly to help his teammate Andreas Kloden move to sixth overall while riding himself into seventh place overall. Gerrans impressed with his work at the front of the peloton in what was a courageous effort by Ag2r to defend Cyril Dessel’s yellow jersey. The French team controlled the race until it ran out of numbers to keep at the front on the fourth of the five climbs. Dessel repaid their faith by leading home a group of five riders, and while falling to second overall he was still only 8 seconds shy of the lead. McEwen, who as a sprinter was not suited to the mountains, even came away from the 11th stage with something to show for it: he bagged six points at the first of three intermediate sprints before the race blew apart to extend his lead in the green jersey competition to 217 points against Boonen’s 188 points. And for O’Grady, who dabbled in a moralelifting attack on Stage 9 to Dax and in this stage at 19 km to ignite a sixteen-rider break that lasted nine kilometres, the day also ended in a win of sorts considering his fractured vertebrae. After finishing 130th and in a group of 36 riders at 44 minutes 20 seconds, he came in with 10 seconds to spare on the cut-off limit, thus avoiding elimination. He suffered incredibly, however: ‘That one gets locked into my memory bank as one of the top three hardcore stages I have ever ridden. We had to dig pretty deep towards the end as we were in danger of being outside the time limit. There was a bit of panic over the airwaves . . .’ Of course, the Massif Central, the Alps and one more time trial were still to come, but many believed the Tour had found its successor to Armstrong in Landis, a 31-year-old Mennonite from rural Pennsylvania who first ventured to Europe for the world mountain bike titles as a 17-year-old. Journalists were already looking into his religious background,

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upbringing, strained relations with Armstrong and the recent revelation that he was racing with a degenerative bone condition called avascular necrosis that was causing him so much pain in his hip he would need replacement surgery ‘as soon as possible’ after the Tour. Because of the career-threatening danger of his hip condition, Landis’ Tour had been ‘one day at a time’. ‘I was told my career won’t go on forever . . . it’s made me think about it more. I see things differently. I’m honoured to be sitting here [in the yellow jersey]. It will be difficult to control and keep it. We don’t have much time on a lot of guys. If it’s in our interest and we find a common goal with some help along the way, I wouldn’t be opposed for other teams to have [it]. The objective is to have it on the last day.’ Wheeling and dealing . . . Cycling is rife with instances of strategic allegiances between teams or deals between riders. The return may be financial or a favour to be kept in credit for another day. It may also be payback for a past wrongdoing. Or it could be just because two teams or riders have a common goal on a particular day. Whatever the reason, no deal is ever the same and pacts can be as quickly broken as they are made. The 2006 Tour provided an example of deal-making as the race headed towards the Alps. Tongues hadn’t stopped wagging about the events of Stage 12 from Luchon to Carcassonne, a 211.5 km stage that had no outward bearing on the main overall placings. The stage was won by Yaroslav Popovych of the Discovery Channel team, who beat breakaway companions Alessandro Ballan of Italy and Oscar Freire. Had the trio stayed together, almost certainly on form and pedigree Freire would have won as he is one of the best sprinters in the world. But, unexpectedly, Freire made a move that forced Ballan to try and chase him down, and when the Italian tired Popovych was able to attack and ride away to win the stage without Freire chasing. Whispers began in the press room. Nobody would confirm reports that Discovery Channel had aligned with Rabobank, the Dutch team that had Denis Menchov as a Tour contender. All Rabobank’s sports director Erik Breukink would tell Dutch journalists was, ‘Make of it what you will’. So what was the deal? One scenario was that by allowing Popovych to win, Rabobank paid back a debt owed to the Discovery Channel team dating from 2002 when Dutchman Michael Boogerd won a stage at la

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Plagne, beating a two-man group made up of Armstrong and Carlos Sastre. It was thought Armstrong decided to not chase Boogerd, thus allowing him to win. It was not lost on anyone, either, that Discovery Channel’s Johan Bruyneel and Breukink had been teammates on Rabobank and ONCE. And Discovery Channel’s aim? It was not to boost Popovych’s overall place. He was its highest placed rider at 10th, but he was not a stand-out Tour contender. Word was that Bruyneel had called in the favour from 2002 when it looked like his team would finish the Tour empty handed. After seven years of success with Armstrong a 10th overall by Popovych would pale in significance, but a stage win would allow the team to save face.

• • •

Nobody really knew how big a turning point it was when Spaniard Oscar Perreiro placed second behind Jens Voigt in the 230 km 13th stage from Beziers to Montelimar, finishing 29 minutes 57 seconds ahead of the peloton to take the yellow jersey from Landis. Landis spoke of allowing another team to take the yellow jersey, but even Perreiro, who began Stage 13 in 47th place and was a friend of Landis, was surprised he got the leeway he did after 209 km on the attack: ‘This morning I couldn’t imagine that I would take the yellow jersey.’ His Caisse d’Epargne team had lost its leader Valverde in a crash, so with Perreiro in yellow its morale was boosted. Perreiro was no schmuck but Landis was still the favourite, even for Eddy Merckx: ‘Floyd Landis, for sure. [That is] because he is very complete. He is very good in the mountains. He is a good time trial rider. In the last week that is what we will have: climbing and the time trial. Also his team had to control. [But now with him] not having the yellow jersey it may be better. Others will have to control the race.’ Merckx still rated Evans highly as a threat to Landis, but so long as he was prepared to attack in the Alps: ‘The Tour is not finished. And for sure Cadel and Menchov will make it a hard week for Floyd. They have to take time on Floyd in the Alps. That is because I think in the [Stage 19] time trial he is the best one.’ As the mountain roads went up and down, so did the emotion and drama of the Tour in the Alps. It began with Landis taking back the yellow jersey from Perreiro on Stage 15 to l’Alpe d’Huez but continued

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the next day when he blew up, losing 10 minutes 4 seconds on Stage 16 from Bourg d’Oisans to la Toussuire and finishing in complete distress. Most observers thought Landis had squandered any hope of winning the Tour with his time loss. But then, as if by a miracle, he won the 200.5 km 17th stage from Saint Jean de Maurienne to Morzine, which went over five mountains, with a 150 km solo attack, moving from eleventh overall to third. His ride was incredible and left his rivals without answer. Evans, tenth on the stage, said: ‘Well, what can you say—his legs did the talking today. He is absolutely incredible. He just rode everyone off the wheel, literally off the wheel and went away.’ Rogers, who again sacrificed his individual ambition to help Kloden on the stage, thought Landis was unbelievable: ‘He was like a motorbike.’ UCI president, Irishman Pat McQuaid, described Landis’ ride as ‘one of the most epic days of cycling I have ever seen in the Tour de France. Everyone will say Floyd deserves this Tour win now.’ Bernard Hinault rated it as on par with some of his best performances: ‘He showed he is a real soldier. He has the keys to the race now. I am a big fan of Floyd because of the way he races. He’s got an aggressive streak. He is just saying: “I was bad yesterday, but I am the best here. And I will prove it today.” It’s like a Hinault coup.’ From an Australian perspective, however, Landis’ performance was now irrelevant. Evans was on the cusp of an Australian best result. A podium finish appeared a tall order, but with the Stage 19 time trial from le Creusot to Montceau les Mines to come, he could still challenge for fourth place. There was only 39 seconds between him and Kloden, although Evans would need a terrific ride as the German had beaten him over 52 km by 6 seconds in the Stage 7 time trial from Saint Gregoire to Rennes. This Stage 19 time trial was also a chance for Rogers to unshackle himself. He had worked very hard for Kloden and was tenth overall, but was still riding for his team and not his own interest: ‘I’ll push it the whole way. We still have to think about the team’s classification so we all have to go full gas. It would [also] be nice for the team to finish with two in the top ten. It is going well so far.’

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Welcome back . . . asshole Lance Armstrong was back. The French tabloid France Soir was more than happy to announce the return of the seven-times Tour champion on the front page of its 17 July edition with the provocative English headline ‘Welcome in France, Trouduc [arsehole]’. The catalyst for the paper’s frosty welcome were remarks the Texan had made about the French football team, which had lost the World Cup final to Italy, a few nights before at the ESPN sports awards dinner where he was Master of Ceremonies: ‘All their players tested positive . . . for being assholes.’ It was meant to be a joke, but to France Soir the quip was a ‘public insult’. Word spread at the start of Stage 15 in Gap that Armstrong was there with actor Jake Gyllenhaal. The Brokeback Mountain star had ridden with Armstrong up l’Alpe d’Huez the previous day. Was he preparing for a role in the much-touted Lance Armstrong movie? Gyllenhaal was not the first famous actor or celebrity to attend the Tour. Dustin Hoffman had once visited the Tour with a view to a possible movie and comedian Robin Williams came several times as a friend of Armstrong, as did rock singer Sheryl Crow in 2004 and 2005 when she was the Texan’s girlfriend. Arnold Schwarzenegger once even presented the yellow jersey as part of a publicity campaign for a movie prominently promoted in the Tour advertising caravan. Gyllenhaal was wearing a Discovery Channel team t-shirt and a black baseball cap with the 10/2 logo—a reference to 2 October, the date Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996—when we tried to interview him. He wouldn’t reveal what he was doing in France or who he wanted to win the Tour. Armstrong, however, was a lot more open when he came out of the team bus—dressed exactly as Gyllenhaal: ‘I would love to see the jersey stay in America. Floyd is clearly the favourite here. He is still the favourite. I would be happy with that victory.’ And what about his comment on the French football team? ‘Of course it was a joke.’

• • •

As soon as the Tour left the Alps, the spotlight fell back on McEwen and his lead in the green jersey competition. But unlike previous years, the tight battle for the second most prized jersey in the Tour was brought to a sudden end when dual stage winner Oscar Freire pulled out from the Tour peloton before the 18th stage due to an overnight fever. Freire was

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McEwen’s nearest challenger for the jersey—he was on 207 points to the Australian’s 252. With Freire now gone and Boonen exiting on Stage 15, it was virtually McEwen’s for good: ‘It’s a strange feeling to know it’s unlosable. Saying that I still have to make it to Paris and there are still two days to go. Hopefully I don’t have a dog run out in front of me. As long as I make it to the line that is all I have to do. It’s strange because I normally have to fight like anything to win or lose it. It is just starting to sink in now.’ He was still guarded about championing himself as the best sprinter in cycling, although not shy enough to discourage the media from labelling him that way. Asked if he could now be called one of the greatest sprinters, he said: ‘You can do that. I don’t mind.’ McEwen was thinking about a fourth stage win into Paris. It would not come, as Hushovd would beat him on the Champs Elysees. But with three stage wins, his third green jersey and the success of his protégé Evans it was his best ever Tour. Evans lived up to expectations to secure fifth place overall after placing eighth in the Stage 19 time trial from le Creusot to Montceau les Mines. Landis reclaimed his overall first place. The course between two industrial cities was undulating and technically challenging, made up of narrow back roads and city streets that twisted and climbed around the district’s former coal mines and steel mills. It wasn’t Evans’ best day: he punctured at 20 km and was caught in the last kilometre by Kloden, who started three minutes later. Evans was resigned to his fate, saying: ‘I don’t feel that stuffed now, so I didn’t do a particularly good time trial. I got a flat tyre, which can break up your rhythm, but I thought I got back into it. I just couldn’t get anything out of myself today.’ Rogers, meanwhile, defended his tenth place overall, despite a disappointing 19th in the time trial. He was ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel out there. It was really hot, really humid. I just kept going through water, it was such a long way. It felt uphill the whole way. It’s not bad playing a domestique’s role, but I probably paid the price in the last couple of days.’ The best Australian time trial result was probably O’Grady’s 21st. That he was still in the Tour was a testament to his sheer courage: ‘It has been hell. It is only a broken vertebrae, so it is not as if I am in a

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wheelchair. But it is still a fracture in my back that has caused a hell of a lot of pain. The team have been fantastic. They have spent so much time with the chiropractic work I have done, morning, night, whenever possible. Without those guys I would never have made it to Paris. They have always said, “It will get better, it will get better”. And you start thinking they are just saying that to make you feel better. It was after I got over the first mountain stage when I knew I would possibly get to Paris, but the pain level and mind games that you put yourself through in the Tour are absolutely unbelievable.’ O’Grady also revealed how close he came to quitting: ‘There was one day . . . and it is all a blur . . . in the last week. I was absolutely on the limit. It was the closest I have ever been to click out.’ The Champs Elysees was abuzz with excitement after the last and 20th stage from Parc de Sceaux to Paris. McEwen and Rogers both savoured views from the podium—McEwen wearing the green jersey and tenth-placed Rogers with T-Mobile as winner of the teams competition. O’Grady again defied logic by placing third in the last stage behind Hushovd and McEwen. Evans happily added a fifth place overall finish to his eighth the previous year: ‘I’ve ridden two Tours now and to get eighth in my first Tour and now fifth, well, you’ve got to be pleased. With a bit of luck I could have gained a couple of spots. A couple of things were out of my control when certain guys got up the road. I don’t have a general classification team, so there was not much that could be done. I didn’t make too many fatal errors. I managed to stay upright so it was a pretty good Tour.’ Simon Gerrans, despite bronchitis and a knee injury in the last week, rounded off Australia’s best-ever collective showing in a Tour by joining the others to record five from five finishes. • • •

Two days after the Tour finished, I sat down in the British Airways lounge at Heathrow Airport to wait for my flight back to Australia. It had been a terrific Tour for Australia, and apart from the pre-race departure of those riders implicated in Operacion Puerto, the first post-Armstrong Tour had not only been problem free but one of the most exhilarating in modern times—certainly in my time at least.

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Then I picked up an English newspaper. The first item I saw in the sports section was a report that a Tour rider had tested positive. I sighed and almost simultaneously my mobile phone rang. It was a friend telling me he had heard the rider was a top-ten finisher. Twelve hours later when I arrived at Singapore I found out who that rider was. On nearly every television set in the airport were images of Floyd Landis on the podium in his yellow jersey. The story was not of his win, but of his deceit. He had tested positive for an elevated testosterone level in a drug test taken after his Stage 17 victory at Morzine. It was time for a drink . . . and a stiff one at that. Landis would later be suspended for two years and become the first Tour ‘winner’ to be stripped of his win. The 2006 Tour de France podium 1. Oscar Perreiro (Caisse d’Epargne/Spain) 3657 km in 89 hours 39 minutes 30 seconds (average speed 40.74 km/h) 2. Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile/Germany) at 32 seconds 3. Carlos Sastre (CSC/Spain) at 2 minutes 16 seconds The Australians* 4. Cadel Evans (Davitamon-Lotto/Belgium) at 4 minutes 11 seconds (1 stage win) 9. Michael Rogers (T-Mobile/Germany) at 14 minutes 10 seconds (1st in teams competition) 79. Simon Gerrans (Ag2r/France) at 2 hours 46 minutes 33 seconds 91. Stuart O’Grady (CSC/Denmark) at 2 hours 55 minutes 25 seconds (2nd in teams competition) 116. Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto/Belgium) at 3 hours 21 minutes 1 second (17 days green, 1st on points for green) * The Australian overall results are based on their elevation by one place following Floyd Landis’ disqualification for failing a drugs test and being stripped of first place.

2007 Ninety-one hours of racing . . . and I lost 23 seconds somewhere along the way. —Cadel Evans on the margin between him winning and finishing second in the Tour 7–29 July (3570km): London–London (Prologue), London–Canterbury (Stage 1), Dunkerque–Ghent (Stage 2), Waragem–Compiegne (Stage 3), Villers Cotterets–Joigny (Stage 4), Chablis–Autun (Stage 5), Semur en Auxois–Bourg en Bresse (Stage 6), Bourg en Bresse–le Grand Bornand (Stage 7), le Grand Bornand–Tignes (Stage 8), Val d’Isere–Briancon (Stage 9), Tallard–Marseille (Stage 10), Marseille–Montpellier (Stage 11), Montpellier–Castres (Stage 12), Albi–Albi (Stage 13 individual time trial), Mazamet–Plateau de Beille (Stage 14), Foix–Loudenvielle le Louron (Stage 15), Orthez–Col d’Aubisque (Stage 16), Pau–Castelsarrasin (Stage 17), Cahors–Angouleme (Stage 18), Cognac–Angouleme (Stage 19 individual time trial), Marcoussis–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 20)

Sitting in the press box at the Sydney Football Stadium for a club rugby union final before a crowd of 5000 was not what I had planned to be doing on the day Cadel Evans was preparing to take on the Spanish Tour leader Alberto Contador for the yellow jersey in the Stage 19 time trial before a roadside audience of one million people. If the truth be known, my mind was clearly not 100 per cent on the job as my story in the next day’s paper even had one player scoring an own try. With two stages to go Evans was 1 minute 50 seconds short of Contador’s lead, and as the better time trialist there was every chance he would win the Tour outright. Eventually he fell 23 agonising seconds short of toppling Contador to place second overall—Australia’s best result and first podium placing. 257

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Naturally, it would have been fantastic for Evans had he won, but it would have also been a real boost for Australian cycling and, indeed, Australian sport in much the same way Australia’s America’s Cup win in 1983 was for sailing. The Tour was still one of the last frontiers for Australian sport, but at least Evans had reached the checkpoint and after three weeks of racing he had won the hearts of his new Australian followers, saying: ‘Sorry I didn’t win . . . I did my best. I did what I could, but it’s only my third Tour so there’s a few more good years left in me yet. Let’s try again next year.’ Four months later he came face-to-face with his new-found fame and popularity when he returned home to Barwon Heads in Victoria with his wife Chiara from his Swiss base of Stabio. He was lauded at events everywhere. He won the inaugural Sydney Morning Herald/Age Sports Performer of the Year crown and donated the $50 000 prize money to the Amy Gillett Foundation and Ian Thorpe’s Foundation for Youth. He starred at the Track World Cup in Sydney and Cycling Australia awards in Adelaide, where he won the Sir Hubert Opperman medal as Cyclist of the Year. He also supported a string of charity events, including the Tour de Cadel where, in a ride that crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, he helped raise $35 000 for the David Peachy Foundation for Indigenous children. Evans’ podium finish may have been wonderful for Australian cycling’s fortune, but this same edition of the Tour was also remembered for its doping scandals and the growing disdain of its detractors. After eleven days of racing it was announced that German Patrick Sinkewitz of T-Mobile had recorded excessive levels of testosterone in a race before the Tour. Then came the expulsion of early favourite Alexandre Vinokourov—and the subsequent withdrawal of the Kazakh Astana team—for testing positive for homologous blood doping after his win in the Stage 13 time trial. A positive test for illegal testosterone levels in Italian champion Cristiano Moreni prompted his French team Cofidis to also quit the Tour. And, if this wasn’t enough, suspicion mounted over race leader Michael Rasmussen, who had missed four out-of-season doping tests. His Dutch Rabobank team eventually withdrew him after he won the last mountain stage in the Pyrenees and then sacked him for lying about his whereabouts.

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• • •

Cadel Evans and Michael Rogers came in to the 2007 Tour with far more pressure on them than ever experienced by any other Australian riders. Their placings the previous year had also been raised by one—Evans to fourth and Rogers to ninth—following the disqualification of Floyd Landis for doping. With the Tour starting in London, where many expatriate Australians live, they would also be among the big name stars. Both were understandably nervous before the race, billed as one of the most open in years. A virtual ‘vacant’ title was up for grabs. ‘Everyone is so nervous and stressed in the race, you never feel comfortable,’ Evans said. ‘The moment you do your race is over.’ He remained cautious about winning; rather, his objective was to improve on his fourth of the year before: ‘I’m going to try and improve on last year’s result. I know a lot more of what to expect. I would say I’m happier in that I have had more time to train and prepare. In that respect I am a little bit less nervous.’ Optimism was also high that the field would be as clean as possible from doping. The Tour organisation pledged to ban any rider implicated or suspected of being involved in any sort of investigation. The UCI had also ordered all riders to sign a riders’ charter swearing non-involvement in any drugs scandal. Not only did riders agree to supply DNA samples and abide by World Anti-Doping Agency punishments, they also agreed to forfeit a year’s salary. Evans was happy with the race route, especially in the Pyrenees. At 68 kg in bodyweight and 174 cm in height, he prefers the steeper, narrow, lumpy, dead roads over the smooth and steadier Alpine roads, which suit bigger riders like Rogers who rely more on power than punch to climb. Evans’ big problem, however, was that again he would have no teammates to help him. As a multi-Tour stage winner and three-times green jersey champion, it would be Robbie McEwen who would get most of team Predictor-Lotto’s help. Rogers, on the other hand, had the full T-Mobile team behind him. At 75 kg and 185 cm he was more reliant on steady tempo when climbing, although for this Tour he had worked on improving his climbing. He was

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also one of the world’s best time trialists, having won the world title three times. The one doubt about Rogers was injury: a fractured right knee sustained in a crash during the Tour of the Basque Country had healed, but flared up again during the ten-day Tour of Switzerland just before the Tour, forcing him to abandon the race. After an MRI scan Rogers could report, ‘there is no pain, it’s slowly getting better’. He was also relishing his new role as T-Mobile’s team leader after having worked for Andreas Kloden the year before: ‘It’s a new experience . . . more responsibility on my shoulders and pressure that comes along with it. It’s going to be a very attacking race. A fair few guys can win the Tour, and if one gets in a break that gets 10 to 15 minutes lead, it’s not going to be easy to bring back.’ • • •

The ‘grand depart’ in London was a huge success, although there was concern that the English press would turn the event into a free-for-all over doping. Instead, the crowds came out in the hundreds of thousands for the 7.9 km Prologue in London, won by Swiss Fabian Cancellara, and the first stage from London to Canterbury, which saw Robbie McEwen win in spectacular form. Crashing with twenty others with 23 km to go he managed to get back up on his bike, but even with his team waiting to help him rejoin the peloton his chances looked slim. With a few kilometres to go and the peloton setting itself up for a bunch sprint finish—without him—McEwen, his knee bloodied, got back onto the end of the group and miraculously passed all but about the first ten riders by the time the race reached the 200 m mark. He stormed through to win convincingly, but his success was also the beginning of his downfall. His injuries were greater than first thought and from the next day on he struggled. The Tour resumed in Dunkerque with Cancellara in the yellow jersey he would keep all the way to the Alps, as the sprinters and opportunists made best of their chances to win a stage, and the overall contenders focused on staying upright and safe. Inevitably there were victims. Brett Lancaster was the first Australian to leave the Tour, abandoning on the 5th stage from Chablis to Autun after struggling for three days with injuries sustained in a crash on Stage 1. Kloden also fell, and while he rejoined the

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race, X-rays showed he had fractured his tailbone. Vinokourov crashed on Stage 5, finishing 1 minute 20 seconds down with both knees and one elbow bloodied, cut and in need of stitching at hospital. McEwen was also clearly in strife. His Tour was on tenterhooks. • • •

Evans and Rogers were perfectly positioned after the first day in the Alps, the 197.5 km 7th stage from Bourg-en-Bresse to le Grand Bornand. Both were 30 seconds down on the best placed overall contender, Kloden, with Evans in 13th place and Rogers in 14th. Rogers’ German teammate Linus Gerdemann was also ideally placed in yellow, thus putting pressure on the other teams to do all the work and chase. In Australia the bookmakers had Evans as the best Australian chance. But deep down I really liked Rogers’ chances. He had a team working for him. He was well placed and in good form, and there had been no signs of his fractured knee playing up. And with Gerdemann in yellow, all he had to do was to follow the moves that came. I thought Rogers was worth betting on, especially as the bookmakers had him at 55-1 to win the Tour. I convinced my colleagues at the Sydney Morning Herald to put their money on him before Stage 8 from le Grand Bornand to Tignes—one of the biggest mountain stages in the race. By the time I turned on the television that night, my heart was pumping furiously. Rogers was in the leading break, which included the red and white polka dot jerseyed Rasmussen. At the summit of the Cormet de Roseland with 65 km to go their lead was a little over 6 minutes. Even better, Rogers was now the race leader on the road. What a ride! What a bet! What a night! And then it turned sour, and so quickly on a day that ended up being arguably one of the worst in Australia’s Tour history. Ten kilometres into the descent of the Cormet de Roseland, Rogers and Spaniard David Arroyo crashed. They got back on their bikes and resumed cycling. I prayed that it was just a scare and that Rogers would rejoin the leaders in the valley. He did, but just as he began to climb again he started wincing. He slowed, and went off the back. The peloton caught him and soon after he stopped. Rogers’ Tour was over.

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It was initially thought he had broken his collarbone, but tests showed it had been dislocated. Not that that eased the pain. Rogers was devastated and knew what opportunity had passed him by: ‘I could see the yellow. I could taste it. Now it is gone.’ The Aussie malaise didn’t end with Rogers’ exit. Not long after O’Grady, who in April that year had become the first Australian to win the Paris–Roubaix one-day classic, was caught in a horrific crash on a mountain descent, breaking five front ribs, three back ribs, a shoulder and collarbone. He also sustained a punctured lung and a blood clot to the brain. The disappointment at his Tour being over was nothing like the relief he felt that he was still alive. O’Grady was taken to hospital, where he would begin another extensive period of rehabilitation. Incredibly, he would be back and fit enough to race in the Vuelta a Espana a couple of months later. Then came news that McEwen was out of the Tour, his tenth. While he finished the stage, he did so outside the time limit and was thus eliminated. ‘With the pain I have been suffering and the fact that it’s been getting worse then, at the moment, the peloton is not the place to be. Since the day after the crash I haven’t been able to generate the same power out of my leg.’ In the early hours of the morning in Sydney, the last image I saw on TV was that of Rasmussen standing on the podium in the yellow jersey. For all intents and purposes, it should have been Rogers. I could hardly sleep knowing that with a full team, a clean bill of health, his improved climbing, his time trialling prowess and with the yellow jersey on his back, Rogers should have been en route to becoming the first Australian to win the Tour de France. • • •

One consolation for Australia’s Stage 8 woes was that Evans rode a terrific stage, being one of four riders who were able to go with an attack by Frenchman Christophe Moreau on the final climb. Evans was rewarded by gaining several seconds on heavy hitters such as Carlos Sastre and Alberto Contador and moving up to sixth place overall.

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The 9th stage from Val d’Isere to Briancon featured the 15 km long climb on Col d’Iseran to 2770 m and the 36 km Col du Galibier, both providing some spectacular racing. Colombian Moricio Soler rode from anonymity into heady fame to win the stage, but real interest lay in the attacks by Alejandro Valverde and Contador. Evans responded well to them all and moved up two positions to fourth overall after he followed an attack by Valverde on the climb to the finish in third place. Evans’ next major move was four days later on the 54 km Stage 13 time trial at Albi. He astounded everybody with his second place to Vinokourov, who moved up to second overall to Rasmussen. Vinokourov’s winning ride heralded his return to form from injuries sustained in his Stage 5 crash. The result left Evans ideally placed. Had he taken Rasmussen’s yellow jersey he would have had to control the race in the Pyrenees on his own, an almost impossible task considering the weakness of his team. He did not have the attacking options of the Astana team of Vinokourov and Kloden, or Discovery Channel with Contador and Leipheimer. Placed where he was he could follow rather than instigate moves. With Contador in third place and Evans, Leipheimer, Vinokourov and Kloden hovering, the Tour had really only just begun and Evans, as much as anyone, knew this as the Pyrenees neared: ‘Everyone is still so close. Astana has an advantage with two [leaders], and Discovery Channel have another guy [in Leipheimer]. The way things are with two Discovery and Astana riders in the classification now, that’s going to be a bit tricky—but I’ve just got to keep going.’ On your bikes—join the happy throng A tumultuous Tour? You bet. Wished I was there? Absolutely. Happy I didn’t miss an historic first win by an Australian? Most definitely. But there was one advantage in following the Tour from Australia, and that was the chance to see how the race was being embraced by the Australian public. Evans’ success was a leading news item and the Tour de France was no longer just a filler. Cycling in Australia was experiencing unprecedented popularity. Had I been in France following the Tour I might not have known to what degree, something I discovered when asked to write an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald. So what did I find out?

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• • •

As if the Floyd Landis controversy the year before was not bad enough, the Tour was about to come embroiled once more in not one but several doping scandals. And again one of them would involve the yellow jersey wearer—in this case Rasmussen who, the Danish Cycling Union announced on 19 July, would not be allowed to represent Denmark at the world titles or Olympic Games because he had missed a number of out-ofcompetition doping tests without just reason. Rasmussen admitted he had committed an ‘administrative error’ by not informing his team of his true whereabouts—that he was in Italy when he said he was in Mexico,

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where he sometimes lives with his Mexican wife. Fined 10 000 Euros, he left the race under a cloud of suspicion. Casting a further shadow over his credibility were allegations by a former mountain biker that Rasmussen had once got him to carry doping products the rider didn’t know were hidden in his shoes. Race director Christian Prudhomme was incensed that the Danish federation had not told the Tour organisation about the missed tests: ‘What I regret more than ever is that we didn’t have this information before 29 June, or on the following days before the Tour started. We would have made the Rabobank team face up to their responsibilities.’ Prudhomme was not alone in expressing his anger, not that Rasmussen was perturbed. He rode aggressively in the first of three stages in the Pyrenees, the 197 km 14th stage from Mazamet to Plateau de Beille where he and the stage winning Contador formed a dynamic two-up to gain time on Evans, Leipheimer, Vinokourov and Kloden. Evans was defiant against the onslaught, though. It was only with 6 km to go on the 15.9 km climb to the finish that Rasmussen and Contador finally shed Evans from their wheels. While Rasmussen kept his lead, Contador was happy to not only win the stage but to take time on Evans, jumping past the Australian to move into second place overall. Evans dropped to third overall. Anticipation of what was to follow was soon forgotten after Vinokourov, who won the 15th stage from Foix to Loudenvielle le Louron in a solo attack 15 km from the summit of the Col de Peyresourde, learnt he had tested positive to homologous blood doping after the Albi time trial. He left the Tour immediately, as did the entire Astana team soon after. With Vinokourov out, the stage went to Luxembourg rider Kim Kirchen. Evans remained in third place overall after Contador and Rasmussen— with teammates helping them—rode away from the Australian, who led home a group of ten riders that included other contenders who did not wish to help him chase. Meanwhile, the Rasmussen controversy continued towards its climax, unfolding dramatically after his win on Stage 16 from Orthez to the Col d’Aubisque. What was to be a ride of honour was instead one of shame. It was also a sign of how far Rasmussen’s credibility had fallen that he was

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jeered rather than cheered by spectators crowding the route of this final mountain stage. Within hours of finishing Rasmussen was withdrawn from the Tour by his team for lying about his whereabouts. Rabobank also postponed his contract renegotiations. Prudhomme’s view was clear: ‘We cannot say that Rasmussen has cheated, but his flippancy and his lies on his whereabouts had become unbearable.’ And with the overall classification now having Evans placed second to Contador, who was elevated to race leader, Prudhomme continued: ‘I believe the general classification is much better now than it was before.’ Rasmussen, it seemed, was his only believer. In his last press conference before being sent home, he claimed the jeers were directed at Vinokourov even though he had already left the race: ‘I believe there is a lot of frustration among the people and in the peloton about what’s going on. After what happened to Vino, since he is not here, people are taking their frustrations out on me.’ He even denounced doping, saying: ‘The only good thing there is to say about the Vinokourov case is that it proves that the system is working. I’ve had fourteen negative tests so far during this Tour.’ The enormity of the scandal involving Vinokourov and Rasmussen alone was astounding, but it was compounded with the news that 2004 Italian road champion Cristiano Moreni had tested positive just hours before Rasmussen’s exit from the Tour. He and his Cofidis teammates all left the Tour voluntarily. Despite the tighter anti-doping measures put in place by the UCI, Tour organisers and teams, a number of high-profile confessions of doping by present and former stars, and lingering suspicions over others, the string of scandals proved that riders were still willing to cheat. Before the Tour, the 1996 champion Bjarne Rijs admitted to using EPO when he rode for T-Mobile. German sprinter Erik Zabel, who was riding the 2007 Tour for the German Milram team, also confessed to doping while Italian Ivan Basso admitted to ‘attempted doping’, although he claimed to never have followed through. Even Contador, after inheriting the yellow jersey, could not avoid the spectre of suspicion. As one of the riders named in Operacion Puerto, he was subjected to questioning once he became the race leader. He was defiant in his claim of innocence: ‘If I was not clean,

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I would not be here.’ But with a Tour determining time trial to come, it was added pressure he would have preferred to do without. • • •

When the Tour left the Pyrenees for the final run north to Paris, it seemed all of Australia was following Cadel Evans. Suddenly there were Tour experts everywhere. Walk into any cafe or bar and all you seemed to hear were analyses of his strengths and weaknesses. But Evans was not the only overnight celebrity. So too were his mother Helen Cocks, who lives in Arthur’s Creek, Victoria, his father Paul Evans from Upper Corrindi in northern New South Wales, and his Italian wife Chiara Passerini. Suddenly, the Cadel Evans story was the story everyone wanted to know about: from his birth in Katherine in the Northern Territory to his early childhood in the Aboriginal community of Barunga in the Top End, where he would spend weeks alone riding his BMX bike, from the time he was nearly killed by a horse that kicked him in the head to the day he moved to Arthur’s Creek and started a cycling career that took him from being a two-times World Cup mountain bike champion to a professional road cyclist. Nothing was too much. Everything was not enough. In the eyes of the Australian media, Evans represented the underdog Aussie: he had never been associated with a drugs controversy, had never failed a drug test, and here he was riding in a Belgian team that offered him little if any support. The Tour was still there for Evans to win in the Stage 19 time trial from Cognac to Angouleme. And he sensed it, although in an interview with Sydney radio station 2KY he seemed remarkably calm about the challenge ahead: ‘I’m just going to go and do whatever I can in the time trial and see what becomes of it. I [will] just go and race the best time trial I can . . .’ Evans had every reason to feel confident. In the Stage 13 Albi time trial the Australian had beaten Contador by 1 minute 4 seconds. But on Stage 19 on a 55 km course that had more flat and straight stretches that suited Evans, he beat Contador but was unable to gain the overall lead. He placed second to Leipheimer, who blitzed the race and even challenged Evans for his second place overall. Evans still raced well to

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beat fifth-placed Contador by 1 hour 27 seconds, but that was still not enough to haul in the Spaniard and take the yellow jersey. He was still 23 seconds short. Contador, in a press conference after securing his 23 second overall lead, again had to fend off questions about doping and Operacion Puerto. Five riders in his Liberty-Seguros team were named and did not start the 2006 Tour, but he maintained his innocence: ‘The cycling world is crazy, there’s suspicion everywhere, and also on me because I am coming first. I was in the wrong team at the wrong time and somehow my name got among the documents, but the UCI corrected the mistake and now I’ve got no link to Puerto.’ The doping debate was again in full swing. The International Olympic Committee questioned cycling’s future in the Games. And while World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound conceded steps had been taken to catch cheats, he had doubts about the sport’s credibility: ‘I don’t know what the sport of cycling has to go through to shed this image. They [the UCI] have allowed it to get out of hand. First, it was a denial of a problem, and that the positive doping cases were isolated incidents, and now they accept that it is endemic and organised. Their credibility is in shreds. [TV] Networks are not interested and sponsors are diving out of the sport.’ Greg LeMond, while rejecting claims that the Tour’s future was in doubt, called for organisers to not name a winner in light of the controversies. Warning that the incidents were the tip of the iceberg, he said: ‘I would prefer to see a non Tour de France winner [that is, for riders not to be promoted after a disqualification]. It’s more symbolic. The Tour will survive. The Tour is an event. It has a glorious past. It has a history. The Tour will never go away. During the three weeks, riders become actors. Actors with a story to tell. If you remove those actors and replace them, you still have the drama and the flavours the Tour brings.’ The doping issues had not been for Evans to deal with, but he was still asked in the last days of the Tour how he would have felt had Rasmussen beaten him given the cloud over the Dane: ‘I don’t know if disappointed would be quite the word for it. I’m sure I’ve been beaten by cheats before—I know I have—and I’m sure I’ll be beaten by cheats in

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the future.’ Asked if Rasmussen’s presence in the race had an impact on the final result, Evans replied: ‘There was a lot of things on a lot of days that would have changed the tactics. There’s so many different directions the race could have taken, it’s not possible to quantify. The [15th] stage to Peyresourde, a lot of dirty words were said after that stage by me and I think people might understand why. It was 55 seconds that I lost to Contador there and I think I have a pretty good idea how to ride this Tour now. I don’t know everything but that was to me where I lost the Tour de France.’ Not that this stopped Evans from trying to win right up to his last pedal stroke. He had devised a plan to attack and haul back his 23 second shortfall on the last stage to Paris, despite the improbability of it succeeding on a stage that is almost always controlled by the sprinter teams in a determined bunch gallop—as it was. ‘If they’re doing 60 [km/h], we might be able to go away, but when they’re doing 70-plus you can’t get away from them,’ Evans conceded with a smile, happy to become the first Australian to make the podium. • • •

A week after the Tour, Evans admitted that after 91 hours of racing he was still haunted by the 23 seconds that stood between him and winning the Tour. Speaking from Venice on Andrew Denton’s talk show Enough Rope, he pledged to a live studio audience in Sydney, which included his mother Helen Cocks and his grandmother, to commit every day between then and the 2008 Tour to preparing for an all-out bid to win the race. He appeared relaxed and happy, but when asked by Denton if he was still upset, Evans was almost resigned as he said: ‘Yeah, it does actually [hurt]. Yeah. Ninety-one hours of racing . . . and I lost 23 seconds somewhere along the way.’ To his credit Evans refused to take anything away from Contador, despite claims by German anti-doping campaigner Werner Franke that while Contador had been cleared by the UCI of any ties with Operacion Puerto, evidence was to the contrary. ‘I think, like everyone, there is a bit of a shadow over his win and his reputation. For me, innocent until proven guilty is always my attitude. Just because you win the Tour de

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France doesn’t mean you are a cheat. People have to remember that. If something comes out, solid evidence, yes, but till now no solid proof has come out. So I’ll leave him innocent until proven guilty.’ Evans did admit, however, that the problem of doping had made him briefly consider giving up cycling: ‘. . . but that would be giving up. I don’t want to do that. I think [cheating] is human nature. It’s not just the Tour de France. It’s not just sport. It’s the world as a whole. People will always look for an easier way, or a way to gain or profit more. I can’t change the world as a whole, but I can do my best and what I believe is right.’ Hearing Evans speak, I knew if there was one thing I had to do in 2008 it was to be there at the Tour and see first-hand how close he could get to winning . . . if not win! The 2007 Tour de France podium 1. Alberto Contador (Discovery Channel/Spain) 3570 km in 91 hours 00 minutes 26 seconds (average speed 39.223 km/h) 2. Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto/Australia) at 23 seconds 3. Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel/USA) at 31 seconds The Australians 2. Cadel Evans (Predictor-Lotto/Belgium) at 23 seconds (1 stage win, Stage 13 time trial after first-placed Alexandre Vinokourov’s disqualification for a positive dope test) 94. Simon Gerrans (Ag2r/France) at 3 hours 9 minutes 19 seconds 129. Heinrich Haussler (Gerolsteiner/Germany) at 3 hours 32 minutes 30 seconds DNF. Brett Lancaster (Milram/Germany) abandoned Stage 5 DNF. Michael Rogers (T-Mobile/Germany) crashed Stage 8 DNF. Stuart O’Grady (CSC-Saxo/Denmark) crashed Stage 8 DNF. Robbie McEwen (Predictor-Lotto/Belgium) outside time limit Stage 8 (1 stage win)

2008 The difficulty of the sport brings out qualities in human beings. In the modern world we need our limits to be pushed sometimes, and cycling is a fantastic sport for that. The sport is still in my heart. —Cadel Evans after again placing second overall 5–27 July (3560 km): Brest–Plumelec (Stage 1), Auray–Saint Brieuc (Stage 2), Saint Malo–Nantes (Stage 3), Cholet–Cholet (Stage 4 individual time trial), Cholet–Chateauroux (Stage 5), Aigurande-Superbesse (Stage 6), Brioude–Aurillac (Stage 7), Figeac–Toulouse (Stage 8), Toulouse– Bagneres de Bigorre (Stage 9), Pau–Hautacam (Stage 10), Lannemezan– Foix (Stage 11), Lavalanet–Narbonne (Stage 12), Narbonne–Nimes (Stage 13), Nimes–Digne les Bains (Stage 14), Embrun–Prato Nevoso (Stage 15), Cuneo–Jausiers (Stage 16), Embrun–l’Alpe d’Huez (Stage 17), Bourg d’Oisans–Saint Etienne (Stage 18), Roanne–Montlucon (Stage 19), Cerilly– Saint Amand Montrond (Stage 20 individual time trial), Etampes–Champs Elysees, Paris (Stage 21)

Cadel Evans had every reason to believe his team was more committed to helping him in the 2008 Tour de France than in 2007, when its resources were split between him and Robbie McEwen. He was upset at having lost American Chris Horner to the Astana team led by Alberto Contador, which was refused a start because of the team’s past history in doping controversies under its former management, but Evans’ confidence was boosted at the start of a training camp high in the Italian Alps one week before the Tour started. The 31-year-old did not expect the response he got from his Silence-Lotto teammates to an open invitation to the six-day camp. Only Belgian Leiff Hoste, who was not a climber and was in need of a rest, and Robbie McEwen, who knew he would have to look after 271

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himself in the Tour and that riding in the mountains would not help his chances of adding to his career tally, were not there. Evans was still surprised that six came: ‘I didn’t ask. I just said to the guys I am having a training camp. It was not obligatory for everyone to come.’ But Evans had given his teammates cause to believe he could win the Tour. He had won stages in the Ruta del Sol in Spain, the Paris– Nice in France and the Coppi e Bartali in Italy, where he also took the overall title. He was also second in the Fleche–Wallone one-day classic in Belgium and the Dauphine Libere stage race in France, and seventh in the Liege–Bastogne–Liege in the Ardennes of southern Belgium. As a result, Evans had noticed a change in his teammates, and was worried they would burn themselves out: ‘I kept saying at the start of the year, take is easy until we ride the Tour. But they kept saying, we would rather ride for you because you keep getting the results. So I was more than happy to try and finish off the job for them . . . There is a real team spirit that doesn’t happen everywhere.’ Six of the 2008 team were in the 2007 line-up and five of the nine were climbers, so their ability to help Evans in the mountains added to this new motivation. That one of the team was former Discovery Channel rider Yaroslav Popovych, who had ridden for Contador and Lance Armstrong, was expected to be a real bonus. There was one major problem, however. How does a team go for both the yellow and green jerseys? It was eleven years since this had happened, and then two riders from the team that last pulled off the double, in 1996 and 1997, admitted in 2007 that they had used drugs at the time: Bjarne Rijs, the yellow jersey winner in 1996, and Erik Zabel, winner of the green jersey in 1996 and 1997 when teammate Jan Ullrich won yellow. McEwen was doubtful about Silence-Lotto winning both jerseys: ‘It would have to be the case of Cadel earning the yellow jersey, and to get the green you need a bit of luck. You can’t spread the team far. That is why it is not an absolute goal. But it is not impossible to have one team in green and yellow, like the Telekom team in the 90s. If it doesn’t happen that I get it [the green jersey] I will certainly go down fighting.’ But as he said with typical pragmatism before the Tour: ‘It is hard with a team, but it is a little harder to win without a team. But I

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have known that I am going to be in this situation since last year. I am totally prepared for it. I know I can do it, but everything has to be just right. I have done it before. You are a lot more dependent on what the other team and riders do.’ But this wasn’t just a Tour about Evans and McEwen as far as Australia was concerned. There was a record equalling number of ten Australians starting in the race. With Evans and McEwen were Stuart O’Grady, Baden Cooke, Simon Gerrans, Brett Lancaster, Adam Hansen, Trent Lowe, Mark Renshaw and the NSW-born German Heinrich Haussler. There were also three Australian sports directors on the Tour—former riders Scott Sunderland at CSC, Allan Peiper on Team Columbia and Matt White with Garmin-Chipotle. It was going to be a great Tour. • • •

In Contador’s absence and as 2007 runner-up, Evans was officially seeded No. 1. But he knew there was plenty of danger lurking, and that having that number on his back would increase the pressure. He had done all he could in preparation. He had worked on his time trialling and bike position, and the creation of a new bicycle. He had recovered from the tendonitis that had fleetingly put his Tour start in doubt. He had also shown in races that he was prepared to attack. His team had also been working towards a win. It even employed a chef to ensure his diet was tailored to his needs and, most importantly, that it was not spiked. It also signed up Armstrong’s former bodyguard, Belgian policeman Serge Borle, to protect Evans before and after stages. What the Australian could not do, however, was guarantee he would avoid a Tour-ending crash, or cover the tactics and rat cunning of rivals such as Alejandro Valverde, Carlos Sastre, Damiano Cunego, Denis Menchov, Kim Kirchen and the brothers Frank and Andy Schleck. In the first three stages Evans focused on escaping crashes as the sprinters battled for stage wins, even if Valverde was the first to profit by winning Stage 1 and keeping the yellow jersey until Stage 3 when little known Frenchman Roman Feillu took it from him. But the biggest headliner was not even racing. Former Tour champion Greg LeMond made a rare appearance at the start of Stage 2 from Auray to Saint Brieuc,

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which was won by sprinter Thor Hushovd after a terrific lead-out from his teammate Australian Mark Renshaw. LeMond’s presence had an immediate and positive impact on the Tour as he signed autographs and chatted with locals who had followed him throughout his career. He had been immensely popular as a racer, and it was clear that the love had not been lost in retirement. He did not waste the opportunity to speak his mind either. Asked by journalists about the issue of doping in cycling, he was especially critical of former UCI president Dutchman Hein Verbruggen for his handling of the doping controversies in the late 1980s and 1990s, including the 1998 Festina scandal. Asked what had been achieved since then, LeMond said: ‘What? Nothing. It was all talk, all PR. I was here in 1998, and I was like, good, finally! At least now they’re going to do something about [drugs]. They didn’t change a thing . . . [Cycling] needed what’s happened to it. It didn’t change after Festina, and it didn’t change after Puerto, or Landis. It needed last year because all of a sudden there was a crisis, the pressure of sponsors pulling out.’ LeMond also felt Evans represented a new era of clean riders, citing his consistency over his career as proof: ‘He’s my favourite. He has been so consistent. He was good—consistent, not at the top—during the height of all this doping issue. He might be the big talent [if] you start eliminating people getting the big advantage. He was very good at mountain biking and made a very good transition from mountain biking to road racing. He came into the sport when there were a lot of problems, but now the sport has cleaned up and he’s good at the right time.’ LeMond tipped Evans to win the 2008 Tour. Two days later in the 29.5 km Stage 4 time trial at Cholet, Evans placed fourth to the new race leader, German Stefan Schumacher, to move up from ninth to fourth overall at 21 seconds. Among the six or so Tour favourites, he was the best positioned. After racing over the rolling time trial course against stiff 30km/h south-westerly winds and on a new custom-made Ridley time trial bicycle that took two years to make, and which reportedly saved 15 watts of energy when ridden at 45 km/h, Evans said: ‘First of the [overall] favourites that is the most important thing. Fourth on the stage is OK, but [the stage was] really for the specialists so early in the Tour.’

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Evans’ overall lead going into the 5th stage from Cholet to Chateauroux (where British Tour rookie and sprinting sensation Mark Cavendish claimed the first of four memorable stage wins) was 51 seconds on Menchov, 1 minute 6 seconds on Valverde, 1 minute 10 seconds on Andy Schleck, 1 minute 22 seconds on Sastre and 1 minute 47 seconds on Schleck’s older brother Frank. It was ‘mission accomplished’ for Evans before the Massif Central. He even had enough in reserve to share a little humour when asked to describe how the ride went: ‘They said go . . . I went!’ One Australian threat to Evans was Allan Peiper, a sports director on Team Columbia who had been on Evans’ team two years earlier. Team Columbia had a dark horse for overall honours in Kim Kirchen and Peiper, who knew Evans’ weaknesses and strengths, predicted his game plan for the 6th stage from Aigurande to the summit of Superbesse in the Masif Central: ‘I hear Evans is probably going to have a go and shake the peloton up.’ Kirchen, in his fourth Tour, was a good climber. He had beaten Evans in Fleche–Wallonne in April, and had been focusing on the Tour since. And while his major weakness was thought to be the long and high mountains, he had a strong team to support him. Kirchen was well placed in second overall but Evans was feeling confident and happy after having thus far survived the Tour unscathed, unlike Valverde, who crashed after 90 km and sustained cuts to his right shoulder, knee and back. ‘It looked like I wrestled with a lion,’ he said later. Asked if he saw Valverde fall, Evans said: ‘No, I didn’t . . . that is why I try to hang near the front.’ Feel the pain, share the gain . . . As Queenslander Adam Hansen led a furious 65 km/h chase of three riders to set up the sprint in the final kilometres of the 232 km 5th stage won by his teammate Mark Cavendish, the pain in his legs increased, the burning in his lungs drew fire and his head became increasingly giddy with oxygen debt. The world around the 27-year-old former mountain-biker was spinning past in a blur. Of the chase that saw the last of the attackers—French national champion Nicolas Vogondy—swamped by the peloton with 40 m to go, Hansen said: ‘It goes in slow motion. You don’t know what is going to happen. Guys are coming up and you are at your limit, then you find some extra energy. But somehow you keep going until you are dead.’

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• • •

The Tour erupted into a war of words and wheels on the first day in the Massif Central when the yellow jerseyed Schumacher crashed with 300 m to go on the uphill finish and lost his race lead to Kirchen. A bloodied Schumacher finished the 195.5 km 6th stage from Aigurande to Superbesse in 25th place, but his pain worsened when he learned that he was not given the same finishing time as the group he was in when he fell, which included Kirchen and Evans. Under international rules the same time is given if a crash occurs in the last three kilometres of a flat stage, but not on a summit finish like Superbesse. Schumacher was bitter: ‘It is like a bad movie. It is not fair to lose the jersey like that. I didn’t know why Kirchen moved into me. I felt really good. After that crash I had no chance. I am sure I would have kept the jersey.’ Kirchen, now in yellow, was stunned to hear Schumacher’s claim: ‘In the last two kilometres I was trying to move up on the right side. I braked too and couldn’t do my sprint for the win. In a good sprint I would take 10 seconds [on Schumacher], for sure. I had really good legs.’ Schumacher was officially blamed for the crash—a communiqué saying he rode into Kirchen’s wheel. Evans, meanwhile, moved up from fourth overall to second: ‘I can’t lie, it was a great day for me. In the last climb I was feeling really good,

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so I decided to take Ricco’s wheel until Valverde came across. Then I got the wind in my face and couldn’t continue. When you know that it isn’t possible, you have to know when to stop.’ Evans’ team manager Marc Sergeant was also happy: ‘He is really surprising. I had the feeling we have discovered the real Cadel. He is doing things in the race that he was incapable of doing before. In the sprint he was very calm on the wheel of Ricco and Valverde, a calmness that has not been his custom. With every day Cadel is giving me more confidence.’ The calmness disappeared 24 hours later, however. On the 224 km long 9th stage from Toulouse to Bagneres de Bigorre—the first in the Pyrenees—Evans’ Tour winning hopes were nearly dashed when he crashed at 60 km/h on a long, sweeping left-hand bend just before the descent of the fourth category Col de Buret bottomed out. After landing on his back, shoulder, left elbow and knee, he came to a halt on the side of the road. He stood up groggily and was struck by the fear that his Tour was over. But the adrenalin kicked in and Evans was back on his bike with teammates around him and chasing to rejoin the pack led by EuskaltelEuskadi, which was in pursuit of a three-man break. The Basque team did ease its chase after learning of Evans’ plight, keeping to the code of road cycling that says you don’t attack a rider when he is down. Evans’ teammates had dropped back to help him. One of them, Christophe Brandt, said of his condition: ‘He was not really good. He was a little bit in trouble. His head was a bit . . . when you crash at that speed you can’t be good.’ The team also constantly worked on his mind ‘to give him confidence’. Evans tucked into their energy-saving slipstream, until he realised his bicycle frame was damaged and stopped to changed bikes. It was only when he rejoined the peloton that he checked his blood oozing injuries, which were exposed by his torn cycling gear. After teammate McEwen brought up anti-inflammatories Evans dropped back to seek Tour medico Gerard Porte, whose reassuring diagnosis was that the wounds were superficial. How close he came to ending the Tour only became evident after he finished the stage in 23rd place, and was directed through the media scrum into a team van positioned by his body guard Serge Borle—Lance Armstrong’s former minder—for a quick getaway to hospital. It wasn’t

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until later that the team’s orthopaedic specialist, Dr David Bombeke, convinced Evans he was okay: ‘Once I knew my body was okay, it was pretty easy to relax. I thought I would be okay’. Evans’ shattered helmet was graphic proof of the force of the impact. Without it, he may have sustained a serious head injury. He did not speak to the media at the finish, but after closing the door on the team van he tapped on the window to attract my attention, re-opened the door and threw me his helmet. ‘There’s your interview,’ he said. Later that night he was still vague about what exactly happened. He couldn’t recall flying over the handlebars as he did, but he did remember seeing a small bag caught between his front wheel and the forks of his bike, although he did not believe that it caused the crash: ‘I don’t remember anything other than a Euskaltel rider going down in front of me. Then I was picking myself up off the road. I don’t actually remember hitting the bitumen . . . When I thought I had really broken something and that I might have lost the Tour de France, for a moment there I was really frightened.’ What a pass It happened in the split second that it took for Australian Tour de France contender Cadel Evans to say the words ‘there’s your interview’ and throw me his shattered helmet. Suddenly, after being the journalist chasing the subject, I became the subject—thrust into the eye of a media storm thanks to Evans’ deft pass. Before I had time to look up from the shattered helmet— still damp from the sweat that poured from Evans’ head during five hours of racing—I sensed the crowd swarming around me. And then came the question from SBS Tour reporter John Flynn who, I was stunned to see, was part of a wall of media clutching cameras, microphones and tape recorders that had quickly formed around me: ‘Rupert, tell us what you are looking at?’ The deep cracks on the left side showed how strong the impact of Evans’ head on the bitumen had been. Silence-Lotto sports director Hendrik Redant, who was following the race in the team car when the Australian crashed, was correct when he said, ‘Better a helmet than a head’. A staunch supporter of bicycle safety, Evans’ jest was a reminder of how important helmets are, something he reinforced with a text message at 9.45 that evening. ‘My helmet tells more than 1000 words, no? Just doing my bit for awareness of cyclists.’

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• • •

The tears in Evans’ eyes after taking the yellow jersey on Stage 10 were not just tears of joy, but a reflection of the emotional roller coaster he had been on since crashing the day before. It had been an unforgettable turnabout, and while his overall lead was only 1 second on Frank Schleck it did not lessen his emotion as he stood on the podium at Hautacam to become the fifth Australian to accept the prized jersey. He kissed his cupped hands, dipped his head to contain the tears and then kissed the stuffed Credit Lyonnais lion that all yellow jersey wearers receive. Only then did Evans slowly look up to the crowd and raise his hands in triumph and recognition of its cheers: ‘Twenty-six hours have only passed. It’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster to say the least . . . It was the scare of my life. I crashed on the ground and thought my Tour was finished there. Cycling can be so cruel. And sometimes probably for that, when it is a little less cruel, it is rewarding. I still can’t quite believe it. I can’t believe it now. I couldn’t believe it then on the podium. Yesterday was my Tour low and today, until this point in the Tour, it is my Tour high.’ Evans was still feeling the pain of his wounds after reaching Hautacam. As he rode through the mayhem of the stage finish after placing eighth, he pleaded with the crowd that circled around him, ‘Don’t touch my shoulder’. His left shoulder, which he had already broken five times, caused him constant pain during the stage that involved four climbs, including the 18 km-long Col du Tourmalet and the steep 15 km rise to the finish: ‘I had a lot of bruising, a lot of swelling. I felt shocking at the start. The most painful were the descents. I had to dig a little deeper . . . Every swollen part of my body was bouncing in the bag. Every speed bump hurt, put it that way.’ Now that Evans had the yellow jersey, what would he do with it? Most agreed he did not have a strong enough team to defend to Paris, some even doubted he had the strength of mind to carry the burden of being in yellow until the finish. And Frank Schleck and his CSC team did not want to have it so early. When reminded that the yellow jersey at Hautacam always wins the Tour—as Miguel Indurain did in 1994, Rijs in 1996 and Armstrong in 2000—Evans’ reply was, ‘I hope that continues’.

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But less than 90 minutes into his first yellow jersey defence, on Stage 11 from Lannemezan to Foix, Evans sought to surrender it to another team. This only came to light when Simon Gerrans revealed after the stage that he had been approached by Evans with the suggestion that his Credit Agricole team take over the race leadership after a breakaway of thirteen riders escaped on the 167.5 km stage. One of Gerrans’ teammates, Alexandre Botcharov, was the highest placed rider in the group so when the break neared its maximum lead of sixteen minutes Silence-Lotto decided Botcharov was the rider it wanted to take the lead. Botcharov was not a major threat for overall victory, but by giving him the chance to take yellow pressure would be lifted from Evans and his team. And there was a lot of pressure, too, with Schleck and Carlos Sastre waiting in the wings. Silence-Lotto’s plan failed. The CSC and Caisse d’Epargne teams saw what was happening. The peloton increased its speed and dug into the margin held by Botcharov’s group. The Caisse d’Epargne team of Oscar Perreiro and the CSC team of the Schleck brothers and Sastre preferred to have Evans in yellow, at least until the Alps. By not having to defend the jersey, they could save the energy reserves that would be needed in the days to come. As Kurt-Asle Arvesen, the Stage 11 winner from CSC, warned after his win: ‘We haven’t showed much yet. We got the stage win. Now we will try to go through the next stages as easy as possible. For the Alps we have Carlos and Frank up there, and some cards to play.’ • • •

As the Tour started everyone was wondering if maybe— just maybe— 2008 was going to be free of doping controversy. But on the eve of Stage 7 Spaniard Manuel Beltran was expelled for failing a Stage 1 drug test for EPO. That was followed by the expulsion of Spaniard Moises Duenas for EPO use, and the fiasco before the start of Stage 12 when Riccardo Ricco was taken away by police after testing positive for a third generation of EPO called CERA. His entire Saunier Duval team including Leonardo Piepoli, who would also test positive for CERA, voluntarily withdrew from the Tour just before the stage start.

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Evans was initially reluctant to give his views. Following the bust of Beltran he said he was ‘sorry for the image of cycling’, but added that while he had thoughts on the subject, he preferred to keep them to himself. He gave a similar answer when Duenas was caught doping, but Ricco’s positive drug test finally forced Evans to comment, albeit with guarded reservation. This showed that the anti-doping controls were working, he said and he was not ‘surprised’. But the media still wished Evans would elaborate, believing as the yellow jersey wearer it was his responsibility to do so. But then came the hardest question of all when, at his yellow jersey press conference, a wire agency reporter asked: ‘Given the circumstances of doping cases—particularly the Ricco case today—why should we believe that any rider is clean, including you?’ Evans pursed his lips, paused, then responded: ‘Why should us riders believe anyone else in the world that they are not cheats or criminals in some respect?’ Evans was tired of cycling being targeted by the media because the sport was catching dopers, although he had to be reassured by race director Christian Prudhomme that the Tour was becoming cleaner. ‘I am actually happy that the cheats are being caught and the sport is being really, really cleaned up in a serious, fair and transparent way, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of other professions in the world,’ he said. ‘What frustrates me the most is the focus on the negative issues of what the federations, the UCI and ASO [the Tour organisers] are trying to do [which is] the right thing and clean the sport.’ Was it other sports pointing the finger at cycling? ‘Absolutely. It is very unfair. Our sport is trying to do the right thing and we are being crucified for it. What are they supposed to do? Do they have a free-for-all like some sports that don’t have drug testing at all? Are we going to be complimented for that? If I can add on that not just other sports, other professions. Like everyone, we are doing this for a profession.’ O’Grady was less shy than Evans in talking about doping. He called for life bans for drug cheats: ‘When are people going to realise that this is what puts our sport in jeopardy? How many warning shots are going to be shot over the bow for them to realise? As far as I am concerned they should be hit with a lifetime ban. They can go and pick cherries or do some other job, I don’t care. Just don’t come into cycling if you’re going to cheat.’

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Evans knew he had enough to deal with without getting bogged down as a spokesman for the peloton. The Alps were nearing, and O’Grady provided a candid assessment of the dangers waiting for Evans from within the CSC team, especially from Sastre, for whom O’Grady was wingman on the flat stages: ‘We haven’t seen him [Sastre] attack yet. And last year, he was one of the most attacking riders in the Tour. I don’t think he has got into second gear yet. He is cruising, as calm as can be. Nothing stirs him up. He is keeping a cool head and is waiting for the Alps.’ CSC planned to tighten the noose around Evans every day until bringing down the death knell in the Alps. As the Tour journeyed across the Massif Central to the mountains bordering Italy many still believed Evans could win, including the 1975 and 1977 Tour champion Bernard Thevenet of France: ‘He is one of the three riders who have the most chance of winning.’ But there were dangers, Thevenet said: ‘Survey Menchov and [Frank] Schleck. Don’t let them take more than one minute . . . The big advantage Cadel has is that his adversaries must attack him in the mountains before the [final] time trial. His rivals must be in front of him and they don’t know how much time they will need [to win the Tour]. It is more a problem for them than Cadel. With the last time trial being 53 km, if he is one minute down, he will be able to pull back that deficit. If he is more than a minute, it depends who. If it is Menchov, for example, that could be difficult.’ Like everybody else, Thevenet understood the weakness of Evans’ team, particularly after his teammates left him isolated on the 12th stage to Narbonne with 25 km to go. Thevenet rated that as more of ‘a tactical error’ rather than a physical shortfall even after Evans’ last teammate Leif Hoste flatted. Thevenet was probably being generous as this was a flat stage and Evans’ team should not have left him exposed to being stranded had he have had a flat tyre or should the peloton have split under the strong coastal winds. • • •

When Evans lost the yellow jersey to Frank Schleck on Stage 15 from Embrun to Prato Nevoso in Italy and dropped to third overall on this the first of three days in the Alps, he conceded only 8 seconds. Sastre

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also moved up on time after CSC threw everything at Evans on the last climb. He also fended off a challenge by Menchov, who attacked him several times. The biggest loser, however, was Perreiro, who crashed on the Col d’Agnel, fell 5 metres off a switchback and was taken to hospital with a broken shoulder. The loss of the yellow jersey was not bad for Evans, or Austrian Bernard Khol for that matter, who jumped ahead to second place overall with an advantage of only one second. It meant Evans could face the final stages in a fresher state of mind. He was far from beaten: ‘It is not over yet. [It will] go all the way to the final time trial. But the strongest team can now control the race.’ Despite Evans giving up yellow, the stage was still superb for Australia with Simon Gerrans beating three breakaway companions to win it. ‘It gives me a huge amount of confidence to attack and go off the front in the mountains. It is something I have never really backed myself to do.’ Gerrans had joined his three companions 16 km into the 182 km stage, working tirelessly to help the group gain the 17 minute 10 second lead at 110 km that it needed as a buffer to stay in front: ‘We had to hit the last climb with a good gap. I knew the peloton would close in on us really quick. I was doing what I had to do, to do my part. I think we all did a pretty even job to the bottom of the climb.’ With the strain burning his legs from two earlier climbs—including the 20.5 km ascent up the barren Col Agnel—the twisting pitch of the pine-forested 11.4 km climb to the finish was bound to hurt. As the four leaders weaved and climbed they glanced at each other to get some sense of the pain the other was experiencing. It wasn’t long before Egoi Martinez, the best climber amongst them, attacked with 7.9 km to go: ‘I wasn’t sure how my legs were at the bottom of the last climb,’ Gerrans said. ‘When Martinez attacked he dropped me straight away.’ The attack was chased down by Danny Pate with Gerrans following. Martinez went again. And again Pate chased with Gerrans in tow. And so the battle continued, until Gerrans wisely chose to ride his own tempo to avoid blowing up. And it paid off. Gerrans finally closed in with 2 km to go: ‘I hung in there and fought my way back on. Once I got back I wasn’t going to let go again.’ It was enough to allow Gerrans time to recover and prepare for one last surge—and then his winning sprint.

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The next day, the rest day in Cuneo, Evans was still putting up a solid front. He even gave his CSC rivals a verbal tickle-up at his press conference: ‘For how strong their team is, it sure took them a while to get the jersey, didn’t it? With the team they have they deserve to have [it]. The responsibility that comes with it will be in their hands. Time will tell how they deal with it.’ As Evans spoke CSC manager Rijs had already put in place a plan to crush the Australian over the next two days in the Alps—Stage 16 from Cuneo to Jausiers and Stage 17 from Embrun to l’Alpe d’Huez. Silence-Lotto simply did not have the collective might to match CSC, and it would not help that the Australian’s injured left shoulder was still not quite 100 per cent. ‘I still cannot sleep on my left side,’ Evans told his press conference. Could he still win the Tour then? ‘I’d say we are in a good position. Each day that passes is important. After the next two days I will be better able to answer that. I was just reading that with six riders within 49 seconds it is [one of the] closest Tours ever. It will go all the way to Paris. It’s great for you guys covering it and reporting on the race, but it’s a little bit anxious for us in the race.’ As he answered questions there was a sharpness in Evans’ voice that concerned me. I had noticed it since the Tour began in Brest. Evans had ridden more than admirably considering his lack of team support, but the pressure of being a Tour favourite started to show with some erratic behaviour. After the rest day I wrote an article for the Sydney Morning Herald about Evans and how he had—or hadn’t—handled that pressure. The point of the story was not to bag Evans, but to provide an insight into the unseen pressures of being a Tour favourite. Under the headline ‘Evans’ image takes a battering after headbutting camera and dog threat’, the story read: As Cadel Evans races towards becoming the first Australian winner of the Tour de France, doubts are starting to emerge about his ability to handle the intense pressure of becoming the sporting superstar a victory would make him. In the second of three Alpine stages—the 157 km 16th stage from Cuneo to Jausiers on Tuesday—Evans showed he is embracing the pressure of fighting for the race title. However, his demeanour in albeit chaotic circumstances at the finish, where he headbutted a camera, is a concern . . .

2008

The mayhem of having too many people with access to too little space after a helter-skelter dash down a mountain top 25.5 km away would have tested anyone. Evans’ mind would have been spinning, his heart pumping and his legs and lungs burning. At best, it can be said that Evans’ temperamental action shows the magnitude of his learning curve. There is no guide book on how to handle the demands and expectations of being a Tour favourite or leader. And on many accounts, it appeared that Evans had made significant inroads. He engaged all of us with his ‘there’s your interview’ line as he threw his busted helmet to me from the team van after a crash on stage nine could have ended his Tour. As he did 24 hours later when his emotion took over after he claimed the yellow jersey. There were the tears, the kiss of his hands and his champion’s smile as he finally stood with arms aloft. His affection for the Credit Lyonnais toy lion awarded to yellow jersey holders has also drawn a warm, though curious, response. He has carried the toy under his left arm where ever he has gone. And everyone warmed to his explanation for failing to follow Tour protocol after his first yellow jersey ceremony when he exited right rather than left to shake the hands of VIPs: the sight of Australian fans waving boxing kangaroos and flags distracted him. But since then, as the demands of his public profile have increased, Evans has been involved in a string of flare-ups, which, however trying the circumstances, is making some step back. There are his turns of phrase in public and the manner of his answers to questions—ranging from engaging to dismissive and even curt. It all adds up to a suspicion among Tour followers that Evans may be a tad too touchy to love just yet. He slapped a member of the elite Garde Républicaine motorbike squadron and delivered a stinging rebuke [pointing his fingers at his eyes] for coming too close. [His dangerous proximity was caused by a log jam of photographers’ motorbikes.] During his first five days in the yellow jersey, it is understood Evans threw a water bottle at a photographer on a motorbike who had dropped back to take a photo of him eating. Then came the ‘don’t touch my shoulder’ complaint when a TV journalist tapped him twice on his injured shoulder with a microphone and once with his hand. Finally, on Sunday’s Stage 15 ride to Prato Nevoso, where Evans lost his overall leader’s yellow jersey to Luxembourg’s Frank Schleck, he issued a

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blunt warning to stay away from his dog Molly outside the doping control area. ‘Don’t stand on my dog or I’ll cut your head off,’ Evans said, after turning to an unwitting suspect as he answered questions on the stage with Molly in tow. No doubt, Evans has what it takes to be a true champion of the Tour, as anyone who knows how much of his time, energy and money he gives to many causes in Australia will testify. But if he wins the Tour and is to meet those demands that come with it, Evans will need to take a deep breath and relax. Who knows? He may enjoy the ride more than he expects. • • •

Every rider was grateful for surviving the 16th stage to Jausiers—and literally so after South African rider John Lee Augustyn plummeted over the edge of the highest continuous paved road in Europe. That he fell on the Col de la Bonette Restefond near the end of the 157 km stage was shocking, but not surprising. What was surprising was that more riders didn’t follow after he led them down the 25 km descent to the finish, so dangerous and frightening was the sharp right-hand bend that he misjudged. After Cyril Dessel won the stage many riders wondered out loud about the risks. American George Hincapie, fifth at 24 seconds, said: ‘I thought I could catch back on to the group. But I would have had to risk my life. I wasn’t willing to take that risk.’ And Gerrans remarked: ‘It shows what a stupid dangerous sport we do, really.’ Frank Schleck was also shaken. He had crashed heavily in the Tour of Switzerland and on the descent of the Col de la Bonette Restefond had flashbacks of an injured Perreiro after his crash on the way to Prato Nevoso. Evans had no time to think about the past. He knew what lay ahead the next day, the last mountain stage, 210.5 km from Embrun to l’Alpe d’Huez where CSC was tipped to strike. Before the stage, 8 seconds was all that separated the first three riders—Schleck, Khol and Evans—but after it, Evans was still chasing time. His sights were now on Sastre, who had become the new race leader with a solo attack that left him with a 1 minute 34 second lead on Evans, who had fallen from third to fourth. Evans’ demise was the result of near-perfect execution by CSC of its race plan. He was isolated again, this time on the 24 km-long Col du

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Galibier (after Popovych began clearly paying the price for an attack he undertook for himself the day before) and on the 29 km Col de la Croix de Fer, where he still had Belgian teammate Mario Aerts by his side. But come the final climb up l’Alpe d’H’uez he was completely alone in a group that included three CSC riders—the Schleck brothers and Sastre. And when that group reached the foot of the decisive final climb, CSC didn’t waste any time at all. Sastre attacked on the first pitch, and was chased down by Menchov. But just as he was caught, the Spaniard bolted away again. And this time no one went with him. Evans was left in a quandary. Were he to chase the 33-year-old Sastre one of the Schleck brothers would then attack, but if he didn’t chase Sastre the Spaniard could gain too much time for him to reel in the final kilometres of the stage or in the Stage 19 time trial. Evans chose not to chase, preferring to rely on his own tempo to minimise the time loss and the drain on his energy. He finished seventh at 2 minutes 15 seconds to Sastre. With a showdown against the clock on Stage 20 from Cerilly to Saint Amand Montrond set, it was hard not to feel for both riders. Evans needed to milk as many seconds as possible from Sastre. Sastre, on the other hand, had always figured highly in the overall classification, but had never won a grand tour. A genuinely popular figure, he almost threw in cycling altogether after the 2003 death of his brother-in-law Jose Maria Jiminez, a former professional cyclist, but as he said earlier in the year, ‘Overcoming these setbacks changed me and made me stronger’. • • •

Evans was favoured to come out of the 53 km time trial as race leader. Everything pointed to him making up his 1 minute 34 second overall deficit and fending off Khol, Menchov, American Christian Vandevelde and the Schleck brothers. In every Tour time trial over a similar distance in the third week of the Tour since 2005, he had beaten Sastre by 1 minute 4 seconds to 2 minutes 33 seconds. In the Stage 4 time trial at Cholet he had bettered Sastre by 1 minute 16 seconds over 29.5 km—suggesting that over 53 km he would better the Spaniard by 2 minutes 30 seconds. Phil Anderson, who had defended the yellow jersey in a time trial, believed

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such a record would play heavily on Sastre’s mind: ‘Sastre will have had some restless nights. He will [also] be riding as if he has eggs between his shoes and pedals, trying to put no force at all on his legs because he has to save every ounce of energy. He is possibly not going to beat Cadel. It is a matter of how much he can get on him.’ But statistics and logic don’t always add up in sport. Having the yellow jersey and starting last can lift a rider. The money was on Evans—from Eddy Merckx, who tipped the Australian would beat Sastre by three minutes, to the fifteen team managers still on the Tour, according to a French newspaper poll. Even Sastre’s teammate O’Grady was backing Evans. But it was not to be. Was the pressure too much? Had the energy Evans spent racing while his body recovered from injuries taken too much of a toll? And what about the lack of team support? Evans just did not have it on the day. Sastre did. The Australian was seventh behind a victorious Schumacher, who later tested positive in a retrospective doping test for CERA. He was only 29 seconds faster than Sastre—short of the 1 minute 34 he needed to win the Tour but enough to finish second overall. Soon after Evans started the time trial, he was in trouble. He appeared to fight with his bike, pull at the handlebars and his shoulders wobbled. He denied he had an off day: ‘I had a good time trial. I rode a really good time trial and some other people just had an incredible, incredible time trial. What can I do? I had a really good start, I felt really good. They gave me—I think it was after the first time check—a [call of], “You’ve got the same time as Khol”. That’s where I really started to dig. Then when we got to the [next] time check and [it was], “Oh, you’ve taken 10 seconds on Sastre”, I went hang on a second, I weigh 10 kilos more and I’m nearly a time trial specialist compared to a climbing specialist.’ Evans remained loyal to his Silence-Lotto teammates, who were outpowered by CSC. ‘That was, in theory, our biggest room for improvement. There’s three of them [CSC] and one of us. They had a budget two, two-and-a-half-times ours. So of course they can buy better quality riders. But [look at] a team like Rabobank, who have three times the budget. Menchov was isolated as well. On l’Alpe d’Huez there were ten of us. Three CSC, two Ag2r and the rest of us were alone. Caisse

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d’Epargne, Rabobank, they’re strong teams. But Valverde was isolated and Menchov was isolated. What do you do?’ Evans did not look to the final stage—from Etampes to Paris—to make up his 1 minute 5 second losing margin. He had learned the impossibilities of that in 2007 when he was only 23 seconds down. He let the stage unravel, as it almost always does, as one for the sprinters such as QuickStep’s Gert Steegmans. As Evans stopped on the Champs Elysees after finishing 7 seconds ahead of Sastre—reducing his margin to 58 seconds—his passion for the Tour was not diminished. Standing with his wife Chiara and mother Helen, he had no regrets: ‘I rode a good race. I gave everything, 100 per cent of what I had in my legs. I got on the road and on to the results board, but obviously I wasn’t good enough. I’ve got three or four more good Tours left in me. I’m not going to give up now. The difficulty of the sport brings out qualities in human beings. In the modern world we need our limits to be pushed sometimes, and cycling is a fantastic sport for that. The sport is still in my heart.’ The Tour de France podium 1. Carlos Sastre (CSC-Saxo/Spain) 3560km in 87 hours 52 minutes 52 seconds (average speed 40.492 km/h) 2. Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto/Australia) at 58 seconds 3. Bernard Khol (Gerolsteiner/Austria) at 1 minute 1 second The Australians 2. Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto/Belgium) at 58 seconds (5 days in yellow) 77. Trent Lowe (Garmin-Chipotle/USA) at 2 hours 13 minutes 41 seconds 79. Simon Gerrans (Ag2r/France) at 2 hours 14 minutes 25 seconds (1 stage win) 108. Adam Hansen (Team Columbia/USA) at 3 hours 4 minutes 52 seconds 109. Stuart O’Grady (CSC-Saxo/Denmark) at 3 hours 7 minutes 46 seconds 122. Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto/Belgium) at 3 hours 22 minutes 36 seconds 126. Heinrich Haussler (Gerolsteiner/Germany) at 3 hours 25 minutes 129. Brett Lancaster (Milram/Germany) at 3 hours 27 minutes 29 seconds DNF. Baden Cooke (Barlowworld/UK) crashed Stage 12 DNF. Mark Renshaw (Credit Agricole/France) abandoned Stage 15

Epilogue

Cadel Evans arrives. The rendezvous point is the studio of photographer Simon Upton in Kingsford, a suburb of Sydney. The reason? A fashion shoot for the new Fairfax magazine Sports & Style. Three hours have been put aside in Evans’ off-season, and the understanding is that he will pose for a range of shots of himself in cycling gear and in contemporary casual wear. He immediately says he would prefer not to model cycling clothes. ‘I spend nearly every day of the year in those.’ Upton, a 1988 Olympic Games swimmer, understands and happily obliges. Evans has just flown in to Sydney from Melbourne for 48 hours of interviews and promotions. And while he will visibly tire during the next day’s regime of sixteen one-on-one interviews, he is taken by the idea of modelling up-market leisure wear and is soon seated and having make-up applied. This is the life of a Tour de France star. Watching him during the shoot, it is obvious he is still pedantic. After one series of shots where he sprays water on his face from a water bottle to simulate cooling off during a race, he splutters and remarks, ‘Ahh, tap water’. He is a bottled mineral water type of guy. He likes things that are pure. He likes things to be clean. He likes order. No surprises. I am reminded of when I visited him and his wife Chiara at their Australian home in Barwon Heads twelve months before on assignment for The Good Weekend magazine. I wrote of waiting for him with Chiara. ‘Cadel is still showering,’ she said. He is manic, it seems, about personal hygiene and appearance. Later, before agreeing to a series of shots with Chiara at the piano as her ‘page turner’, he rushes back upstairs 290

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to put gel in his freshly cropped brown hair and shave the whiskers on his chin. Neat, sharp, clean and fresh . . . that is the Cadel Evans way. It is a trait emphasised in his house—from the neat garden and ovalshaped swimming pool to the indoor garage where his white 1966 Ford Mustang and blue Holden ute take pride of place. My knowledge of his fastidiousness is reinforced, albeit subtly, during our interview when Evans’ steely blue eyes latch on to my right hand as it taps the top of his beige sofa with a pen. Luckily the cap is still on. Despite twice placing second in the Tour, there is a lot more between him and first place than that one step up the podium. There is a lot more than the 23 seconds he fell short by in 2007 and the 58 seconds in 2008. As 2009 dawned, facing him and the other challengers is the might of a team never before seen: the Kazakhstan-registered Astana team boasting five riders who have finished in the Tour top five. Even more daunting for Evans is that it will be led by not only the 2007 champion Alberto Contador, but also by seven-times Tour champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong. Armstrong’s belief in the team, which is managed by Johan Bruyneel, who steered him to his seven Tour wins, is very real. Such was Armstrong’s hold on the Tour that when he announced his comeback without pedalling a stroke in competition in 2009, many considered the chances of any other rider winning had been blown out of the water. My initial reaction when I heard about Armstrong’s return was to sigh, ‘Here we go again’. Then, despite having been told in 2003 that I had been on his blacklist, I tempted fate and sent him an email, signing off lightheartedly: ‘Heck, I don’t know, maybe I am still on the black list?’ To my amazement, within five minutes he replied: ‘You were never on the black list. You chose to associate with immoral and unethical journos, but I’m over that. I couldn’t care less now.’ Judging by the tone I doubted it, but then a few months later a formal request for an interview that I submitted to his media man was granted. Armstrong and I spoke for 40 minutes. It was as if the clock had been turned back . . . to the days when he was a star on the rise, a young Texan who enjoyed life and never seemed pressed or hurried for time. Even

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when he landed in Sydney early one January evening en route to Adelaide for the Tour Down Under, he stopped, shook hands, smiled, laughed and made himself available to answer questions. The Lance Armstrong show had resumed. He was again the name on everyone’s lips—almost as if he had never gone away. With Armstrong’s return it was hard not to think back to where my Tour journey began, and that was Phil Anderson and the barriers he broke to pursue his dream, one that was followed by so many other Australian riders. Cadel Evans was now a Tour star. He had done what Phil Anderson couldn’t do, and what I had hoped for Michael Rogers, and that was make the podium in Paris. But Rogers, who failed to start in 2008 because of Epstein-Barr virus, will be back, and so too will riders such as Stuart O’Grady and Simon Gerrans. So where to now? Has Cadel Evans reached his peak? Or will he go one better and win the Tour? Can Rogers pull off that win he so deserves? Or is there another Australian waiting in the wings? Who knows, maybe one day an Australian team will produce a winner. Whatever happens, I plan on being there for the ride. And what a ride that will be.

Acknowledgements I am sure that in crediting all those who have helped me in the pursuit of an Australian Tour de France winner I have forgotten someone. If so, it was certainly not intended—if I have omitted you, my apologies. But names aside, I honestly can’t put into words how much I appreciate every little bit of assistance that has come my way from all of you. So thanks to those who dared to take the risk many would not in supporting me as I covered the Tour for Australian newspapers: Stan Wright, Campbell Reid, Colin Gibson and Louise Evans at The Australian; Jeff Dunne at the Daily Telegraph; Alan Oakley, Rod Allen, Ben Coady, Ian Fuge, Greg Growden and Sam North at the Sydney Morning Herald; and Mike Van Niekerk, Stephanie Raethel and Stephen Samuelson at Fairfax Online. And thanks too to those journalists who always told me I was on to a good thing when others doubted, especially Peter Cunningham, Jenny McAsey and Iain Payten. Of course, I would never have survived the journey without my longtime travelling partners on the Tour: John Wilcockson, Andy Hood, Steve Wood, Charles Pelkey, Neal Rogers, Robert Zeller, Leonard Zinn, Brian Jew at VeloNews, Graham Watson, Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, Samuel Apt, Jean-Francois Quenet, William and Alasdair Fotheringham, Justin Davis, James Startt, Jeremy Whittle, Daniel Friebe, David Walsh, Louis Viggio, Karl McGinty and John Brennan. And from Australia thanks go to Rob Arnold from RIDE Magazine, Phil Latz from Bicycling Australia, Gennie Sheer, John Trevorrow, Simon Townley, Michael Stephens, Honie Rowley, Valkerie Magnall, Melissa Woods, Roger Vaughan, Kevin McDonald, Peter Kogoy, Steve Christo; from SBS Television Noel Brady, 293

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Mike Tomalaris, John Flynn and Mark Falahey; and the Fox Sports crew of Scott McGrory, Daniel Jones and Tim Oliver. Thanks also to all my colleagues in Europe, who have become more than confreres, but good mates. Naturally, nothing would have been possible were it not for the Australian riders who have inspired me and kept the dream of an Australian winner alive: from Phil Anderson, Allan Peiper, Michael Wilson, Shane Sutton, Omar Palov, Stephen Hodge, Neil Stephens and Scott Sunderland, to all those who followed in their slipstream such as Stuart O’Grady, Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke, Patrick Jonker, Brad McGee, Matt White, Nick Gates and Jay Sweet to the likes of Michael Rogers and Cadel Evans and the new wave of Aussie stars that includes the likes of Trent Lowe. It would be remiss not to thank those former and current employees and the Tour organisation, Amaury Sports Organisation, from Jean-Marie Leblanc, and Philippe and Claude Sudres to those in current media unit such as Christophe Marchadier. Likewise, I would like to thank the various teams and their staff who have helped me over the years with interviews and access to their teams. Ditto for Frank Conceicaio (you do so much for the sport back home), Jo Pallzatti and the boys at Frank’s shop, Andrew and Alex from Albion Cycles and all of the Eastern Suburbs Cycling Club and those who provided me with so much encouragement as the last words were written while we were at the Snowy Mountains training camp in January 2009, especially my roommates in room 2 (you know who you are!). Of course, it would also be remiss not to thank Simon Poidevin for writing the foreword, my agent Margaret Gee, my publisher at Allen & Unwin Rebecca Kaiser, who also edited the book, Lisa White, who designed the cover, and my publicist Renee Senogles. And last but not least, thanks to my family: Perry, Daphne, Robin, Consuelo, Elva, Mark, Genelle and my wife Libby. Without all of you, and those who I have forgotten to name but should have, thank you, thank you, thank you . . .