It was Stage 10, 174 km from Alcoi to Xorret de Cati, which finished with a Category 1 climb, and I was in a breakaway with Erik Zabel and Oscar Freire. As a sprinter I wasn’t expected to be anywhere near the top ten on a mountain-top finish but I was so determined to keep my form rolling along that I gave it everything. I had one final effort left in me up the final climb and the other riders in the breakaway began to fall away. I had broken them, went over the top in second place and held on for the descent to claim one of the greatest second-place finishes of my career. I was so exhausted afterwards that I virtually collapsed on my bike.
After the Vuelta, the world championships in Verona, Italy, were just around the corner and my name started being thrown around as one of the favourites. Again, I had a fantastic race, finishing fourth behind Oscar Freire, Erik Zabel and Luca Paolini, while teammate Allan Davis was fifth, which was a bit frustrating because I would have preferred one of us to get a medal but we didn’t communicate well enough in the final. I attacked up the last climb but was caught just before the finish and our team hadn’t spoken about what would happen if two of us came to the finish together. We both missed out on being world champion by one bike length.
I could have quite easily retired at the end of 2004, believing I’d achieved everything I’d aimed for. I had stood on the podium in the Classics, won stages of the Tour de France, wore the yellow and green jersey, and now had an Olympic gold medal. I could have hung up the wheels and been happy.
Celebrating with Graeme Brown after their Olympic gold medal in the madison in 2004.
Any Olympic year ends with a sense of relief. It’s such a big build-up, more so emotionally because of all the pressure and stress, so I needed at least a month to recharge at the end of the 2004 season. But when you come off a year like that—when you’ve ticked a couple of boxes that you’d only dreamed of—it’s hard to find new objectives. So suddenly there was even more pressure. I was being paid well and the team expected the big results to keep coming, but to be honest I thought I’d struggle to top what I’d achieved in 2004.
I wanted to kick off the year with a bang. I was third overall at the Tour Down Under behind winner Luis Leon Sanchez, who attacked on the Willunga Hill stage. Then I took my form to Europe where I had an okay Classics campaign but it was nothing special. My best performance was fourth at Milan–San Remo, which was a great start, but after that nothing really went my way. I was tenth at Gent– Wevelgem, eleventh at E3 Prijs Vlaanderen, sixteenth at Tour of Flanders and eighteenth at Paris–Roubaix.
If nothing else, my results showed my consistency. But it was frustrating because while I was up there for every race, when Whitey (Matt White) exploded after working so hard for me, I was left isolated without any other teammates. And having that support in the final is the key to success in these races because you cannot win them on your own.
Immediately following the cobbled Classics are the Ardennes, three epic races within a week of each other: Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I rode some of the Ardennes in the early years of my career but after a while it got too difficult. I found that after Roubaix my body was wrecked, and mentally I was knackered. A new wave of riders comes through for the Ardennes, all the punchy little climbers who didn’t ride the cobbles, and they’d been doing a different preparation in Spain. So if you rocked up to the Ardennes after racing Milan– San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix you’d be smashed before you even knew what was happening.
I wasn’t meant to ride the Giro d’Italia that year but during my break after the cobbled Classics I was at home looking at the Giro’s stage profiles. I noticed there was a 1 km prologue to start the race, which was pretty much the shortest prologue in history. I thought it would be cool to have a go at it so I conjured up this idea of riding it with a fixed gear on what was basically a track bike. I usually avoided the Giro d’Italia because it meant you wouldn’t get a break after the Classics, but this year I thought I could do the 1 km prologue and contest a few sprints in the first two weeks, then go home.
So I called the boss and told him I wanted in on the Giro and I wanted a special bike for the prologue, no messing around with gears, no rear brake and I wanted double disc wheels. He was surprised but he agreed and I rocked up to the prologue with a time-trial bike, modified with a lightweight carbon seat, a fixed gear and missing everything we didn’t think we’d need to get through a 1 km sprint.
The prologue went well and I was spot on with my gear choice, but after the finish line there was a barrier where you had to turn right. There was no way I could stop with only a front brake, so I had to make sure the masseur was there to catch me. I eventually finished sixth, 0.2 of a second behind the winner, fellow Aussie Brett Lancaster, who did an incredible ride. As agreed with the team, I stayed for the first two weeks and managed third on Stage 10 and sixth on Stage 2, but guys like Alessandro Petacchi were a step ahead. My best outcome at the Giro that year was abandoning mid-way through, jumping in a hire car with Baden Cooke and racing back to Monaco for the F1 Grand Prix, which we made just in time.
In July I went to the Tour de France where I was Mr Consistency with seven top-tens, eventually finishing second in the points classification for the green jersey amid plenty of drama.
Stage 3 was 212.5 km from La Châtaigneraie to Tours but the fireworks went off in the final 100 metres when I clashed with fellow Aussie sprinter, Robbie McEwen. The incident saw Robbie relegated to the back of the field and generated a media storm because the photos were pretty graphic. As we approached the finish line I was in the perfect position behind Tom Boonen. It’s a real scrappy sprint, just mayhem; you’re hitting guys, locking up the brakes, guys are dive-bombing underneath you and it’s a full-on fight. The next thing I realise, Robbie is right next to me, trying to take my spot but I wasn’t going to let him in because there’s no room for friends in a sprint. Of course I stuck my elbow as far as I could into his ribcage and over his arm, trying to block him because he was leaning over and his head was right in my ribcage. There’s so much going on in a sprint and we had no intention of crashing each other or inflicting any harm, it was just a ding-dong battle—which is what makes sprinting such an adrenaline rush. Robbie unleashed three pretty big head-butts on me during the run to the finish. It was nothing I hadn’t been hit with before but three big ones can be a little excessive.
Afterwards I heard Robbie had been disqualified. Was I surprised? No. Was I sad for him? No. Boonen won the stage, I was third and Robbie was relegated to last place which basically ended his hopes of winning the green jersey that year. From that perspective I was sorry, but if I hadn’t been strong enough to hold him off in the sprint, I would have been in the back of an ambulance.
It took a little while for us both to calm down after the incident. I found Robbie at the start the next day and asked him what the hell he was thinking; it was over the top. He argued that it was my fault, but clearly the photos and video of the incident speak for themselves. Nevertheless, we never got angry at each other. I was just surprised that someone with his experience, and with the consequences that would follow, took it that far. But the show rolled on and many more battles lay ahead.
Later that year I decided not to ride the world titles in Madrid because I felt that I couldn’t sacrifice myself for him after everything that had happened. But that was about as personal as our so-called feud ever got.
Robbie and I have had an interesting relationship over the years. There have been times I’ve wanted to throttle him, but I’ve always had the utmost respect for him. What he achieved on the bike was incredible. My respect for him was evident at the 2002 world championships in Zolder when he was second. I was right next to him, trying to shepherd him to the finish line and do everything I could to look after him, and he won Australia’s first ever medal at a world titles.
From Robbie’s point of view, I was never as fast as him but I could position myself well, which probably pissed him off because I
’d be taking up the spot he might have wanted. Furthermore, he knew he was quicker than me which only fuelled the rivalry.
We’ve all said things in the heat of the moment that we ultimately regret, but it’s hard because when you cross the finish line at 100 miles per hour, you’re angry, on the verge of crashing, the adrenaline is rushing and your body is screaming with pain. Everything is chaos. Then suddenly journalists are sticking microphones in your face and, with the benefit of hindsight, you say things that you probably shouldn’t.
As the years went on, I moved away from sprinting to focus on the Classics and consequently, there was no rivalry with Robbie anymore and we became pretty good friends. I’m really proud of what Robbie achieved in his career and we’ve been professional and manly enough not to become enemies. On the contrary, we have maintained a good relationship.
McEwen—three-time Tour de France green jersey winner—says in the early years he and Stuart were two young professionals ‘pretty much going in the same direction and having a lot of the same goals’.
‘We were both up there in the sprints and often we were in very close quarters, in the same place at the same time,’ McEwen says. ‘Then even on the domestic scene we’d be against each other in a crit series or a Sun Tour. Some of the frustration probably came from the fact that we were up there trying to be the best in the world, yet it was already hard enough trying to be the best Australian. There was definitely a big rivalry between us because being the best meant trying to beat each other.
‘But the trick is leaving that aggression and cut-throat attitude out on the road. We’ve had a rocky relationship, got on great at times, not very well at other times, and purely because we’re such competitive people.’
McEwen’s recollection of the clash on Stage 3 of the 2005 Tour de France is as follows: ‘I was trying to go forward one way while Stuey was trying to maintain position and go the other way. He got his elbow on top of my arm and I was trying to push him off it. I wasn’t pissed at Stuey, I was pissed at the commissaires. It was a racing incident and I was pissed that I didn’t win the stage and that I got disqualified. It annoyed me for the rest of the race and I lost the green jersey but I never saw it as a personal thing.’
As the pair ended their careers riding side by side at Orica-GreenEDGE, McEwen says that, above all, he and Stuart have the utmost respect for each other. ‘He’s done it all: as a track rider with the team pursuit and Olympic madison champion, on the road with wins in the Tour de France. He’s stood on the podium of every Classic in his realm; his versatility, his doggedness and his fighting spirit are incredible.’
Towards the end of the 2005 season I felt like the flame had gone out. I realised that to rise to a new level, I needed a change. I had just done two years of super-hard work, carrying the team through every Classic and every race I started, and it was taking its toll. Okay, I went to Cofidis wanting to lead a team and to have more opportunities at winning a Classic, but the Classics team was basically them employing me. I was it. A few of the guys did what they could but I needed more support in the final and the situation wasn’t getting any better.
I wanted a fresh start, to go to a team with a strong squad behind me, because it was becoming my life’s mission to win one of cycling’s monuments—Tour of Flanders, Paris– Roubaix, Milan–San Remo or Liège-Bastogne-Liège. So I set up a meeting with Giancarlo Ferretti who was in charge of the Fassa Bortolo team for many years. The godfather of Italian cycling, he was one of the most renowned managers of all time and had a very successful team, bringing up Alessandro Petacchi and Mario Cipollini. I met with him in September while I was in Italy visiting my sister who was living there at the time. I was pretty nervous because I’d heard many stories about him being such a hard bastard. Lesley, being the nice person she is, laid on a spread of cheese and chips—and the first thing Giancarlo said when he walked in was, ‘O’Grady, no chips for you.’ I thought, ‘Holy shit, I can’t even eat potato chips, I guess a beer is out of the question!’ But the meeting went quite well and he basically gave me a contract on the spot for a new team which was to be sponsored by Sony Ericsson. It was a big contract for two or three years with big bonuses, so when he drove out the driveway a couple of hours later I was rapt.
I flew home to Australia for the start of summer then went to Fiji for a friend’s wedding with Anne-Marie and Seth. We visited a little island where I remember lying in a hammock and literally pinching myself. Here I was, in one of the most beautiful places in the world, parked on the beach, thinking about everything that had happened over the last few years, and contemplating my future with Mr Ferretti’s team.
After a couple of days I turned on my phone to make sure there weren’t any emergencies, but then about fifteen messages came through. From Rok: ‘Ring me, urgent.’ From a mate in Monaco: ‘Stuart, please call, urgent, urgent.’ I started freaking out so I called Rok and he told me that Sony Ericsson wasn’t coming on board, the team wasn’t folding, it just never existed in the first place and Mr Ferretti had been had.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing: here I was on a deserted island in December and I didn’t have a team, which meant I didn’t have a job for next season. To say that my holiday was ruined is an understatement. When I got back to Australia it was full panic mode. I’d gone from riding this beautiful wave to thinking, ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ When I got back to Adelaide I sat down with Anne-Marie and friend Paul Neighbour who has always been very influential in my life, particularly when it comes to financial decisions. I’m a bike-rider, not a businessman.
Paul put it really simply when he said, ‘Forget money. If you had to ride for free, what is the one team you’d want to ride for to help you win a Classic?’ And I replied, ‘Well, there’s only one: CSC with Bjarne Riis.’
I’d had enough frustrations and wanted to be a part of a real team. I’d watched CSC for many years and they looked like the dream team. They won races left, right and centre; they rode past you in the peloton as one unit and they even looked cool, they looked classy. You’d be sitting at the dinner table in a hotel and they would be all laughing and loving life, then would go and rip us a new one in a race the following day. Jens Voigt, Bobby Julich, Kurt Asle Arvesen, Karsten Kroon, Marcus Lingqvist, Fabian Cancellara, the Schlecks, Carlos Sastre, Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde—the list went on and on.
Soon after I started getting messages from Patty Jonker who said, ‘Mate, ring Bjarne.’ But I didn’t know Bjarne from a bar of soap, so I put it off. At the same time I was getting desperate, which is not a good position to be in when you’re used to negotiating the best possible contract. But I was in no position to negotiate—I needed a team no matter what the price.
Soon after, a guy I had on the ground in Europe helping me out rang through with some good news: Team Unibet had come good with a big offer; in fact, it wasn’t far off what I thought I’d be getting with Mr Ferretti. I was so relieved, but strangely I still wasn’t happy because I knew that riding for Unibet would have been like going back to Cofidis. It would have been good money, but they didn’t have anyone for the Classics and I would have found myself battling it out on my own for another top-twenty finish. So, after days of procrastinating, I decided to ring Bjarne. I felt he had to hear from me directly, not from someone else.
He was in the middle of lunch when I called and told me he’d call back. When he did, the phone didn’t even have time to ring, I was like, ‘Yep, hi Bjarne.’
Bjarne is a very different person to talk to. He speaks very slowly and analyses everything that comes out of his mouth. He loves long, silent pauses which cracked most people in negotiations, but I just said, ‘Look Bjarne, I want to come to your team.’ This opened me up to being paid peanuts but I didn’t have time to mess around and I was prepared to cop a hiding in the negotiating room.
He said he possibly had one position left on his team and I made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to miss out. I knew that if I wanted to w
in a big race, this was the team for me. Deep down, I also knew that going to Unibet would only be a short-term monetary solution but I was heading into possibly the last two years of my career. So I said to Bjarne, ‘How about you come back to me tomorrow with a figure that you’re prepared to pay?’ So the ball was in his court. When I hung up, I felt even more relieved than when I got the offer from Unibet. Bjarne knew about the offer from Unibet but the fact that I was willing to take a hit in the hip pocket to join his team showed my desire to win a Classic. There was no bullshit.
Paul Neighbour says Stuart brokering a deal with CSC reminded him of an episode of The Simpsons. ‘Homer is trying to sell something and he says, “Before we start negotiating, I want you to know that I’m desperate and I’ll take any offer.”’
Throughout Stuart’s career, Neighbour encouraged him to do his own negotiating so he knew exactly what was going on. ‘That summer he came over and plonked himself down on the chair, he was pretty flat,’ Neighbour recalls. ‘The lifeline with Unibet was really good money and he said, “I think that’s what I’ll do.”
‘But I could tell he wasn’t excited about the decision. So I questioned the decision, trying to discuss the other options and he said there weren’t any. I suspected he meant in terms of money as a key rider in a pro team, but not necessarily as a cyclist. So I asked him, “Are you ready to finish cycling? Are you excited about bike-racing or is this just work now? Is it just about the money?” This stopped him in his tracks, I could see the cogs ticking over. I said, “Do you still want to win and if so, is Unibet going to give you the best chance to do that?”
Battle Scars Page 14