Read We Were Young and Carefree Online
Authors: Laurent Fignon
We Were Young and Carefree (26 page)
The day before the end I nearly lost the entire race on a harmless-looking descent: I was on Giupponi’s wheel, lost my balance, went into a wall and made an easy target for Claude Criquielion. By the time I’d assessed the damage – no physical problems – straightened up my handlebars and got back in the saddle, Giupponi and Andrew Hampsten had taken advantage to sneak off. They were flying away. I had no teammates with me to help in the chase. That made it a very dangerous little attack. I pulled it all together in the next ten kilometres but I can hardly say how angry I was at being attacked while I was on the deck. I snatched five time-bonus seconds at an intermediate sprint and another three-second bonus for finishing third on the stage, won by Gianni Bugno. All this meant that Giupponi was now 1min 31sec behind overall. Which wasn’t bad before the final time-trial stage from Prato to Florence.
Guimard didn’t conceal his worries from me but when it came to riding alone and unpaced, Giupponi was not Moser. And once I began riding there was no great emotion and no particular fear. Guimard gave me time checks constantly and I had only to control my pace so that I avoided going into the red, in spite of the rather annoying proximity of a low-flying helicopter.
I finished fifth, the Italian third, but he had regained less than twenty seconds. I had overcome everything: the cold, the pressure, the Italians and all the theatricals that go with the Giro. It’s one great
commedia dell’arte
, where scandals blow up out of two words, a vague allusion, a simple gesture, or nothing at all. That was all smoke and mirrors. I was still a bike racer, and that was all I cared about.
commedia dell’arte
, where scandals blow up out of two words, a vague allusion, a simple gesture, or nothing at all. That was all smoke and mirrors. I was still a bike racer, and that was all I cared about.
Before uncorking the champagne and partying I thought very rapidly about what I had just achieved. I knew what I had been through in the last five interminable years. Until then the door leading to the Hall of Fame had been left ajar after my two Tour wins: now it had opened again. Along with Jacques Anquetil (1960 and 1964) and Bernard Hinault (1980, 1982, 1985) I was only the third Frenchman to win the Giro in cycling history – only three! – and I was the last to win it because none has managed it since. What I had done was to earn a little compensation for the unjust way in which I had been robbed of the 1984 race, although it wasn’t consolation in any way. The ghosts of the black years were still gleefully resident in my mind, but with a smile on my lips and my old insouciance regained, I could make them dance for a while.
I had had to stand tall to have any chance of earning a defining place in cycling history, but an athlete with true talent can always come back, or so they say.
There was one small detail. On the evening after I had won the race in Florence, Guimard came to have a word with me: he looked even more worried than usual. He wanted to talk one-to-one and it was important, even though all I was thinking about was celebrating my triumph. He was already concerned about July and looked me straight in the eyes: ‘LeMond will be up there at the Tour.’ I didn’t hide my amazement. LeMond had been nowhere for the three weeks of the Giro but had ended the race by taking second place in the final time trial.
We all know what happened in July 1989.
CHAPTER 27
POKER FACE
Monsieur ‘Eight Seconds’: just try to get your head around the weeks that followed my defeat in the 1989 Tour de France. Imagine the mocking remarks from the people who didn’t like me. Think of all the shocking, over-the-top stuff that was said and written. Winning and losing are never easy, whatever the conditions, but it can be worst of all if you lose in certain circumstances. After the maelstrom of words and feelings died down, as the feeling of eternal injustice subsided a little, I had to get some distance and bring the 1989 season to a close: it had still been exceptional, and there were two more major wins to come, first the Tour of Holland and then the Baracchi Trophy with Thierry Marie. Back then this two-up time trial in Northern Italy was still a kind of institution; Coppi, Merckx and Anquetil had all inscribed their names on its roll of honour and winning it had enhanced all their reputations. A victory there was another way of dragging a bit more respect out of people; winners of the Baracchi were following in a tradition that had been marked by all the greats. So that was done. And being outside France gave me the chance to get a bit of peace and quiet, away from the media, away from the fans.
I still approached cycling like a free spirit, carrying out my trade without any major constraints, biting into life with the same appetite; sometimes gorging on it. When it came to the public and the press, I never sold my soul and never tried to be placatory. Some fans remonstrated with me for sometimes failing to sign enough autographs. But I would write them. I actually wrote rather a lot. But that was not the only thing in my day’s work, as anyone should know. And there was no way I could sign them for everyone. So should I have worked harder at it? Obviously I should. But should I have been untrue to myself just to keep people happy? What would I have gained by that?
Double-dealing had never been part of my make-up and I had enough experience to keep directing my anger, my spirit and my strength towards the next challenge without worrying about what anyone else thought. I was not like other cyclists. That goes without saying. I had never been a rider like all the rest. Kelly, Mottet, Duclos-Lassalle and Bugno were riders with whom I spent a great deal of time. They all practised their sport in a quasi-religious style according to principles that had been laid down by their forefathers. My way was to assert my right to be different, to be independent, to keep a grip on my integrity. But there was an element within the public and within the media which obstinately refused to recognise that I had the right to be myself. They wanted to force me to conform, to bring me into the fold among the nice guys, the easy ones to deal with – the lambs. Or the sheep which merely wanted to follow the flock. It would have been the crowning glory.
I’ve never liked buddying up to people. That applies to everyone and I’m actually rather proud of that trait. I’ve always behaved according to my principles and my conscience, never to please one person or another. For example, just before the 1989 Tour de France, at the national championship, Antenne 2’s star journalist of the time, Patrick Chêne, was determined to set up an impromptu interview with me. But he arrived very late, so I apologised to him and said I could no longer talk with him. I had something else that I absolutely had to do. He was unhappy about it and came out with this amazing expression: ‘So this is how it turns out after everything I’ve done for you.’
I was astounded. What I was witnessing was the worst possible manifestation of hubris from a journalist who had let success go to his head and with it any sense of reality. A fairly nice man had been transformed into a show-biz star because of the minor degree of celebrity he enjoyed thanks to television. As a result he had confused his role – that of a journalist – with the relationships he believed he had with certain sports stars. I was so amazed by what he said that I couldn’t help taking the mickey. ‘I had no idea that you had helped me win all those races.’
He immediately understood that he had gone too far. ‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ he added at once.
‘No, but that’s what you said,’ I replied. ‘Now leave me alone.’
At times like that I could be very curt and I didn’t always think through the consequences of how I reacted. We never spoke about it again: such are the tribulations of professional life.
Since 1985 and the long fight against injury which provoked a good many controversial articles, I’ve protected my private life and my internal life. I didn’t open my door as easily as before. It was as if I had put up a barricade around my life and placed everything that related to my personal existence under lock and key. I only gave interviews that I thought might be useful. It worked so well that by the end of the 1980s there appeared to be two very different Laurent Fignons in existence. The first one was a straightforward chap who said loud and clear that he didn’t like answering questions from journalists. The second was no less direct but he tended to lie low and didn’t give away a great deal. He was a secretive individual: the private Fignon that no one ever really got to know.
Generally speaking, in spite of the carefree attitude I adopted in my early years as a pro, I would say that the second Fignon is my real persona. I may have been made to be a champion cyclist – I have no doubt of that – but I was absolutely not made to be a public figure.
We had come to a tipping point. This was the time when we began to live in a society dominated by celebrity culture. That in turn forced journalists to become either flattering or destructive, without it being at all clear why they went from being one to the other. The only clear guideline was the need to be buddies with people.
A champion sportsman only exists through what he does, not through the role that he plays in front of a microphone. But that is of little consequence. Journalists can end up like giants in fairy tales: they acquire a taste for human flesh. And when the meat begins to go off they go in search of other prey.
CHAPTER 28
YES, I DID IT
I don’t take things lying down. Nor do I believe in supping from the bitter cup. Too often we scan our memories so we can dream up a wanted poster with a picture of some guilty party or other. We are often our own worst enemies and if what we see in the mirror is only a reflection of ourselves, it’s often our worst side.
Here then is something which I did that was wrong. Very wrong. It has been verified and placed on the record. And I admit it without omission or hesitation. ‘Positive for amphetamines’. At the Grand Prix de la Libération in Eindhoven. Me, Laurent Fignon. This time it was true. I recognise the error I made. What I did wrong. But at a time when suspicion of doping is everywhere and doping overkill has killed dreams and made words lose their meaning, where just about every barrier of what is acceptable and what isn’t has been broken, how can you explain without making excuses? Let’s just spell out the facts.
Looking back at the affair in a superficial way, I could actually claim that the person who was indirectly at the root of it was Alain Gallopin. He will bear witness to that. His wife was on the point of giving birth and I was in the middle of my build-up to the Grand Prix des Nations, for which Alain was putting me through some pretty nasty training sessions. A lot of kilometres, huge numbers of sprints and hill intervals.
Ten days before the race, one Wednesday, we had arranged to do a session of intervals behind the motorbike. The phone rang. Alain’s wife was in labour and he had to go to hospital for the happy event. There was no more to be said, except that I was left alone with my bike, my morale in my boots. I had absolutely no desire to hurt myself on my own and I can still see myself now, completely undecided whether I would even put my leg over the saddle. It was that bad.
It was just me, alone with my stupidity: to get myself going I took a spot of amphetamine. Not simply to help me get out of my front door, but mainly so that I could get in some extra kilometres; to make the ride hard and useful. It was called a ‘pot’. The only difference was that back then ‘pots’ were only amphetamine, with nothing added, in contrast to the ones that were on sale a lot later, for example, at the end of the 1990s, in which all kinds of drugs were to be found.
It was a mindless thing to do. I had heard that this kind of amphetamine was flushed quickly out of the system and didn’t leave any traces in your urine after forty-eight hours. Well, the Grand Prix de la Libération didn’t take place until the following Sunday, four days later. So I told myself that there was no risk. I felt so unconcerned that I actually raced on the Saturday as well, at the Grand Prix di Lazio, near Rome. My mind was completely untroubled.
So when it came to the anti-doping control I went and peed in the jar without an iota of concern. I’d already forgotten what I had done on Wednesday. ‘Positive’. When I learned the news I was astounded but well aware that it was entirely my fault. The official confirmation didn’t take long in coming: the Dutch laboratory stated that they had found ‘amphetamine residues’ which predated the day of the test. So there was no doubt at all of my guilt. What more needs to be said? Nothing, apart from the fact that I felt rather pathetic; a bit dirty. Time moved slowly around me. And there was not a lot of point in saying to myself, ‘Come on, a bit of amphetamine isn’t actually all that much.’ The distress at what I had done was still there inside me. It was a feeling of shame at my own weakness, at the reason behind the misdeed rather than the act itself. It was so derisory, so stupid.
Not long afterwards I raced the Grand Prix des Nations, with more motivation than I had ever felt before. I had been thinking about nothing else for weeks and weeks. On the Thursday I had gone a bit too far with the partying and Gallopin had warned me: ‘Laurent, you’re messing about.’ But he knew better than anyone else that I had prepared properly and as for me, in a muddled way, without admitting it to myself, I felt that 1989 would be one of my last chances to win it. If I could manage it, I wanted people to remember this one. Until then, Charly Mottet had held the record for the course on the backroads inland from Cannes. There were no half measures: I lowered the record – which everyone thought was unbeatable – by 1min 49sec, at an average speed of 45.6kph. But who remembers today quite how tough that circuit was?
Looking back at it, with many years’ hindsight, I now feel that on that day there was such a level of physical violence in the effort I produced that truly perceptive observers might have felt it was a kind of swansong, the last vestige of authentic heroism in an exceptional champion living at the limit of his pride and natural ability. That day, my power was everything I had. There was no dividing line between the champion and the man inside: they were as one, in a final show of strength. But I was unaware of any of this. Alain Gallopin said to me that evening: ‘When you are in form, you can do anything, you know.’ I ended the season at number one in the world rankings.
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