Like others, I have underestimated Riis, even though I have known him since 1994. Two memories stick in my mind: first, a painfully whispered interview in Pau, halfway through that summer’s Tour, which he rode for the Gewiss team. That evening, despite his growing reputation, I was the only journalist interested in talking to him. We sat, uninterrupted, in the lobby of the Ibis hotel, his cathedral dome of a bald pate soaring above me, the pauses between us yawning chasms in the warm evening air. Two days later he won an up-for-grabs stage in the French Midi town of Albi. ‘Félicitations,’ said a French journalist wryly. ‘You ’ave a scoop …’
Then, stuck in traffic on my way to Milan airport on a fading autumnal afternoon at the end of the same season, I saw a different side to him. The final Classic of the year, the Tour of Lombardy, had ended nearby a couple of hours earlier. A Mercedes estate car, bikes on the roof, windows down, music blaring, drew alongside. A group of Gewiss riders were spread across the back seats, laughing and joking. Demob happy, Riis leaned out of the open window, whooping for joy, clutching a bottle of champagne and gulping down mouthfuls of white froth. So much for Nordic cool.
Riis was brought up by his mother in the aftermath of his parents’ separation. It took him a long time to come out of his shell. Those who know him say that even as a child, he struggled to find happiness and fulfilment, but as he grew up he rebuilt his relationship with his father through his aptitude for cycling. The young Bjarne’s talent won his father’s approval.
In the early stages of his racing career, Riis was anonymous, but that changed when he moved to Italy. Before his final seasons with Telekom (later to become T-Mobile) Riis had been one of the senior pros at the Gewiss team, for which Michele Ferrari was the team doctor. Gewiss was like a firework. It exploded onto the scene and dominated racing for two or three seasons. Then, just as quickly, it disappeared. Blink and you missed it.
The team produced a series of stunning performances and spectacular results. They won La Flèche Wallone, one of the toughest Classic races, in an unprecedented manner, after three of their stars turned on their turbos and simply rode away from everybody else. Giorgio Furlan took back-to-back wins in Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo, both hugely popular races in Italy; his teammate Evgeni Berzin dominated the 1994 Giro d’Italia.
But aside from Riis’ later confession to doping during his period with Gewiss, a dark cloud would follow some of the team’s other riders: Berzin was prevented from riding the 2000 Giro after failing a UCI haematocrit test. And, following extensive investigations by Italian journalist Eugenio Capadacqua, reports published in La Repubblica and L’Equipe in 1999 indicated that both Berzin and Furlan had shown unusually high haematocrit levels in 1995 – the peak period of Gewiss’s success. (Both riders’ results were over 50 per cent, according to L’Equipe – had the UCI’s haematocrit test been in place at the time, they would have failed it.) Ferrari’s comments had hardly helped: he once claimed that anything that ‘can’t be found in drug tests isn’t doping’. He talked himself out of a job and his riders into trouble.
Greg LeMond described Ferrari as a ‘cancer in sport’. But he had his acolytes. If Ferrari was caricatured as cycling’s Dr Evil, Luigi Cecchini was his Mini-Me. Riis knew both men, and the connection proved useful in his second career as a team directeur. Tyler Hamilton, once CSC’s leader and one of Cecchini’s clients, described the Italian as his ‘second father’ after winning an Olympic gold medal at the Athens Games.
Riis has become, by the sport’s own standards, one of the wealthiest men in cycling. One estimate puts his career earnings at approximately fifty million kroner, or almost seven million euros, through contracts, endorsements and bonuses. His racing days were ended by injury, for which he pocketed a further two million euros through insurance cover. There are also his earnings from the CSC team sponsorship, through the Riis-Cycling management company, thought to be in the region of five million euros.
Although he now lives in Switzerland, where his children attend an international school, Riis regards Italy, and particularly Lucca, as home ground. He has a property portfolio stretching across Europe, with homes in Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark and Switzerland.
He recently put his home in Denmark on the market for twenty-two million kroner – about three million euros – but, even when the asking price was eventually dropped, was unable to find a buyer. His Italian home, near Lucca, which includes a vineyard, is also thought to be worth about two million euros, as is his house in Switzerland.
A shrewd businessman, there’s a story that when new riders joined CSC in 2002, their contract, drawn up by Riis, stipulated that they invested in the downloadable SRM training system, costing approximately three thousand euros a pop. Riis, coincidentally, is Denmark’s sole importer of the SRM system.
He is thick-skinned and determined, a hard worker and a survivor. ‘Bjarne has to be the best at everything, even if it’s just making a cup of coffee,’ says Lars Werge, a Danish journalist who knows Riis well. ‘Even though he is unassuming, he can be ruthless.’
Yet for all his ambition, one great prize, victory for his own CSC team in the Tour de France, had always eluded him. Time after time, Armstrong stood in his way. But then Bjarne’s gaze settled on a diffident but highly gifted young Italian called Ivan Basso. What would it take to turn the underachieving Basso into a contender?
‘HE WILL NEVER BE PANTANI …’
JANUARY 2006. ON the slopes of Monte Serra in Italy, Bjarne Riis, the Scandinavian sporting guru, speaks: ‘Maybe you should go now,’ he tells a British journalist menacingly, halfway up this Tuscan mountainside.
Riis turns on his heel and walks back to his CSC team car. The hapless journalist shrugs, climbs into his car and heads back down the hairpins. If you want to watch Riis training and working his CSC team and staff, it’s best to ask nicely first.
Based at an anonymous seaside hotel at the windswept Lido di Camaiore, north of Pisa, CSC – with Lance Armstrong now retired – were expecting 2006 to be their long-awaited breakthrough year in the Tour. The team were training hard, spending long days out on the road, testing themselves and their equipment. The riders had settled into the familiar routine of sleeping, eating, riding. There was little else to occupy them.
The taxi driver who took me from Pisa airport to the hotel got excited when I told him I’d flown in to meet Ivan Basso. ‘Basso – a household name! But,’ he sighed sadly as we left the autostrada and joined the coast road, ‘he will never be Pantani.’
CSC were pinning their hopes for 2006 on Basso, who had scaled new heights since joining forces with Riis. The Italian’s stock was high and with Armstrong gone, many saw him as a potential Tour de France champion.
The Hotel Caesar had opened specifically to host Basso and the CSC team for a two-week training camp. Good coffee and a lavish buffet were available around the clock. Riis, his family in nearby Lucca beckoning, was said to be missing his kids, so some nights he slept at home.
On the wall of the lobby by the lifts, was a list of the riders’ room numbers. As usual, Bobby Julich was paired with Jens Voigt. It is received wisdom in cycling that it is good for morale to share a room, especially with a close friend. Only superstars – Armstrong, Ullrich and here at CSC, Basso – don’t share. Near the room list, there was also a list of departure times for visits to an unnamed doctor. CSC was in Tuscany to train – and to be photographed and interviewed. The next morning the riders dutifully stepped out into the icy air for the new season’s promotional shots. The same scenario was being repeated in out-of-season resorts all along the horseshoe of the Mediterranean and the locals looked on with jaded expressions as they sped by on their Vespas. One by one, the riders struck a pose, usually against a carefully chosen backdrop of team car or minibus (although on this occasion, the Hotel Caesar’s flagpole). They puffed out their weedy chests and smiled determinedly with a look that said, ‘Yes! This year will be my best-ever season!’
Without the tan line
s of high summer and the battle scars of competition, the riders looked out of place. Their frighteningly low body fat was no protection against the freezing wind. They shivered like worried whippets as the photographer fiddled with his lenses.
Stuart O’Grady pedalled out into the chill air. ‘Bet you love these promo shoots,’ I said. ‘Oh yeah – ’specially when it’s nice and warm like this,’ the Australian responded, the goosebumps rising on his freckled arms.
Next came the team photo. The riders click-clacked through reception in their cleated shoes and perched precariously, all fixed grins, on the edge of the hotel pool. It was very cheesy, a real Eurotrash moment. ‘All we need now are shaggy perms,’ sneered Brian Nygaard, the team’s PR officer.
Pictures taken, they trooped back inside, donned their thermal gear and got ready to leave for training. Ten minutes later, I climbed into the back seat of CSC’s mobile management suite, a customised Renault Espace laden with CSC’s directeurs, seated respectfully just behind team guru, Riis.
‘Everybody give me a boo-yah,’ called the self-consciously zany Dave Zabriskie, reputed to base his every word on the script of The Big Lebowski. What did the ‘Zee-Man’ mean? It didn’t matter. A booming, albeit half-hearted, ‘Boo-yah’ echoed back, as CSC’s riders began to move out of the hotel car park.
Off the leash at last, the riders wove expertly through the Passats, Puntos and Clios that clogged up the streets of Camaiore, and headed inland. Riis watched impassively from the front seat of the Espace. He studied a spreadsheet documenting the test results of the training camp so far and in particular of the previous day’s climbing trial. Fourteen of CSC’s riders had ridden a timed mountain test within fifty seconds of each other. So early in the season, it was an impressive collective performance.
The kilometres passed. Riis completed his assessments and picked up the CB radio linking the Espace to each rider’s earpiece. He spoke calmly in English to them: ‘Gentlemen, spin the legs. Transform the power of yesterday into the power of today. Always make sure you keep a good rhythm.’
He turned his gaze back to the results. The riders had so far been tested twice, on different ascents of Monte Serra nearby. The most recent trial was over 6.4 kilometres on what Riis calls ‘the climber’s side’. Riis still holds the record for the climb, dating from the summer of 1996, the year he won the Tour de France, a victory sealed through doping.
As we headed further inland, there was no doubt who was the CEO of CSC’s cycling team. ‘We need to evaluate progress,’ Bjarne said.
‘You remember the watts from Dave?’ he said into the CB radio.
‘Give me ten minutes. I’ll check on the laptop,’ replied assistant directeur Scott Sunderland from another team car somewhere in the Tuscan countryside.
While he waited, Riis pulled out a handycam, leaned out of the window and began filming the riders ahead of him. ‘They like to see it,’ he explained. ‘It’s a record of training. If we say, “Maybe you should move your saddle a little bit,” it helps if we can show them why. It’s not to prove a point, but if somebody really doesn’t agree, then we have the tape to show them …’
Sunderland’s voice crackled over the CB radio. ‘Dave was 459 watts, 187 heart rate and 82 cadence. Ivan was 437 watts, 185 heart rate and 78 cadence.’
Riis considered the information before delivering his verdict. ‘Dave will win straight away, but all of them are ready to race. This is the most competitive team we have ever had.’
He spoke into the radio again. ‘Three groups, please. Stay in the same three groups.’ For a moment, there was a hiatus as riders freewheeled and gaps opened. Then they came together again, as if choosing new partners on the dance floor.
Suddenly, a gap of a hundred metres or so opened between each of the three groups. Then the pace assumed a new intensity. Riis explained that the first group was preparing for the Giro, the second for the Tour, the third for the imminent Spring Classics. They rode on as a biting crosswind pulled at the cypress trees and olive groves.
CSC has some expertise at this. In the past, the team has split races apart by sending the entire team to the front of the field in bad weather, usually driving rain or crosswinds. Riis wanted them race-hardened even before the season begins.
‘They have to ride a bit harder, work in the wind a bit harder,’ Riis said. ‘Technically, it’s more demanding and they have to work together more.’
Not all Italians love cycling. The occasional driver overtook, horn blaring, fist raised as the CSC convoy of team cars and hangers-on moved across the Tuscan landscape. The riders ignored it. They pedalled smoothly ahead of us in three uniform groups.
The wind picked up, tugging at their shoulders as they hunched over the handlebars. Dusted with snow, the Apennines loomed large. This, however, was a flat day’s training, with the emphasis on speed and fluency. There was to be no cruel assessment on the steep slopes of Monte Serra.
Back in the mobile manager’s suite, assistant directeur Tristan Hoffman began telling a tale about one of my colleagues.
‘This journalist sent me a text in the middle of the night. It said: “Don’t let’s fight. I loved the sandwich. Can’t wait to see you again.” So it wakes up my wife and she says, “Who’s this from? What sandwich?!” She’s seven months pregnant and I’ve just got home from a trip! So I told her, “Call the guy,” but she doesn’t believe me and thinks I’ve got my excuse ready in advance …’
Everybody guffawed at Hoffman’s misfortune. I laughed uneasily and tried to defuse the situation. ‘Well – he’s always getting phone numbers mixed up. He’s done a similar thing to me …’
Riis’ face suddenly turned to thunder. ‘He did it to you too? What an asshole! Can’t he use a phone?’
An hour later, the normally impassive Riis finally came to life. He stood grinning like a schoolboy over a new train set, watching proudly as one by one his riders sped down the windswept road from a standing start, in a mock time trial. One by one they came back to the impromptu start and finish line, mouths open in exhaustion, as a delighted Riis slapped them on the back in encouragement. Chilled to the bone, we climbed back into the Espace and headed for the hotel.
It was nearly lunchtime.
Hoffman had sandwiches on his mind again. He reached into the coolbox on the back seat and pulled out a roll, wrapped tightly in foil. ‘Looks like prosciutto crudo,’ he guessed.
‘No,’ snapped the monotone voice in the front passenger seat. ‘It’s prosciutto cotto,’ said Bjarne Riis, correcting him.
Bjarne Riis’ career spanned an era of huge cultural changes in cycling, a period in which doping transformed itself from a cottage industry into the currency of success. As a rider, he was first a domestique to the last Frenchman capable of winning the Tour, Laurent Fignon. Then he established himself as the guiding light of the Telekom team, and plotted the downfall of Miguel Indurain.
Later, he became a mentor to Ferrari and Cecchini protégés, Evgeni Berzin, Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton and Ivan Basso. As a directeur sportif, he was a bitter rival to US Postal’s powerbrokers, Armstrong and Bruyneel, during their seven-year dominance of the Tour.
Throughout that period of almost twenty years, Riis has adapted to the needs of his sport. He is a chameleon, able to maintain his footing on shifting sands. He is the professional scene’s Everyman, one minute doping himself on an everyday basis, the next manning the ramparts in the battle for clean sport. He has been buffeted by scandal but seems capable of constantly reinventing his place in the sport’s hierarchy.
He was a self-appointed peacemaker in the Festina Affair and, nine years later, found himself in the eye of the storm once more, as the fallout from Operacíon Puerto, the 2006 doping investigation in Madrid, settled on his star rider, CSC team leader Ivan Basso.
Following that scandal, Riis instituted radical anti-doping checks within the CSC team and now exhibits an acute understanding of the financial relationship between his sponsor’s brand and his te
am’s image. But many find it almost comical that Bjarne Riis is pleading for transparency, accountability and a clean sport.
The man who once responded to a direct question about his own attitude to doping with a smirk and the response ‘I have never tested positive’ wants us to forget his past. ‘Cycling needs me,’ he says.
OK, Bjarne, and maybe it was all a long time ago, but these things are not easy to forget.
And so it was that finally, eleven years after his unexpected win in the 1996 Tour de France, Bjarne Riis – as haunted as anyone in cycling by the ghosts of that decade – sat down and confessed.
‘I have taken EPO,’ he said in a press conference in Copenhagen. ‘It was a part of everyday life as a rider.’
There is a clip on YouTube of Bjarne Riis addressing the media in Copenhagen, head bowed, confessing his sins and seeking absolution. Was he a worthy Tour de France winner, somebody asked him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I am not.’
And once the dam had broken, the truth about Bjarne’s EPO habit came pouring out. ‘I have taken doping,’ Riis said. ‘I purchased it myself and I took it myself. I did things that I shouldn’t have and I have regretted that ever since. Those were mistakes that I take the full responsibility for and I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. I am a lot wiser now, both in my personal and in my professional life.’
But Riis, who admitted doping himself throughout the most successful years of his career, seemed to be in no hurry to return his 1996 yellow jersey. ‘I’m proud of my results even though they were not completely honest. I’m coming out today to secure the right future for the sport. My jersey is at home in a cardboard box,’ he said. ‘They are welcome to come and get it. I have my memories for myself.’
Riis’ confession, delivered with humility and gravitas, was received with scepticism and scorn. If the original clip makes dramatic viewing on YouTube, far better value is Team Easy On’s subtitled bastardisation of his confession, easily the best of a crop of bitching and vitriolic attacks. Ashen-faced in contrition he may have been, but for people who’d spent more than a decade listening to his lies, now was the time to put the boot in.
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