by Ned Boulting
I wonder to this day if he realises the effect he had on people all across the world, watching the race. Within days an enterprising American website was knocking out T-shirts that declared ‘Welcome to Hoogerland! Population: Heroes.’
I bought one.
* * *
Hoogerland’s story summed it all up. His bravery told us what we all longed to hear about the courage of the riders. It rose above the noise of the race, and it drowned out the dopers, it crowded out the also-rans. The battle for the podium places, at times seemed second best. Yes, even the winner.
That isn’t to say that Evans’ victory won’t be remembered. It was a victory rightfully greeted with joy by Mike Tomalaris and his Australian colleagues, who must occasionally have succumbed to the feeling that they were broadcasting only to drunks and insomniacs still awake at 3 a.m. in Canberra.
The winner was warmly applauded by most of the peloton. Despite his quirks and tics and occasional threats to decapitate journalists who threaten to touch his little toy dog, Evans is respected and liked; a man who has squeezed every drop of talent out of his bony frame. His valour on the climb to the Galibier won him the Tour. In some ways, it would have been wrong had he won the stage itself. That would have been uncharacteristic. Evans wins by limiting losses, by boundless grit and by quick thinking. A man at the limit of himself.
If only the same could have been said of Andy Schleck, whose frailties seemed to have turned in on him. They are attacking him from within. The ill-considered complaints about descending may have lost him PR points, which his hollow-sounding claim that the fifty-seven second advantage he held over Evans would be defendable in the time trial did little to recapture. In the end, I stood talking to him in Paris, worried that I might accidentally let slip his nickname, Andy Schleckond.
‘I’m very proud to have finished second in the Tour de France.’
I looked quizzically at him. He should be furious to finish second, especially in a year when Contador’s challenge went AWOL. He should have been enraged that he had squandered such obvious talent once again. He is a nice man, and has never been anything other than polite in his dealings with us. But that’s not the point, is it? He is the most fluent, most obviously talented climber on the radar. Or at least, he should be.
Maybe he will win it one day. But maybe he simply won’t. Either way it was Evans who took the 2011 win, his dimpled chin wobbling at the enormity of it all.
* * *
And Cavendish?
He roared up the Champs-Elysées. He made it three wins in three years in Paris. But this time, he did it in the green jersey that had so far eluded him.
I was waiting for him at the interview zone, already poised. I knew he’d win.
After the towelling and talking and smiling, he stepped away. I thanked him, shook his hand one last time. For the twentieth time after a Tour de France stage win.
A hurricane of noise was blowing in through the flaps of a white marquee designed to hide the riders from the crowds gathered out on the cobbles, waiting for the podium presentations to begin.
What memories will we all take away, when this imperious winning streak is over? What will remain with us of Mark Cavendish?
Standing in Paris to one side of the podium, watching the man (a little knock-kneed, and somewhat short, by the standards of immortals), I understood that not much had changed. Not since the first day I met him on the eve of the 2007 Tour, when he stated his aims, and articulated for the first time his quite unshakable faith. Nothing about him was different, except the colour of his jersey.
Only by being Mark Cavendish could you possibly imagine what drives him. And ‘Being Mark Cavendish’ necessitates being no one else, bending your will, tempering your heart, altering your course, for no one else. Not until every last target has been reached, grasped and locked away. And that, for the World Champion, is some way off.
I exited Paris, headed for the campsite in Brittany, reconnected my car’s battery, and resumed my life.
It had been a riot.
* * *
And the answer to his question? Well, it’s changed now.
Hushovd. Petacchi. Cavendish.
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Published by Vintage Digital 2012
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448129386
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Copyright © Ned Boulting 2012
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First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Vintage Digital
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