We Were Young and Carefree (25 page)
Read We Were Young and Carefree Online
Authors: Laurent Fignon
So none of us had slept a wink. And I don’t know how, but Guimard had figured out that we had been partying hard. He didn’t like it. So the next morning, he made the famous strength exercises even harder. It was hell. Seeing his black look, it was obvious that he wanted to get me, make me crack. So we did the full ten sprints: I was livid and won all ten. We even did an extra lap, which he didn’t count. Guimard had wanted to test me in front of my teammates and in spite of my night on the tiles I’d given him the answer. It was a good sign. I could have some fun and still perform on the bike: I was back.
There was a new technical development available to us that year. At the Système U team we had begun to use Michelin high-pressure covers. It was a kind of revolution. Tradition demanded that the thinnest possible tubular tyres were used by the pros: 20mm in general. And now, not only were we being given standard covers to ride, but Michelin were asking us to use 23mm section tyres. Three millimetres sounds like nothing at all but it seemed impossible to us. We were not proud of them, and we didn’t have confidence in them. Of course, the most advanced technicians from Michelin came to present the data on the issue. They were determined to prove to us that the amount of rubber that came into contact with the road didn’t change even if the tyre was a little wider: it would always be 8–9mm. For them, the big change was elsewhere: how the tyre reacted when the bike was cornering. They assured us there would be more of the tyre in contact with the tarmac so it would hold the road better. We were more than sceptical. During our first training sessions on the tyres the problem was in our heads rather than anywhere else. The size of the tyre seemed ‘large’ so we felt they were slowing us down.
Then we raced the Tour du Haut Var. It was the best possible weather for testing the tyres: it lashed down with rain all day. And miracle of miracles, on the descents, using the tyres we were leaving everyone else behind. No one could keep up; they couldn’t even hold our back wheels. It was fantastic, the roadholding was exceptional and here was a considerable technical advance. As far as rolling resistance went the difference was actually minimal, and they were definitely more stable.
In those days I read
L’Equipe
every day. I went through it all: the most trivial result, the tiniest report. All the race results were still to be found there from the biggest to the smallest races on the calendar. It meant I could chart the progress of the other riders and it never failed. If a rider began to appear in the results of certain races it meant something and you could expect to see him at the front sooner or later in a major event. Until the end of the 1980s these were fundamental reference points which had meaning for us, but now it means nothing at all. Everyone goes off and trains on his own, often a long way from where anyone is racing, sometimes on the other side of the planet. In my day, the riders would test their form in every event on the calendar. No one could remain hidden for very long. They had to put their cards on the table, and by racing they learned their jobs and progressed.
L’Equipe
every day. I went through it all: the most trivial result, the tiniest report. All the race results were still to be found there from the biggest to the smallest races on the calendar. It meant I could chart the progress of the other riders and it never failed. If a rider began to appear in the results of certain races it meant something and you could expect to see him at the front sooner or later in a major event. Until the end of the 1980s these were fundamental reference points which had meaning for us, but now it means nothing at all. Everyone goes off and trains on his own, often a long way from where anyone is racing, sometimes on the other side of the planet. In my day, the riders would test their form in every event on the calendar. No one could remain hidden for very long. They had to put their cards on the table, and by racing they learned their jobs and progressed.
Now it’s enough for a rider to win a stage in the Tour de France once in his life for his career to be fulfilled. Some people are clearly content with not much at all.
That wasn’t the only change. After my glorious repeat win on Corso Cavallotti in San Remo I wore the shiny new jersey of World Cup leader. And this rag, without colour or soul in poor quality cloth, was certainly fresh in cold weather. So much so that during the Tour of Flanders, in pouring rain, I never managed to get warm in spite of multiple layers, capes and anoraks. I stopped. Once it got wet this ridiculous garment never dried out. Rather like the World Cup it had no substance and was clearly made of thin air.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) had just come up with the concept of this World Cup which had only a distant resemblance to the ski or tennis series of the same name. It was officially intended to make the racing calendar more coherent and, at the end of the season, would be awarded to the most consistent rider in one-day races, which wasn’t a bad idea in itself. But the UCI slashed the calendar by arbitrarily choosing between those Classics that were judged worthy of being in the World Cup and those that were seen as secondary. Of course the calendar needed to be reworked, but not in that way. While having reasonable intervals between the Classics was vitally important, so that the riders could prepare better for them and they would be more comprehensible to the public, instead the notion of having them all together was set in stone. And with the World Cup, the whole of the cycling season was distorted. For example, Flèche Wallonne was slimmed down. It was grotesque. In cycling history, real cycling history, there are the five big Classics (Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, Tour of Lombardy), plus Ghent–Wevelgem, Flèche Wallonne, Paris–Brussels and Paris–Tours. The rest is by the by. I had nothing against the idea of creating new events but it seemed that now you could decree out of thin air what were the major events. The Grand Prix of Montreal had small worth alongside Liège–Bastogne–Liège, let alone the Classique des Alpes compared to the Tour of Lombardy.
To make things more complex this was the time when the FICP rankings gained far more importance. FICP stood for Fédération Internationale de Cyclisme Professionnel: at the end of the 1980s the great reunification between amateur cycling in the Eastern bloc and professional cycling in the West had yet to take place. The UCI would not become a unified governing body until several years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
FICP points were awarded every time a rider completed a race and led to a profound change in cyclists’ mentalities. The points became key in establishing the value of a rider, because they counted towards a team ranking, which in turn decided entry to the biggest races, and in particular the Tour de France. ‘Racing for points’ became almost obligatory. For the teams, signing up riders with a decent points tally enabled them to guarantee in advance that they would get in the big races. For the riders, points were a source of income when they came to negotiate transfers to another team. What was completely perverse was that riders shifted their sights from winning races to gleaning points. Tactically, it led to a profound modification in the strategies teams adopted in races. Victories became increasingly devalued. What was particularly damaging was that that had a corrosive effect on a whole generation of riders. Riders became negative and calculating when they raced. A good
domestique
had never before had any great need to finish a Classic, because it didn’t serve any purpose: now, however, it was worth a few points. To take another example, riding the Grenoble six day was worth twenty-five points, but this was an event only open to invited riders. The soul of cycling was turned into a laughing stock.
domestique
had never before had any great need to finish a Classic, because it didn’t serve any purpose: now, however, it was worth a few points. To take another example, riding the Grenoble six day was worth twenty-five points, but this was an event only open to invited riders. The soul of cycling was turned into a laughing stock.
I was within an ace of not starting the Tour of Italy in 1989. In the months leading up to the start the organiser Vincenzo Torriani had pushed hard for Système U (which had become Super U) to enter the race. He pulled out his chequebook as was customary in such cases. But this was the same old bandit, chummy face and a fag constantly on his lips, who had dreamed up a course that would help Francesco Moser in 1984, when I had last ridden the race. It was he who had done his best to do me out of the win by leaving out the Stelvio, and so on. The memories were not that old. Five years on Torriani’s obvious desire to be friends intrigued me. But I was relaxed enough and my teammates were struck by my calm and inner poise. As for the course that Torriani had put together, it was billed as one of ‘the toughest in history’, without a rest day and with the main mountain stages bunched together over six days. Maurizio Fondriest, who I had beaten the year before in Milan–San Remo, went so far as to say: ‘With a course like this, Moser would never have won.’ It was a nice thought. I felt a little bit Italian, and not before time.
We were confident enough but we had set out with a team that wasn’t strong in the mountains: Dominique Garde, Thierry Marie, Riis, Jacques Décrion, Eric Salomon, Pascal Dubois, Vincent Barteau. The first time trial gave some idea of how the hierarchy might look and there too Guimard might have had some cause for concern. I was eighth, about thirty seconds behind the pink jersey wearer, Erik Breukink of Holland. But I was still aware that I had ridden my best time trial since 1984. It was a victory of sorts.
During the thirteenth stage, to the legendary finish at Tre Cime di Lavaredo, under a coal-black sky and intermittent showers that washed inky mud out of the gutters and beneath our wheels, I had a repeat of the Alpe d’Huez episode of 1984, with the same two protagonists: Lucho Herrera and me. It will stick in my mind for ever. Twenty kilometres from the summit of the mountain the Colombian put in one of the sudden attacks that only he knew how to do, and Guimard, more careful and less confident than ever, could only come up with one answer which he yelled through the car window: ‘Stay put!’ Whether or not he was being overcautious, I felt five years younger. And the outcome was identical of course. I never saw Herrera again. I was second at the top, a minute behind the little climber, and moved up to second overall. That evening, the American Andy Hampsten, who was to finish third overall, came up with this warning: ‘The winner of the Giro won’t necessarily be the strongest rider, but the most intelligent.’
That was something I had to prove the next day, which was one for the history books. High mountains all the way, still raining and with the temperature nudging zero. With wet and cold like that, usually there was barely any point in my being on the start line. But early in the morning, Alain Gallopin came up with an idea. Back then the masseurs would rub us down in the morning with creams to warm up the muscles: ours were made by Kramer. There were three kinds: red, which was the most powerful; orange was average, and basic was the most gentle. But I could barely handle even the basic one on my skin. That morning, Gallopin was clearly worried about me and was determined that he would put one of the creams on my skin to help me to keep warm. He wouldn’t let up and eventually I gave in, ‘OK, the orange.’ What did he do? He used red all over me, without telling me. And he didn’t stint it. Legs, lower back, stomach. Oh my God. There was more than an hour to go to the start and I was burning so badly that I had to get out of the car in spite of the cold. I was jumping all over the place. It was foul, but the upshot was that I didn’t feel the cold, all day. In spite of the fact that it was a day from Dante’s Inferno, with snow every now and then among the rain showers. At one point I dropped back to see Guimard: ‘OK, when am I attacking?’ ‘Wait.’ And as soon as he came up to the bunch next: ‘So, when do I attack?’ And he never changed his tune: ‘Wait’. He was worried.
Whatever ideas he had, I had thought it all through. Although the road in front of our wheels could barely be seen in the fog I made an initial attack sixty kilometres from the finish. Just to see. A few guys managed to follow me. I remember that on the descents I kept forcing myself to keep pedalling so that I would not run the risk of stiffening up. In eight years’ racing I had been through a few bad days like this one. On the Passo Campolongo I attacked again, a bit more viciously. I was countering the violence of the weather with violence of my own, as if the insanity of the elements was drawing the best out of me. The leader Erik Breukink blew up and lost more than six minutes. I took the pink jersey but my main rival had changed. The threat was now a young Italian, Flavio Giupponi. That was dangerous.
The cold, rain and snow kept up. It did not suit me in the slightest and there was every chance that eventually I would pay the price. With that in mind, what could I say about the cancellation of the mountain stage from Trento to Santa Caterina which was supposed to go over two famous passes, the Tonale and the Gavia? There was a danger of avalanches. It was a poisoned chalice because the Italian press accused Torriani of cheating my rivals. They had no idea who they were dealing with. Five years earlier he had removed the Stelvio from the route without any clear reason, which had prevented me from getting clear of Moser. So why would he have made it up to me when an Italian was clearly threatening me in the overall standings? Suspecting Torriani of favouring a foreign rider was ridiculous. Everything he had done in his life so far suggested the opposite and the evening before in private he had said he wanted Giupponi to win. And if he had known what my state of health really was he would not have hesitated for a single second before sending the entire peloton out to brave the snow and high altitude. Because that very morning I’d begun to suffer from an unbearable pain in my shoulder – an old wound from a skiing accident ten years earlier. The calcified lump on the bone was so painful that I couldn’t move my arm. If the stage had taken place, the pink jersey might well have ended up quitting, and wouldn’t that have pleased Italy and my ‘friend’ Torriani?
It was about to get even grimmer, although the outcome wouldn’t be particularly catastrophic. In the uphill time trial over 10.7km it was raining cats and dogs and the summit of Monte Generoso was dark, dank and chaotic as I found out the extent of the damage: I was seventeenth, 1min 45sec behind Herrera, and 34sec slower than Giupponi. The Italian press became hysterical as the journalists began to sense that their hero might turn the race around. The cold had almost got the better of me, and there were still two difficult stages in the Apennines to get through.
All these fine minds were caught napping, however, because a key ally came back on my side: fine weather. The sun shone throughout the last three days. It was like suddenly being dealt an ace as the twentieth stage into La Spezia proved. It was a tough old day for the team, who were in pieces by now, and it was the same for me, until the final six kilometres. At the summit of the final little mountain pass, which I had gone up with my jaws around the handlebars, my legs felt less painful all of a sudden. There were about ten of us ahead on the descent, with all the overall contenders in the group; I attacked and gained about forty metres before I went up the backside of a motorbike and had to hit the brakes. It all came back together: very annoying. Five hundred metres from the line, the sprint was still taking a while to get going: ‘It’s a bit slow,’ I thought. Three hundred metres to go: still the same. So I went full gas and won the stage, which goes to show that a bike race holds plenty of surprises up its sleeve.
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