French Renaissance

by Jeremy Whittle

  Then, having sealed victory in the women’s Tour, over the most feared mountain in France, you might have expected her to have sat back and waited for the media coverage, the column inches and the phone calls. But there were none.

  ‘By then it was nothing new. The fun came on the Saturday when Puerto broke and that became a hot topic, which obviously had an effect on the wider perception of professional cycling. That then set in motion a series of events which, by the end of 2006, left our team without a sponsor.’

  Only long-time Cooke diarist, Brendan Gallagher, then covering cycling for the Daily Telegraph, wrote anything particularly significant for the national press, and that was in September. That lack of coverage was compounded by Adrian Chiles’s lame questioning when Cooke was interviewed by the BBC. ‘Do you fall off your bike a lot?’ a smirking Chiles asked of the crazed descender of the Ventoux and the first British winner of the Tour de France.

  Nicole Cooke acknowledges that winning that 2006 women’s Tour, against the backdrop of the scandal in Strasbourg, was a bittersweet experience. ‘That takes nothing away from the day and the excitement of doing it. Doping scandals were in the background throughout my whole career so there was nothing new in that.’

  By that time, she had become adjusted to the obstacles in her way. Redressing that balance, she says, was ‘a work in progress throughout her career’.

  ‘At the end of 2006, I had a really good team set-up and from the cycling side of things everything was looking good. By that point I was already looking to push the coverage of women’s cycling. The Tour win didn’t spark a new approach.’

  Nicole also won the 2007 women’s Tour, and battled to third place in 2008, but by 2009 the race was discontinued.

  ‘My best experience of the women’s Tour was in 2002, when it was still two weeks long. Every day in the first week was at least 160 kilometres and that included one stage over the Paris–Roubaix cobbles. That was what it was like when I first turned professional and that’s where I’d like to see it get back to.’

  Instead, there is now a one-day event – La Course – tacked onto the Tour de France. This also suffers from a lack of media coverage, despite being based around the route of the men’s Tour, but, worse still, reeks of tokenism.

  Does she directly attribute what has happened to the women’s Tour de France to the ongoing ethical malaise in men’s cycling?

  ‘I think the UCI played a role in not providing a platform for women’s racing to continue. They could have done a lot more.’

  Like others, she lobbied then UCI President McQuaid to act in support of women’s racing. ‘It must have been 2005, when the kilometre was taken out of the Olympics. There was a lot of noise about it because of the petition for Chris Hoy. I was asked to sign it but I said no, but I would sign a petition for equal men and women’s events at the Olympics.

  ‘That was what I then took up with McQuaid. But it didn’t go anywhere at all, it was just ignored. Again the UCI could have done a lot more.’

  So, given her experience, is there not a role for her to play? She gives a measured ‘yes’, but admits too that she has had little contact with current UCI president – and former British Cycling Federation president – Brian Cookson.

  ‘I think there’s certainly a role,’ she says hesitantly. ‘But, having had 15 years of dealing with all the things that took the shine off my career, I was quite happy to step away from it for a while. That’s what I’m doing now. There’s other things to do. I’m weary of dealing with people who don’t reply to emails or do the things they’re employed to do.

  ‘Coming back to cycling in some capacity is possible – I wouldn’t discount it.’

  Cooke is a big fan of the women’s Tour in Britain. ‘They’re doing really well. I can see the legacy of banging the drum and creating change. That feels good. It’s a vindication.’

  A vindication of your success and that of those who followed in your wake . . .?

  ‘. . . because British Cycling didn’t support me. But I think from the start I wasn’t willing to accept incompetence. Unfortunately, the reaction was not to respond or to engage.’

  Those myriad problems between Cooke and the British federation fuelled resentment on both sides. ‘The culture was that anything to thwart Nicole was encouraged,’ she says.

  Among the blockers, she says, was Shane Sutton, once Welsh coach to a teenage Cooke. ‘He has qualities but he has to be kept on a very short lead and kept in check. He never had a handle over me and so was probably a little fearful of me and my dad’s persistence in terms of holding him to account. He didn’t like that. It felt like anything to get me out of the way was encouraged.’

  But Sutton and Brailsford were presumably happy enough in Beijing, when Cooke took the Olympic gold medal in the women’s road race?

  ‘Oh, yes, the reflected glory was brilliant,’ she smiles. ‘They were delighted!

  ‘It was painfully obvious at British Cycling that women were always treated as second class. Those were the attitudes of leadership. It was not in any way equal.

  ‘That was a real turn-off to riders who were achieving results and still not getting selected. That was enough to send some people, with more options, elsewhere.’

  What irks most, so she says, are all the missed opportunities. ‘It wouldn’t have taken much for British Cycling to have the best women’s team out there. We could have had a decade of fantastic success. That’s what’s sad.’

  And that – the success of a British women’s Tour – might have saved the women’s Tour de France, I suggest . . .

  ‘Yes, perhaps, but the Tour de France demise on the women’s side is more linked to the UCI not supporting the women’s calendar.

  ‘If the UCI were serious, they’d say anyone who works in cycling cannot have a doping past. Clear out a whole load of people and try to create something better.’

  So she advocates zero tolerance too, then? Doesn’t that mean, though, that you’d have hardly any teams and hardly anyone in the team cars?

  ‘Well, the sponsors wouldn’t necessarily go away. And once you’ve kicked out the rot, you’d even make cycling more attractive to people who are uncomfortable in corrupt circles. I think it would make it more attractive to the right sort of people. You’d easily fill spots on teams. You’re still going to have a race and a new star at the end of it.’

  By the time Nicole retired, her position as maverick, outsider and rebel was consolidated. The spats with British Cycling, Shane Sutton and Dave Brailsford were well known within the cycling milieu. They had briefed against her – claiming she was almost impossible to work with, not a team player, too closely controlled by her parents.

  But her successes blew any criticisms away. In fact, the more obstacles were put in her path, the more determined she became. She epitomised the very best of British and expected the same of those around her, when riding for the national team.

  When she retired she released a powerful and damning statement. It’s worth revisiting, particularly in the light of Laura Trott’s investiture as British national treasure. Cooke may have been enraged by the lack of recognition for her own achievements, but perhaps there is some solace for her in being an agent of change.

  My father wrote . . . and asked for championships to be established for girls. The result was that the following year, the BCF put on a superb set of British track championships . . .

  From 1998 on, there have been Youth track events for girls and later, as they saw them succeed, they put on Junior events as well . . . Now all the budding young stars like Jo Rowsell and Laura Trott can see an aspirational pathway for the girls, just as there has been for the boys, that simply did not exist when I started out on my career.

  And doping? Unlike others, protesting that they saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil, and wouldn’t countenance it, Cooke says she confronted it, put her hand in the fire – but, instead of buckling, she had the character to walk away.

  I have had
days where temptation to start onto the slippery slope was brought in front of me. I was asked what ‘medicines’ I would like to take to help me, and was reminded that the team had certain expectations of me . . . and I was not living up to them with my performance. I said I would do my best until I had to drop out of the race, but I was not taking anything.

  Pressure was put on me but I was determined, and fortunate. I had a very good team-mate who was in a similar predicament and she took the same stance I did. Team-mates that say ‘No’ are priceless. I would have been very naive to think that I would not encounter moments like this.

  I am appalled that so many men bleat on about the fact that the pressures were too great. Too great for what? This is not doing 71 mph on the motorway when the legal limit is 70. This is stealing somebody else’s livelihood.

  And what about my old Texan sparring partner and all the other alphas?

  When Lance ‘cries’ on Oprah and she passes him a tissue, spare a thought for all of those genuine people who walked away with no reward – just shattered dreams. Each one of them is worth a thousand Lances.

  Looking down from the summit of Mont Ventoux, Dave Brailsford, who’d steered Wiggins and Froome through the catfights of 2012, who’d built Team Sky from scratch, who’d battled to take British Cycling out of the era of the gallant but underfunded and underprepared loser, could barely contain his excitement. Alongside him, a select group watched Froome’s solo climb to the top of the mountain that afternoon in July 2013. His wife Michelle, future UCI President Brian Cookson, and, most notably, Greg and Kathy LeMond, making a return to the Tour after exile during the Armstrong years, looked on.

  Triple Tour winner LeMond had stayed away from cycling for many years, scarred by his feud with Armstrong and wary of a milieu that had long been dominated by the Texan. A bitter critic of cycling’s doping culture for more than a decade, he was an obvious port of call for an immediate reaction to Froome’s extraordinary performance. Journalists crowded around, eager to hear his verdict.

  But if some expected scepticism, LeMond wasn’t biting. ‘I don’t think that every time a rider has a great ride people should be saying, “He’s a doper.” I really don’t like that. You usually have one rider that’s the strongest. If the others are half a per cent off, then they’re out the back.’

  But LeMond was blunt in his assessment of Brailsford’s refusal to share Froome’s performance data over concerns of what Team Sky’s principal had called misinterpretation and ‘pseudo-science’. ‘That’s bullshit. That’s what they said about drug controls. You’d never look at it [power output] as a positive [test], you’d look at it together with blood profiles.

  ‘I am not to going to make hypothetical ifs and buts,’ LeMond continued, ‘but as part of the profiling, you profile your watts. That’s instead of having hypothetical watts, which is pretty accurate to maybe three, four per cent, but that could be a difference of saying positive or negative. If you don’t have anything to hide, give it [the data] to everybody.

  ‘I think there’s a natural tendency among riders today to be guarded or defensive. But it’s the opposite that needs to happen.’

  And what about the comparisons with Armstrong in 2000, already being made, even before Froome had crossed the line? That one was easy for Greg to answer: ‘Froome’s got a lot more natural talent than Armstrong, that’s for sure. That’s not a doubt.’

  A few weeks before Christmas 2015, a distinctive white Jaguar with a personalised number plate, is one of a handful of luxury cars sitting in the courtyard of the Rosewood hotel in Holborn as dusk gathers over central London. In the opulent lounge, Dave Brailsford and I are taking tea. In fact, in his case, coffee, although it’s hard to understand why a man with this much energy would need a caffeine boost.

  Brailsford is a workaholic, an obsessive, driven to succeed. This is not a myth fuelled by great PR or propagated by embedded journalists. Anyone who has spent time with either Team GB or Team Sky will testify to that. But, of course, there is a price for all of this success. I don’t know how often he is at home, with his family. Given that he admits he spends most of his time working, not often would be an educated guess.

  He has followed the path of his father, John, a fanatical and accomplished mountaineer, who would drive the family to the Alps, drop them in a campsite and then disappear into the mountains for weeks on end. It’s almost impossible to visualise Brailsford on the school run, in Waitrose or Sainsbury’s, at a school play, walking the dog. Maybe when he’s not in the Team Sky bus poring over performance analytics, or at the dinner table with his staff in yet another anonymous hotel, he longs for those moments. It’s just hard to imagine it.

  There have been plenty of past problems between us, particularly over Team Sky’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy, the hiring and firing of certain individuals, the TUEs. We’ve shown each other our inner chimps. He’s accused me of ‘having it in’ for him, both on the phone and to my face; I’ve responded by saying ‘I’m not doing your PR’. Relations are strained.

  Most of the time, even in the aftermath of a draining and tense Tour de France, we’ve agreed to differ. Despite that, until late 2016, he would always talk. Until then, we could still meet and chat over a cup of coffee; until then, he didn’t do blacklists, as such. Now, however, those opportunities to talk are dwindling. Increasingly throughout 2016, his answers were evasive, and circuitous and dismissive.

  Once blacklists take shape, you are in trouble. There are signs that Team Sky has drafted one – Paul Kimmage seems obviously to be on it, while others hover on the periphery. Michelle Froome, too, would appear to operate one. Team Sky’s media handlers wouldn’t know this, as they weren’t around back then, but blacklists are what Armstrong and his entourage used to operate. Blacklisting, certainly in cycling and probably everywhere else, is associated with having something to hide. They are counterproductive and divisive.

  I first met Brailsford before the Athens Olympics, when the fruits of lottery investment and the streak of detached ruthlessness – which he’d employed to drag British Cycling from a creaking old boys’ network to a far slicker and more professional outfit – were becoming evident. He knows France well and a love of the Alps runs in the family. ‘Dad is a connoisseur in terms of France, so I think the first time I’d have heard of the Ventoux would have been him telling me about it.’

  John Brailsford, he explains, loved the Dolomites and the Chamonix regions of the Alps. ‘He ended up writing guidebooks on the Écrins region and was really into his cycling too, so he knows all the famous climbs in the area.’

  But his father wasn’t a big fan of the Pyrenees. ‘They were a little too green and not really high enough. I think the Alps and the Dolomites were a bit more epic. But,’ he says, ‘Dad used to talk about this massive Mont Ventoux . . .’

  Brailsford used to holiday in the Alps when his father was guiding. ‘But I remember one year, when I was about 14, or 15, we drove over from the Alps to the Pyrenees, to go and do some riding on the Tourmalet. As we were driving down, we could see Ventoux from a distance. Dad said, “There it is” – and after that I started to read about it.’

  Unlike Christian Prudhomme, however, Brailsford rates the Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez as the two most iconic and recognised climbs in the sport. ‘Maybe some of the smaller Classic climbs fit that too, but in stage-racing terms I think they’re the two, maybe with the Tourmalet.

  ‘Ventoux’s an intimidating climb. There are several things – the ferocity and difficulty of the climb itself, the length of it and then the climate that goes with it, the heat and then usually the wind, once you come out of the forest . . .

  ‘But then,’ he enthuses, ‘you’ve got the history – and it’s so rich in history. Obviously from a British point of view, the Tom Simpson story is always part of the history. If you can get your name down as a winner on the Ventoux, then you’re among the legends. Any stage over the Ventoux is always a big stage.’

  Brailsford�
��s fascination with the Alpine climbs, fuelled by his father, has been lifelong. ‘We had these books that were published with all the cols of the Alps – they had these beautifully hand-drawn profiles with all the gradients – and we ticked off the routes as we did them.

  ‘Now you see all the profiles online everywhere, but back then it was quite something to study these old school maps with the percentages for each kilometre. So we’d look at these beautiful profiles and say, “Oh, we have to go and do this one.”

  ‘We were looking at the Ventoux and I just thought, “Bloody hell – I wouldn’t mind having a crack at that . . .” Funnily enough, Dad went and rode the Ventoux a couple of times, but he and I never rode it together.’

  More than 30 years later, Brailsford stood at the summit of the Ventoux, watching a distant figure pedal steadily across the moonscape to win stage 15 of the Tour de France. For both Brailsford and Froome, it should have been a celebration of their most spectacular success. But even before Team Sky’s leader crossed the line, the suspicions of doping had gone viral.

  Brailsford now says that such concerns hadn’t even entered his mind. ‘I guess when you’re watching a performance like that, on that mountain, you’re so engrossed – watching to see if your plan is executed – and it either is, or it isn’t.’

  So was Froome’s now infamous and decisive attack, immediately before the false flat leading to Chalet Reynard, planned?

  ‘I wouldn’t say it was planned – it was very much that he was going to attack. He was keen to attack far enough out to give himself a big advantage, and he was confident. He was up for it.

  ‘The way the stage panned out played into his hands. The opportunity arose and he just seized it, although maybe a little bit earlier than he was planning.

  ‘There’s that classic piece of footage, when he’s in a low gear, he comes around a corner which is relatively flat – which you can’t see on telly – but he didn’t change gear, he stayed in a relatively small gear but he just increased his cadence.