by Paul Kimmage
Friday, 30 June: THE MUPPET SHOW
The rumours from Spain were confirmed this morning. A number of the sport's biggest stars – Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Francisco Mancebo, Alexander Vinokourov, Oscar Sevilla, Joseba Belocki – have been forced to withdraw from the race. There was mayhem in the press room when the announcement was made; muppets huddled in groups everywhere you turn. How will they explain it on the television? 'Never mind that nonsense in Spain; this is real cycling.'
Decided to stay away from it for the day and concentrate instead on finding my double. It wasn't easy. There are no first-year professionals on the starting list this year, and of the dozen or so riders who are making their debuts in the race, only one is the same age as I was in 1986. I drove to his team hotel on the outskirts of Strasbourg this afternoon to meet him. Benoit Vaugrenard is a third-year professional with the Française des Jeux team. A twenty-four-year-old Breton from Arzel, just outside Vannes, he is taller than I was, shyer, better paid (c.50,000 euros) but fulfils much the same role on the team. I like him.
Strasbourg, Saturday, 1 July: HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?
The opening stage this afternoon – a 7.1 kilometre time trial in Strasbourg. I followed Benoit like a shadow all day and tonight I compared his first impressions of the race with some notes I'd made in 1986.
How was it for him? 'Today was the grand depart of my first Tour de France. The crowds were amazing. I was nervous and couldn't concentrate and couldn't hurt myself for the first three kilometres. It was bizarre. I have never felt that way in a prologue before – my head was all over the place – so to finish thirty-first wasn't bad in the circumstances. I'm rooming with Sebastien Joly which is fine because he has ridden the Tour before and has been giving me good advice. And we have been given plenty of kit – ten jerseys, ten pairs of shorts, five pairs of gloves, ten pairs of socks, a rain jacket, flip-flops, a bag, a sleeveless vest, three sets of arm warmers, five pairs of leg warmers and ten t-shirts.'
How was it for me? 'Today was special. The crowds, the atmosphere, the size of the race all hit me for the first time. I rode a lousy prologue – I was far too nervous; nearly fell off the ramp as I was cycling down it, and I couldn't feel my legs. I'm rooming with Vincent Barteau which is a bit of a pain because nobody in the team wants to room with him. Oh well, I suppose somebody had to draw the short straw. He's a bit of a mouth and still living off his 1984 Tour, when he held the maillot jaune for thirteen stages. Yesterday we were given five new jerseys, five new pairs of shorts and five new pairs of gloves for the race. The hotel waiter asked me if I could get him a pair of gloves as a souvenir. These fellows have no idea.'
First impressions? Benoit's probably a better rider than I was but I think I'm showing more potential as a journalist.
Strasbourg, Sunday, 2 July: GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
The first stage of the race was a 184 kilometre loop around Strasbourg this afternoon. Don't ask me who won. Don't ask me who's leading. Don't ask me about Benoit. Don't ask me about the dopers. Don't ask me. I wasn't watching. This morning I drove south to the vineyards of Ribeauville and spent seven glorious hours alone on my bike. I'm in training for the L'Etape du Tour, a 110 mile ride across three mountain passes from Gap to L'Alpe d'Huez. It's the bike-riding equivalent of the London marathon (8,500 entries) and I have eight more days to hone my saggy ass into shape. Not sure I'm going to make it. I struggled today on the lesser gradients of the Vosges and I reckon I'm about eight weeks – or a dart of EPO – short of condition. My wife is worried I will finish the event in an ambulance. 'You're forty-four,' she says. 'You'll be buying a Porsche next and running off with some blonde bimbo.' The notion, quite frankly, is ridiculous. How on earth would I fit my bike in the back of a Porsche?
Esch-sur-Alzette, Monday, 3 July: RUSSIAN ROULETTE
I was walking through the team cars to the tented village at the start this morning at Obernai when I spotted a former teammate I hadn't seen for years. Should have kept going; should have pretended I hadn't seen him and kept walking to the start. But I used to really love this guy and it was only when we were standing opposite that I remembered why we weren't shaking hands.
He works for guys I wouldn't spit on. I work for a newspaper he wouldn't use to wipe . . . We stood and exchanged some awkward banter for a moment until an opening came to get away. I wanted to say 'What happened mate? You used to be one of the good guys?' He probably felt the same.
Retirement is never easy for most professional sportsmen but for cyclists it can be absolute hell. Some get lucky and find a niche in commerce or journalism, but for many it is a huge struggle. Some find solace at the end of a rope or a gun to the side of the head. And some, like my old team-mate this morning, remain faithful to the only life they know.
A few years ago, after Marco Pantani died, I remember being asked one night how such a brilliantly gifted rider could end his life in such a lonely and miserable way. (Pantani died in a hotel room from an overdose of cocaine.) 'If you want to understand professional cycling,' I said, 'watch what happens to Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter.''
Nick, Walken's character, is an ordinary steelworker from a small industrial town who is sent with his friends, Michael and Steve, to fight in Vietnam. During the war, after being captured and forced to play Russian roulette the three become changed men and their lives are never the same. Nick gets totally hooked on the buzz and starts playing for money. For 'Russian roulette' read 'doping in cycling'. For Nick read Marco Pantani.
Valkenburg, Tuesday, 4 July: RAGE
One of the hallmarks of the great reporter is the ability to remain cool and detached under pressure and unaffected by anything he sees. Nobody has ever accused me of being a great reporter. Emotional detachment has never been my style. In sixteen years as a sportswriter there have been times – at World Cups and world-tide fights and some golf majors – when I've felt so overwhelmed I've been almost unable to write. But nothing stirs my emotions like a Tour de France.
Today was a classic example. Completely riveted, I watched the last forty kilometres of the third stage to Valkenburg on a TV monitor close to the finishing line. Now, at the great schools of journalism, they teach you to observe these things dispassionately and report with an unwavering, even hand. I never attended a great school for journalism. I never aspired to be Matt Rendell. I studied the speeding racers and began to react like Pavlov's dog when the bell chimes at teatime. My heart started pounding; my legs started aching; a bead of sweat started forming on my brow. Suddenly I was back in the heart of the peloton, cursing and hurting and counting down each mile to the end of the stage.
The temperature is a sweltering thirty-four degrees; almost four hours have passed since you pedalled out of Luxembourg and there's still another hour to race. Five riders have been in front since the start of the stage but the order has been given to reel them back. Everybody is trying to get to the front; tempers are starting to fray; melting Tarmac is gluing your tyres to the road.
Two riders fight for the same inch of space, touch wheels and collide; the screech of metal scraping on road is followed by the stench of smoking rubber as you brake frantically and try to avoid the crash. If this were football, the ball would immediately be kicked out of play. If this was tennis, a physio would be summoned to massage the aching legs. But this is cycling, and when you are stretchered off here, there is no running back when you reach the touchline – your collarbone is broken or your face is smashed.
The battle rages until the final kilometre and the foot of the Cauberg climb when Matthias Kessler bursts from the pack to claim the stage. I study the pained expressions of the defeated and those who have survived the many crashes; the blood trickling from raw, gaping wounds; the shredded Lycra of their shirts and shorts; the grated arms and buttocks that look like they have been scorched with a blowtorch.
Four days down, seventeen to go . . . Is there a more beautiful or demanding event in sport? How could anyone fail to admire the toughness and co
urage of these men? But these are questions I have already answered. Because the cancer of doping has destroyed the sport; because those who purport to love cycling have nurtured the cancer and facilitated its growth. And suddenly I feel rage.
Saint-Quentin, Wednesday, 5 July: THE RULES OF THE GAME
Two questions from the day.
We have driven to the finish of the stage at Saint-Quentin and I've climbed onto the statue at the Place du 8 Octobre to observe the final sprint. Paul from England and Jerry from the US have chosen the same vantage point. We get chatting for a moment about what attracts them to the race and watch the arrival of the publicity caravan.
Jerry descends from the statue immediately and we watch in amazement as he joins the kids chasing the gifts thrown from the floats. Twenty minutes later he returns with his booty – a key ring, a mobile-phone cord, a small packet of jellies and several plastic bags – and settles down until the end of the stage.
The riders charge into view, led up the long finishing straight by the Australian Robbie McEwen. Jerry and Paul climb down from the statue and exchange business cards before going separate ways. Paul has taken a sabbatical from work to follow the race for three weeks. Jerry has a private jet with its engines running at Beauvais and is returning to his job as an assistant vice-president of one of America's largest banks.
Question one: Can someone please explain this?
The stage has ended and I've returned to the press room to an angry reception from one of my French colleagues. He has taken grave exception to my observation last week that the sport has been very badly served by some of the muppets covering the race. I do my best to explain that I didn't mean everybody covering the race, but he won't be appeased.
'When you were a cyclist,' he says, 'you respected the rules of the peloton. But there are rules in the press room as well, and one of those rules is that you don't criticise your colleagues.' I thank him for voicing his displeasure but tell him I don't agree. There was indeed a rule in the peloton when I was racing but it was a rule I didn't respect. It was called omerta, the rule of silence. He is obviously as unfamiliar with my work as I am with his.
Five minutes later, an equally red-faced English colleague decides to vent his spleen. He's not happy with me. He informs me he has taken a lot of stick from friends who thought I was referring to him. He's enraged. He can't sue. 'LOOK ME IN THE EYE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF,' he fumes. But he's right. I can't look him in the eye. I'm afraid I'm going to wet myself.
Question two: Since when was it a journalist's job to be popular with his friends?
Caen, Thursday, 6 July: THE MAN WHO SAVED PROFESSIONAL CYCLING
I woke up a couple of days ago to a fax shoved under the door of my hotel room in Luxembourg. It was sent by my brother, Kevin, in Dublin and included the following covering note: 'Have you read about the man who has saved professional cycling?' The second page was from an Irish Sunday newspaper containing a first-person piece written by the new UCI president, Pat McQuaid.
The subject was the big-name exclusions from the Tour in the wake of the Spanish doping controversy. The tone was self-congratulatory. 'That's the risk we take to protect our sport,' the headline announced. 'When I came into this job I wanted to clean up cycling and I will clean up cycling,' he insisted. I nearly choked.
The President and I have some previous on this issue: when McQuaid won the Tour of Ireland in 1975 on a national amateur team that included Sean Kelly, he was managed by my father, Christy. When I almost won the Tour of Britain in 1983 and finished sixth at the World Championships two years later, I was managed by McQuaid. But I was struck from his Christmas card list when Rough Ride was published and almost every time I was extended a microphone to talk about the book or my experiences of doping, I'd find him in the opposite corner, batting against me. His protestations served him well. A key player when the 1998 Tour started in Dublin, he informed a visiting Dutch journalist, a few days before the event began, that I was 'bad for cycling'. I know this much. There was a time, not so long ago, when Tour riders were revered as 'giants of the road'. Today they are dismissed as 'tous dope' (all doped). McQuaid will probably argue that it's my fault but now that he is finally sorting it out, it would be small of me not to extend my congratulations. Well done Pat. It takes a rare genius indeed to solve a problem that has never really existed.
Rennes, Friday, 7 July: DREAMS
Those dreams that Greg LeMond still dreams were mine as a boy. One recurred night after night: I'd break clear of the pack in a stage of the Tour de France and feel the thrill of imminent victory as I sprinted for the line . . . But I never made it. The dream always finished with the sound of the alarm clock, or my mother pulling my arm: 'Get up Paul, it's time for school.' It was infuriating. I could never get across that line.
The dream stopped as a professional. The harsh reality of cycling as a job was never as wondrous as my boyhood visions – except for that seventh stage of the Tour in 1986, when I broke clear with Indurain on the road to Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouet. Tonight, we were driving south to Rennes on the A84 when I noticed a sign for it and thought briefly about making a detour. 'What's Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouet famous for?' I asked Richard. He shook his head. 'There's a plaque on the wall of the Avenue Marechal Leclerc that says, "In 1986, a twenty-four-year-old Dubliner raced to this point dunking he was about to win a stage of the Tour de France. He never made it. He finished ninth."'
Rennes, Saturday, 8 July: TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
This morning, at a small hotel near Rennes, I'm bashing my brains against the laptop when my mobile buzzes with an interview request from a radio station. The timing isn't great, but my agent keeps telling me the big bucks are in broadcasting – so I decide to oblige. 'Okay,' I announce to the cheery young producer. 'What would you like to talk about?'
'Well, I don't know much about cycling,' he confesses, 'but it would be great to have you on for ten minutes talking about the Tour and the favourites and how you see the race unfolding.' I considered my agent's advice, held my breath and started to count. I think I reached 'three' before spontaneously combusting.
'Listen,' I said, 'let's not waste each other's time here . . . Why don't you find a copy of what I wrote last week and decide if you want to call me back? I am not going to glorify any of these [unfortunate use of expletive here] dopers and cheats.' A pregnant pause ensued and after a brief discussion the interview was agreed.
'We'll call you back in an hour,' the producer insisted.
Twenty minutes later he phoned to cancel. 'We've had a disaster in the studio . . . technical difficulties,' he explained. I laughed and told him not to worry about it. What does a guy have to do to earn big bucks these days?
Today's stage, a fifty-two kilometre individual time trial, was the first major rendezvous of the race. There were some very odd performances and as I scanned the results this evening, I was reminded of a conversation I'd had with Bradley Wiggins during the week. 'The racing hasn't been as crazy as I expected,' he said. 'There have been all sorts of rumours flying around the bunch that there's another [doping] list about to come out.'
Interesting.
Gap, Sunday, 9 July: WHEN GOD CREATED BIKE RIDERS
One of my abiding memories of my former life is a conversation I had with my old directeur sportif Bernard Thevenet on the morning after the stage to L'Alpe d'Huez in 1987. We were descending the 21 hairpins by car en route to Bourg D'Oisans, when we noticed hordes of aspiring pros and pot-bellied forty-year-olds racing up the mountain with their stopwatches on, trying to beat the time we had set the day before. Of course, it didn't take a Bill Gates to figure that there was some serious lucre to be made from accommodating these freaks and in 1993 the Etape du Tour was formed, offering the cycling-besotted an opportunity to race one stage of the Tour de France each year on closed roads.
This year, the 187 kilometre stage from Gap to L'Alpe d'Huez was selected. Tomorrow at 7 a.m. a gigantic peloton of 7,548 riders will take to the start. They'
ve been training like demons, abstaining from sex and shaving their legs for months. Don't ask me to explain what I'm doing here.
I arrived at the tented village to sign on this afternoon and started having serious reservations. In every corner of the merchandise stores, there were guys sniffing the shorts that Tom Boonen wears, loading up on power bars and spending thousands on carbon-fibre wheels. Tonight, most will forfeit the World Cup final and go to bed early. Apparently, that's what Ullrich does.