We Were Young and Carefree

by Laurent Fignon

  My sufferings didn’t end there. The day before the first long time trial for some reason or other I came down with a pretty vicious conjunctivitis, so severe that I could only see out of one eye. The emergency medical help on the Tour, during the stages, was not as good as it is today, and if it had been any other race, I would have abandoned. I couldn’t see a thing when my team mate Dominique Gaigne attacked six kilometres from the finish to win the stage. It was more than we had hoped for, and was a good reason to have a little impromptu party in the hotel. I wasn’t feeling great when it came to the time trial, sixty kilometres, which was a distance I’d never raced over alone. It was uncharted terrain for me and apparently my nervousness was tangible. The result was that I placed sixteenth, three minutes behind the Dutchman Bert Oosterbosch, but less than two minutes behind Sean Kelly, which was actually quite encouraging for a man with one eye closed who was expecting nothing. I hadn’t pushed myself too hard and having no previous experience in this sort of stage, I hadn’t taken any risks at all, apart from in the final fifteen kilometres where I decided to dig deep and noticed that I had plenty of strength left. Better still, I finished the time trial without even feeling out of breath.

  My enthusiasm didn’t last long. The very next day en route to l’Île d’Oleron, I was struggling with a bizarre internal problem which I never really got to the bottom of. It was torture. My hands were fine and my eyes were healing but I had nothing left in my legs. I couldn’t push myself at all. If there had been the slightest split in the bunch or a single serious increase in speed at any time during the stage, it could have wrecked my chances. But the way the race panned out worked in my favour: it was a decent speed, but constant enough to avoid any sudden jumps in the pace. Hiding in the heart of the peloton, I made it home in a trance, my stomach empty and my legs like jelly. It was the second time I’d been on the edge. Cycling is a capricious mistress: so close to you and sometimes so distant.

  At the end of the great Pyrenean stage from Pau to Luchon over the Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde I was completely confident that I was in the race. Guimard had given me some sensible advice: ‘Don’t try to stay with the best guys in the final kilometres of the cols. The Colombians will speed up to take the best climbers’ awards and you won’t be able to respond. Don’t panic. It’s not important. You’ll get them back on the descents. But try to slip into a break which is bound to form on one of the valley roads somewhere.’

  I followed his instructions to the letter, going with the main escape of the day which took shape between the Aubisque and the Tourmalet. I wasn’t too careful and stayed for a good while with the leaders, Patrocinio Jiménez, Robert Millar and Jacques Michaud. But between the Aspin and the Peyresourde I felt a bit below par and didn’t want to push too hard; at this precise moment, just as I was coping with the pain, Pascal Simon came past without looking at me. That evening, he put on the yellow jersey. All the cards had been reshuffled. I was now second overall, 4min 30sec behind Simon and had the white jersey on my shoulders. It was a big gap, and yet not much at the same time. It was big, because Simon was clearly having the best year of his career. But it wasn’t much, because Peugeot were a long way from being able to dominate the race in the ruthless way that Hinault and Renault had used to do. Above all, Guimard was pleased with the way I was riding. I had stuck my neck out, and I hadn’t slipped up.

  In bike racing, you constantly tempt fate. And fate was cruel to Pascal Simon. Between Luchon and Fleurance the next day, during the early part of the stage, the maillot jaune hit the deck. It was a ridiculous little crash, of the kind that often happens. He cracked his shoulder blade. The next morning, Guimard, more cautious than ever, advised me to keep hidden in the bunch and justified it like this: ‘If this injury of his is as bad as they say, the maillot jaune will come to you sooner or later. Then there will be a lot of work to be done. So save yourself for the moment.’

  Straight away, deep inside, I was convinced that I was going to win the Tour. It was so clear to me that I spoke about it to Pascal Jules. I needed to tell him so much. And the Tour kept going on its way, with Pascal Simon still there. All eyes were on him; all the photographers’ lenses pointed at his shoulder. That suited me perfectly. All the while I kept my eyes fixed on Pedro Delgado, Lucien Van Impe, Ángel Arroyo, Peter Winnen and the others, who clearly were under the illusion that they had the race in their pockets before we had even reached the Alps.

  The media plaudits and popular esteem all went to Simon, of course, who postponed his departure from the race – which was inevitable – every day and even survived the time trial to the top of the Puy-de-Dôme by a few seconds as the Spanish climbers dominated and came dangerously close in the standings. Not only did I now have to get ready for all the cameras to zoom in on me, and prepare to fend off the climbers’ attacks in the Alps, there was another issue, a big one: I had to convince my teammates that I could rise to the immense challenge that was looming up over the horizon.

  In the last few days the way they looked at me had changed a little. I could see my credibility building. Julot was a vital presence at my side, always ready to stand by me. The only one who refused to admit that I was now the leader and the others should put themselves wholly at my disposal was Guimard. He was in an unusual position, for him, of having to manage the race conservatively. As he was betting on two horses at the same time, he was still keeping Marc Madiot under wraps. That wound me up. Perhaps he expected me to crack in the final week, at l’Alpe d’Huez, maybe. Perhaps he was just doing it to get me angry and force me to go deep inside myself to find supreme inspiration, unforeseen resolve.

  I believe that I was paying the price for what I reckon to be a fairly annoying trait in Guimard’s character: in my opinion he is incapable of saying exactly what he thinks, even to those who are close to him. He’s always working things out, he calculates and gives a few snippets to one guy, then a different version to the next person. I’d never seen this side of the man. One evening I was so fed up with seeing Guimard take the mickey out of me by refusing to accept that I could win the Tour that I almost handed my Renault jersey back. Pascal did what was needed to calm me down and persuaded me to avoid doing anything irrevocable. It had occurred to me to walk out of the Tour in a fit of pique; when I look back, that speaks volumes about how unfeasibly frivolous I was in those days.

  And then it happened. Between La Tour-du-Pin and l’Alpe d’Huez, in the ninety-second kilometre, I became leader of the Tour. At the end of his tether, in tears, Simon gave his best in a combat which had become impossible for him. I was mentally prepared for this, but the first thing I did was to make a mistake. As we descended from the Col du Glandon, I was weak-minded enough to let Peter Winnen get away as he tried to latch on to a desperate attack from Jean-René Bernaudeau. I was only fifth on the stage; the Dutchman was the winner, two minutes ahead of me. I was now wearing the yellow jersey, with a lead of 1min 8sec over Pedro Delgado.

  The first day of my life in the yellow jersey was the eighteenth stage, 247 kilometres between Bourg d’Oisans and Morzine, climbing five cols: the Glandon, Madeleine, Aravis, Colombière and Joux Plane. It was the stuff of legends. A real test. I felt a weight on my shoulders that was new to me; a rare honour, a responsibility that seemed to extend deep into the mists of time. It was as if I had finally been given my spurs by generations of ancestors. But there was plenty of danger. The proof of that came when Winnen put in his big attack first on the Madeleine then the Colombière, along with about ten riders including Ángel Arroyo, Stephen Roche, Jacques Michaud, Robert Millar and so on. I was told I had a four-minute deficit, although Delgado had already lost ground. It was panic stations. I was a hair’s breadth away from losing my head. Guimard came up alongside me in the car: ‘Calm down, Laurent, calm down. Just keep riding, breathe deeply, it’ll be OK.’ Marc Madiot and Alain Vigneron helped in the chase but both of them were unable to keep up on the Colombière and I had to get down to work by myself. The gap
came down gradually but there was still the blasted Col de Joux Plane to come. I’d always hated its tight hairpins and steep gradients.

  I ended up completely on my own. It was a nightmare. How can I explain the feeling? I knew this was a turning point and I felt every last detail of it intensely. I was looking into a void; if I didn’t pull through I would be sent back where I had come from and there would be no second chance. I didn’t want that to happen. But I was in agony, believe me, in spite of having the yellow jersey on my back. I don’t know whether wearing the jersey helped me in any way or made me freeze. I clung on; it was life or death. With barely an ounce of strength left, I managed to catch Winnen: I’d done what I had to do. After a massive scare, my control over the Tour had just grown a bit stronger.

  It got even stronger the next day in the time-trial stage over fifteen uphill kilometres between Morzine and Avoriaz. There, I managed to limit my losses in spite of the fact that I didn’t like this discipline, which was an exercise for specialist climbers. By finishing tenth I hung on to a lead of two minutes on Winnen, which meant there was no need to worry any more.

  Guimard didn’t see it that way. During the stage out of the mountains to Dijon he came up with the idea of asking me to go for every time bonus I could. Was I really meant to risk my neck in all the intermediate sprints when I had the yellow jersey on my shoulders? That’s a sign of how worried Guimard still was. So I set about it, against my will. And neutral onlookers were duly worried when they saw me taking on Sean Kelly, the best sprinter in the race, who each time beat me as expected. But along the way I gleaned another thirty-second lead. It was all useful time in hand, reckoned the boss, before the final time trial starting and finishing in Dijon.

  In the last couple of days a few commentators had begun to talk about ‘a Tour of second-raters’, a ‘Tour à la Walkowiak’ – a reference to the 1956 winner Roger Walkowiak, who owed his victory to a lucky early break. I didn’t like that in the slightest, but I kept my head. I have to acknowledge that up to then I hadn’t shown anything out of the ordinary, except that the way in which I raced was improving rapidly. Before the time trial, Guimard told me: ‘You will do exactly what you’re told. Firstly, start within yourself. Afterwards, we’ll play it by ear.’ Even now I can see it all clearly: on the start ramp, a few seconds before I set off, I was convinced I would win. Not the stage, but the Tour.

  After only a few kilometres, Guimard was already driving up alongside me and shouting constantly, ‘Relax, you’re in front.’ I found out later that this was a white lie. In the early part of the stage, I was gradually losing time. I followed his instructions to the letter and had plenty of energy left. When I got to halfway, on a little climb, he yelled, ‘Go for it, Laurent, go for it.’ I let rip. At every time check after that I was in front, although I didn’t know it. As Guimard had stopped giving any instructions for a fair while, apart from the odd shout of encouragement, I knew that everything was in order for the overall standings. So when I crossed the line I raised my arms. I had no idea that I’d won the time trial but I knew I had won the Tour. No Tour rider had ever made a victory salute at the end of a time trial and no one believed I meant what I said. But it was true, I had absolutely no idea that I had won my first Tour de France stage.

  What happened that evening at Dijon is still a blur. I can’t remember any of it. I had to go back and look at the newspaper reports to find out that I must have done a quick television interview and that I was permitted to have a glass of champagne before going to bed. That was all. Similarly, I had to read the words of the great writer Pierre Chany in The Cycling Year much later on to understand why no one dared mention a ‘Tour à la Walko’ after the Dijon time trial. Chany didn’t mince his words:

  With a show of strength that should serve to ward off any attempts to diminish his achievement, Fignon crowned a well-deserved win, constructed over the whole Tour. An average performance in this contre la montre would have revived memories of recent events – Hinault’s withdrawal, Simon’s crash – and the temptation to draw parallels with flukish wins of the past would have been too strong. Laurent Fignon’s image would have suffered. Instead of which, he was able to settle the issue in the authoritative style of a man functioning in perfect harmony of body and mind. Rather than being a winner by sheer happenstance, Fignon made it clear that he was the best of all the contenders who were there and none of the famous non-starters could claim he might have been better.

  There you have it. It was signed and sealed by one of the great and the good. I had just plucked the most coveted flower in the garden of world cycling. It smelled so fine that it felt like a rose with no thorns. It was a rare privilege: like Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx and Hinault I had won the Tour at my first attempt. I had fulfilled the objectives I had set before the start: I’d won a stage, taken the white jersey of best young rider to Paris and finished in the first ten overall.

  This was how far my youthful passion had driven me: to a glitttering place high among the legends. What a feeling.

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  THE DARK SIDE

  It’s part of human nature that you see the best in everything. But when reality turns out to be greater than you might have imagined, you run a serious risk: you can believe you are a master of the universe.

  After the Champs-Elysées stage at the end of the 1983 Tour de France I went through a spell when I was completely over the top. I didn’t realise that the ecstatic feeling of being recognised for what you had achieved had a bad side as well as a good one. I never wondered about it. Anyway, there is no way to prepare a man of twenty-two for the effect of riding up the most beautiful avenue in the world crowned with the ‘triumph of triumphs’, after winning the event that is the dream of every cyclist in the world – not just the French. Cyrille Guimard could have advised me and put me on my guard. With a few simple, friendly words he could have kept me from a few little displays which were totally out of character for me. But apart from devising tactics and understanding a race, Guimard was not a confidant who could get under someone else’s skin. I would have to learn for myself: that was how I liked it anyway.

  That evening, at Renault’s post-race party, Bernard Hinault turned up. The greatest French champion since Jacques Anquetil had not been able to show what he was capable of in the race and I was almost fearful of meeting him. But not once did I think I had ‘taken his place’ or ‘stolen’ anything from anyone. You don’t choose the circumstances in which you race. No one, in 1983, would have dreamed of trampling on Bernard Hinault; on the contrary. In 1980 he had abandoned at Pau while wearing the yellow jersey and that had not prevented him from coming back and riding as strongly as before. I myself was to go through a long lay-off due to an injury two years later, and Hinault would be the beneficiary. While we’re here, let’s ask the question: would he have won his fifth Tour in 1985 if I had been there? In the same way, would I have won the 1983 race if he had started?

  On 24 July 1983, the Badger looked as if his suit was too small for him. He seemed distracted, his mind elsewhere, as if he was barely involved in the party. He looked distant, from the three-week race that had just taken place without him, and from cycling in a wider sense. He kept looking away, all the time. It was nothing to do with me; he was following Guimard’s every move, as if he was wary of him and wanted to keep out of his reach. Seeing him looking so unhappy – the four-times Tour winner, the man of granite celebrated for the strength of his character and the brute force of his deeds – I understood immediately that there was no prospect of what everyone feared, which was a fight between the pair of us for leadership of the team. Everything in his demeanour led me to believe that his and Guimard’s impending divorce was set in stone. He no longer looked like part of the Renault team. The Breton knew already that he was moving to another squad – but which one?

  As soon as he saw me, his body language was warm. He came over to congratulate me as if he was my elder brother, coming out with wor
ds that perfectly suited the occasion. ‘I knew you could do it, you deserved it’ and so on. I can’t tell whether he was pleased that I had won – I wouldn’t presume to think that – but nothing in what he said or did made me believe the opposite. I’ve already said that, apart from a silly incident in that year’s Tour of Spain, Hinault had never had any reason to complain about me. In fact it was the other way round. He was well aware of this, and that showed in the hearty welcome he had just given me.

  No, I could sense something else in Hinault: he was already looking ahead to the battles he would soon have on the road against Guimard’s riders. Not just riders in the Renault jersey, but the men who were trademarked ‘Guimard’. It was written all over his face: everything about him now rejected his old mentor. When he became aware that Guimard was in the room it was amazing to see how in a fraction of a second the Badger went back to being a tight-lipped, watchful Breton. His square jaw seemed to be chewing on his unhappiness. The pair of them clearly could no longer stand each other. I guessed that there must be a lot behind this: arguments, differences, altercations. I was light years away from imagining that one day I too would go through the same vicious process with Guimard.

  But let’s go back to that fantastic, victorious evening. I have to confess one thing: the party at the Tour de l’Armor was small beer compared with what I experienced that night. ‘The worse for wear’ hardly does my state justice. A red-top writer might have scribbled ‘Laurent Fignon was totally out of it.’ What else was I going to do? After the final award ceremony, after the collective feeling of joy within the team and the accolades of the public, I drank, I danced and celebrated as much as my body could stand and we did everything we needed to ensure we didn’t slow down before bedtime.