We Were Young and Carefree

by Laurent Fignon

  Everything needed to be clarified. With hindsight I feel it was good in one way, because you have to protect young riders, but at the same time this unwillingness to explain things was dangerous. Because when you don’t get an explanation, you understand what you want to: you fantasise. At least when you are told honestly about something you can think it through and make a choice in total knowledge of what is involved.

  Let’s ask a question which is on everyone’s lips. When my career was over, there were journalists who told me that it was widely talked about. I’ve heard it said that drug taking was a common thing in Guimard’s teams and that he himself incited the riders to do it. It’s completely untrue. It’s a pathetic thing to say. Saying that everyone took anything and everything is ridiculous. It is so far removed from what I saw people doing that I am ashamed people can sum up an era so naively. The more so because in our day – and I have to be clear about this – most of the drugs that were ‘on the market’ for sportsmen (not just cyclists) were detectable in drug tests and there were enough positive tests to prove it. It was only at the start of the 1990s that ‘miracle’ drugs such as erythropoietin – EPO – appeared in sport. Everyone who has dug around a bit knows that you can’t compare the two eras.

  Here is the truth in two sentences:

  In my day, doping methods were derisory and the riders’ exploits were massive.

  For the last fifteen years or so, it has been the other way round: there is a huge number of ways in which riders can dope, and any exploits are derisory.

  In the years when I raced, drug taking was not universal. There were still a lot of races being won ‘on mineral water’. What did ‘preparation’ mean? There were two definitions. Firstly, there was training, physical ability, diet, rest. Then there was drug taking, which you can’t even describe as scientific because it was so unproven and primitive. The riders came to it naturally, as soon as a rider was a new professional, and they would experiment by themselves to see what suited them and what didn’t. Of course, the directeurs sportifs would always ask the same question: ‘What are you doing at the moment?’ That meant: ‘What are you using?’ But it didn’t always refer to drug taking but also to vitamins, supplements to restore imbalances in this or that. But lying underneath there was always the question: ‘Are you preparing properly?’ There, they were definitely talking about stuff which made you go faster. If you wanted to be the best, you had to learn to improve in every area. And obviously drugs were part of the panoply. At the very least, the riders made sure they were informed. And then made a decision. That’s the ‘cycling way’. That’s what faire le métier means. Do the job the best way you can.

  Pascal Jules and I tried to figure it all out; we wanted to know why the older guys shut themselves up in their rooms. We weren’t completely wet behind the ears. Riders would only have recourse to ‘preparation’ in the medical sense for the biggest races, as opposed to how it’s done today. Back then, the most frequently used banned drugs were known to everyone. There were amphetamines, which were widely used in races where there were no drug tests, but which were useful only for a short time and were unpredictable depending on the person involved. They were also used for ‘partying’, for example during the criterium season, when the festivities were a real tradition, a way of life. It was all a laugh: letting your hair down every day.

  Anabolic steroids were barely used by the early 1980s, because they had been detectable for a long time in urine tests. And testosterone had not appeared yet, nor had growth hormone – they would come later – and there was no blood boosting (or not that I knew of), and no EPO.

  However, the drug that dominated the scene was the anti-inflammatory cortisone, for one simple reason: it could not be detected. You have to understand that we didn’t feel as if we were cheating: each of us settled matters with his own conscience. And in any case, everyone did it. As for me, I never took any risks, physically or competitively. I worked within the system in my own way, but it never seemed shocking to me that guys ‘did the job right’. You have to keep in mind that every era has sportsmen who are sensible and others who have no idea what they are doing.

  In all the teams at the start of the 1980s no one ever mentioned ‘doping’. Obviously, the word was banned, taboo. The only thing you talked about was ‘help’. A lot of vitamins were taken, in a systematic way, in particular B12, Pascal and I were determined rather than patient when it came to finding out what was going on. As soon as we saw one of the old guys nipping off on his own, we would go into their gaff, sit down on a bed and wait. The rider would be embarrassed, wouldn’t dare go out again or say a word. Then we would push a bit: ‘Come on, tell us.’ It really wound them up, but then we found the whole rigmarole just absurd. Pascal and I solemnly swore that we would never behave like this with young riders.

  Luckily, Cyrille Guimard would try to keep it all on an even keel. He at least would talk a lot to the new professionals, would pass on huge amounts of info, would ask the riders about things, try to work out what they were thinking, find out how it was going – basically, he didn’t limit himself to driving the team car and propping up the bar in the evening. He for one felt that he was responsible for the riders and their health, both mental and physical.

  To understand that different times in cycling cannot really be compared, you have to be aware that never, in my entire career, did anyone talk to me – or anyone near me – about ‘doping’. Occasionally someone would ask: ‘Have you taken something?’ But that was it. And most of the time, it was not viewed as cheating, which must now seem completely incredible. In the context of the time, where there were still riders whose careers started in the early 1970s like Bernard Thévenet or Joop Zoetemelk, it was an integral part of the system, totally assimilated. It must have seemed completely normal to some of the guys: an everyday matter, an integral part of the make-up of cycling.

  In those days I only ever had recourse to one doctor, the team medic Armand Mégret. It would never have occurred to me to go and ask elsewhere in the way all the riders seemed to in later years. Mégret and his ilk were proper doctors, who looked after your health and nothing else. Certain deficiencies required certain vitamins. The riders would react to different treatments in different ways. Apart from when I was actually ill, I always hated medicine of any kind and my body didn’t accept it. Simple prescriptions for flu or a headache could make me even more poorly.

  Other guys were different. In this ultra-medicalised little world where there were countless suitcases of remedies going the rounds, there was always the temptation to take something like a vitamin or a supplement, just to make sure. To ward off I don’t know what. Looking logically at it, there are times of the year – particularly when it’s cold – when you have to look after yourself if you’re going to ride a bike seriously. That is habit-forming, and those habits can degenerate. To do the job as well as you can, you can end up believing that medicine of all kinds is as integral to cycling as the bike itself. I’ve known riders who turned out that way and those are the ones who would go over the top.

  Pascal and I still avoided going too far in winding up the older guys. We stuck to the basic rules of the team. But only the basics. You should have seen the faces of older riders like Maurice Le Guilloux and Hubert Arbes when we teased Hinault at the dinner table. They put their faces in their soupbowls. The shame they must have felt for us! But we couldn’t restrain ourselves. There was nothing particularly disrespectful about it, it was just a new atmosphere to get used to; we were taking the old order down a peg or two, shaking up the hierarchy. After all, I would go through it myself later on. You have to accept that a new world pushes out the old. The wheel turns.

  That year Julot and I didn’t think twice. We were more interested in the fun we could get from racing than the tough bits. Fun was a moot point, however. During the first training camp at Rambouillet, in front of the entire team, riders and backup staff, Cyrille Guimard took the floor. He was even more solemn than usua
l. There was an impressive silence in the room. The boss of the team was about to say something, not the guy who was our friend and confidant. He came out with this jaw-dropping pronouncement: ‘Anyone caught with a bird in their room during a race will be kicked out, tout de suite.’

  Pascal and I caught each other’s eye at once: panic stations. Guimard wasn’t talking about us, as we were new to the team, but what shocked us was the idea: no sex. We figured out that one or two of the guys must have taken the piss the previous year and we looked round to see if anyone was blushing. But we were thinking mainly of ourselves, and the future. We were in cycle-racing paradise but what if the price to pay was that we couldn’t go near a woman? It seemed a bit steep.

  Sex is another of cycling’s great taboos. But having sex never prevented me from winning a race, and feeling good about yourself helps keep you on an even keel. Nothing could be more obvious. But the point was that Guimard was out to make an impression as a disciplinarian, along the lines of Guy Roux, the trainer for the Auxerre football club.

  We quickly worked out that, actually, Guimard had never sacked anyone because they had been found with a girl in their room. But he always had a fair idea of what was going on. He was just firing a warning shot so that no one went too far. Or so he thought. Julot and I soon forgot the threat and let our instincts go unchecked. When we wanted to meet up with a girl, we would always think of a way around the rule and we would cover each other’s backs. And the evening when Guimard had put the fear of God into us by issuing an ultimatum in public at least provided us with one handy bit of information, which had not gone unnoticed. If there had been hanky-panky the previous year, that meant there were opportunities to be had. Pascal whispered, ‘At least that means there is a bit of skirt out there.’ And he was right.

  You had to ‘do the job right’. Absolutely. But not at the expense of all of life’s little pleasures.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  RIGHT AND PROPER PEOPLE

  On two wheels people always have to show their true colours. You can never cheat the world for very long. Cycling is a way for men to find themselves and show what they are worth. It exposes their weaknesses and their hidden value and it allows huge appetites to be indulged. It is nothing to do with glory: it’s more a matter of fulfilment. Cycling allows us to mine the deepest recesses of our souls.

  For me, the best example of this was a man I saw again and again. He was a captivating character and he had a big name: Bernard Hinault. In winter, he would train so little that when he came back to us for early training camps he looked like a man who had been on holiday for a year. He was overweight. Let’s just say he looked as if he had been inflated. You could tell the second you saw him. And if you were not well acquainted with the Badger – which included new pros like us, of course – you would seriously wonder how much time it would take for this man to get back to what he had been. But we were making a colossal mistake: Hinault the human being and Hinault the cyclist were one and the same person. As the start of the 1982 season was to prove.

  The man who turned up at training camp with us was only a distant relation of the champion who had hung his bike up in the garage three months earlier and who had grabbed every trophy yet again the previous season. As soon as we began to train as a group he adopted the expression he wore on his bad days. He suffered as soon as anyone pressed on the pedals. He sweated all over and swore at us. Sometimes he yelled that we were going too fast. And when he saw that one or two of us looked, if not actually annoyed then at least a bit surprised, he would shout: ‘Go on, you clever dicks. You’ll see how good you are in a few months.’ He could do anything he liked. Sure enough, less than a month later, he would win the first race he rode. When he had decided he was going to put his wheel in front of yours, a vital force would course through his veins, born of anger and pride. That was how Hinault was.

  What can I say about my first races in the Renault jersey? Firstly, here is how we felt: Julot and I may have been young and impetuous, and even though we weren’t easily impressed, we were proud to be members of this small, tight-knit elite group. Without making us docile little lambs, that calmed us down a bit. We had to look, learn and then become completely ourselves when the opportunity came our way. We would only swagger once we had earned our spurs.

  We soon began to get to know the other riders and quickly built friendships in the team, then in the wider peloton. A lot of amateurs we knew had just turned pro as well and we were all happy to be among the ‘big guys’. And now we were riding alongside some famous names, above all the Dutchmen: Jan Raas, another bespectacled bike rider, like his fellow countryman Gerrie Knetemann, who were the heads of the TI-Raleigh team directed by Peter Post. You have to remember that in those days the Dutch and Belgians won all the time, almost every race. Apart from the ones that went to Francesco Moser and Hinault.

  I didn’t change the way I rode. I kept faith in my philosophy of cycling. I still wanted to enjoy myself as much as before. I wanted to gamble. I wanted to feel happy with it. And one race followed another at breakneck speed. Cyrille Guimard put us in a huge amount of races but didn’t ask us to do anything in particular. He was completely relaxed, totally confident in the ability of his team and that obviously meant he wasn’t going to put pressure on us at the start of the season. We were there to progress better, to protect Hinault as much as we could, and that was all. Renault’s real objectives were circled in the calendar, but came much later. Financially the stakes were still not that high even for a big team such as Renault, and there was no question of a team being harassed for any reasons other than the need to compete well. As far as I know, in this respect the directors of Renault were people of unimpeachable morality.

  Because in Guimard’s establishment the people were right and proper as well. They were looking to create complete human beings rather than merely manage sportsmen. No one came into cycling simply to make money; they wanted to win races and live their passion to the full. I find it rather moving to think back to these carefree times, because the world has changed so much. Seeing how mindsets are today, I honestly wonder if the new generation has any idea how to distinguish a ‘winner’ from an ‘earner’. We were winners. ‘Earners’ – showbiz types who monopolise prime-time television – were to come a bit later on the coat-tails of Bernard Tapie.

  All through my career I have hated cold weather: the wind and rain and low temperatures at the start of the season meant this was always a risky time for me physically. It was my main weakness: I kept getting colds, headaches, throat infections and so on. All the organs in my face were susceptible in wintry weather. I would often quit in races but Guimard would never bawl me out and kept his faith in all of us. We weren’t skiving, quite the opposite. We worked like mad, although that didn’t prevent us having a good time as soon as any opportunity arose. All Guimard wanted was to feel confident that we were obviously making progress, both on the bike and in the way we behaved within the team. We had to make our presence felt, make an effort and learn rapidly. He could tell if it was happening.

  I was on the pace as early as February and March in the first races. The work I’d done in training paid off. At the Tour of the Mediterranean, where I won the best climber’s prize, I was at the front all the time, bridging gaps, putting in attacks, looking for openings. A few guys complained and clearly wondered who this young upstart was. Michel Laurent and Raymond Martin, who were among the ‘captains’ of the bunch, felt they needed to point it out to me. Even the great Joop Zoetemelk, winner of the Tour in 1980, had a grumble or two. I must confess, my brake lever kept touching his arse on the climbs. He didn’t like me getting that close. As for me, I found all this educational. It was character building.

  In those days cycling provided those riders who knew how to suffer – of whom I was one – with the opportunity to test themselves in much longer races than today. Even on an early season race like the Tour of the Mediterranean there were still stages of 180, 20
0 and 220 kilometres. Today people would say that was crazy, insanely hard. But no one actually understands what went on. The stages were not designed to be hard in order to torture the riders, but simply so that the best guys, who had the most endurance, would end up in front. The way it all unfolded was completely different. The early part of the stage would be taken at a steady pace. Then, when a break had gone away and it was pretty much obvious that it was the winning move there was no debate about what to do. Everyone would sit up and finish the stage at 30 or 35kph. Clearly, having this kind of racing would be ‘scandalous’ today, although I can’t quite work out why.

  The following tale demonstrates the relaxed approach Pascal Jules and I adopted, but also the way we would sometimes overestimate our own strength. In the first stage of that Tour of the Med, finishing in Port Leucate, along the coastal roads, Pascal said to me at the start, ‘Cool, there’s a hell of a gale out here. No one’s as good as us at riding in a crosswind, so we’ll show the guys what we can do.’ We had overlooked one minor detail: the Raleigh team were at full strength and if we were specialists at riding in sidewinds, the Dutch riders were the ones who had invented the technique.

  How young and carefree we were. The Raleigh team knew that a move was about to go. In the first ten kilometres, with no warning they began riding in an echelon, a perfect diagonal line from one side of the road to the other. We didn’t know it was going to happen and were too far back in the field. I said to Julot, ‘No panic, we’ll get up to them.’ Ha bloody ha. How near did we get? Thirty metres behind the first group riding diagonally across the road, then twenty metres, then at last ten metres, but that was it. I could swear we were within touching distance, about to get up to them as we’d expected. I screamed, ‘One last effort and we’re there.’ We never bridged those ten blasted metres in spite of everything we’d done, and even though we took two last massive pulls at the front. It was unbelievable. We lost twenty metres, forty metres, and then we blew completely. We were in pieces, although we weren’t the only ones. By the finish, we were twenty minutes behind. That evening, having been brought down to earth, dear Pascal and I looked at each other and guffawed. ‘Well, we’re with the big boys now.’ We were good riders, in form, but we had been blown away like novices.