RICHARD MOORE from the Author of Slaying the Badger and Tour De France 100 by the SAME AUTHOR
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20 GREAT STAGES FROM THE MODERN TOUR DE FRANCE From the author of Slaying the Badger and Tour de France 100 RICHARD MOORE BY THE SAME AUTHOR In Search of Robert Millar Heroes, Villains & Velodromes Sky’s the Limit Slaying the Badger The Dirtiest Race in History All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or photocopy or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations within critical articles and reviews. © 2014 by Richard Moore 3002 Sterling Circle, Suite 100 Boulder, Colorado 80301-2338 USA (303) 440-0601 · Fax (303) 444-6788 · E-mail [email protected] First published in 2014 by HarperSport, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB, www.harpercollins.co.uk Distributed in the United States and Canada by Ingram Publisher Services Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moore, Richard, 1973– Etape: 20 great stages from the modern Tour de France / Richard Moore. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-937715-30-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Tour de France (Bicycle race) 2. Cyclists—Interviews. I. Title. GV1049.2.T68M658 2014 796.6'20944—dc23 2014019259 For information on purchasing VeloPress books, please call (800) 811-4210, ext. 2138, or visit www.velopress.com. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Cover design by Kevin Roberson Cover photograph by PhotoSport International uk usa asia Interior design by Anita Koury All interior photographs © AFP/Getty Images, except: p. 17 © REX/John Pierce; p. 31 © Reuters; p. 47 © Graham Watson; pp. 87, 101, 213 © Offside/L’Équipe; p. 119 © L’Équipe; p. 139 © Offside/Presse Sports; p. 191 © Christopher Catchpole; p. 201 © Alasdair Fotheringham; pp. 249, 295 © Getty Images Text set in Poynter 14 15 16 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vii CHAPTER 1 THE OUTSIDER 1 Chris Boardman, 1994 CHAPTER 2 BEWARE OF THE BADGER 17 Bernard Hinault, 1980 CHAPTER 3 THE BULLDOG 31 Wilfried Nelissen, 1994 CHAPTER 4 THE SCULPTOR 47 Joël Pelier, 1989 CHAPTER 5 THE BOY WITH FIRE IN HIS EYES 59 Mark Cavendish, 2009 CHAPTER 6 FOR FABIO 73 Lance Armstrong, 1995 CHAPTER 7 DUTCH COLD WAR 87 Marc Sergeant, Frans Maassen, 1992 CHAPTER 8 TRILOGY 101 Eddy Merckx, 1971 CHAPTER 9 GUERRILLA WARFARE 119 Luis Herrera, Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon, 1984 CHAPTER 10 ANARCHY 139 Stephen Roche, Jean-François Bernard, Andy Hampsten, 1987 CHAPTER 1 1 THE DEVIL 153 Claudio Chiappucci, 1992 CHAPTER 12 SHOCK AND AWE 171 Bobby Julich, Jörg Jaksche, Marco Pantani, Jan Ullrich, 1998 CHAPTER 1 3 WHAT ABOUT ZIMMY? 191 Urs Zimmermann, 1991 CHAPTER 14 THE UNKNOWN WARRIOR 201 José Luis Viejo, 1976 CHAPTER 1 5 CHAMPAGNE FREDDY 213 Freddy Maertens, 1981 CHAPTER 1 6 HONOR AMONG THIEVES 229 Lance Armstrong, Iban Mayo, 2003 CHAPTER 1 7 UNTOLD STORIES 249 Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, David Millar, 2010 CHAPTER 1 8 PLAYSTATION CYCLING 263 Andy Schleck, 2011 CHAPTER 1 9 REDEMPTION 279 David Millar, 2012 CHAPTER 20 LA RÉSURRECTION 295 Greg LeMond, 1989 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 313 INTRODUCTION Étape is the result of a simple idea: to tell the stories of selected stages of the Tour de France through the recollections of the protagonists. I wanted to capture and convey the mystery, beauty, and madness of the great race. But new interviews were key; I didn’t want to recycle already published, and in some cases familiar, stories. And so I sought out the heroes and villains, the stars, journeymen, and one-hit wonders. I spoke to two five- time Tour winners, a three-time winner, a one-time winner, and a former seven-time winner. On the following pages are the fruits of this labor: a collection of nota- ble stages, some great, some obscure. They encompass extraordinary feats and diabolical deeds, heroism and deceit, farce and tragedy. Each chapter stands alone but they are interconnected since, inevitably, there are char- acters who reappear. One, Bernard Hinault, even manages to have a crucial influence on a stage, and a Tour, in which he wasn’t riding. The featured stages are personal favorites, drawn mainly from the Tours I have watched since my first glimpse on television in 1984. But I couldn’t resist others that piqued my interest: a trilogy of remarkable stages involv- ing Eddy Merckx and Luis Ocaña in 1971; a curious win by José Luis Viejo in 1976, which I had read about in an out-of-print cycling book; any one of the 16 stages won by one of the sport’s most endearing figures, Freddy Maertens, in the course of his bizarre career. There were mysteries to investigate and myths to debunk—the feud between two team directors that distorted the outcome of a stage in 1992; a rest day disqualification in 1991; the untold stories of the gruppetto; and some classics: l’Alpe d’Huez in 1984, Paris in 1989, Sestriere in 1992, Les Deux Alpes in 1998. vii viii INTRODUCTION There are a number of premature deaths—Ocaña, Marco Pantani, Jose María Jiménez, Laurent Fignon—but only one occurred during the Tour. That was Fabio Casartelli in 1995; I can vividly remember the room and sofa where I sat, and how I felt, when television pictures showed him curled up on the road, a pool of blood forming by his head. One chapter focuses on an emotionally charged stage three days later, won by Casartelli’s team- mate, a young American named Lance Armstrong. The older Armstrong reappears in a later chapter, from 2003: a stage and a Tour that now have an asterisk against them and a line through the winner’s name. Despite his disgrace, I wanted to include Armstrong, partly because he is difficult to ignore, partly because nobody could argue that some of his Tours (the stage I chose, in particular) were not dramatic. I didn’t know if he’d agree to an interview, but when I explained the proj- ect by e-mail he responded within minutes: “You bet.” Then I wasn’t sure what he wanted out of it, other than to talk about the 2003 stage to Luz Ar- diden as though it was still in the record books; as though it still mattered. “Those Tours happened,” he said, “despite what a bunch of dickheads say.” Of course, you might disagree . Mention of Armstrong raises the specter of doping, which, as Arm- strong himself is quick to point out, he did not invent, even if he has done more damage to the sport’s reputation than any other rider. But doping, cheating, skullduggery: for better or worse, all are woven deeply into the fabric of the Tour. I thought of doping in cycling as I read the American writer Roger Kahn’s book The Boys of Summer, in which he recalls his early days as a cub reporter in New York. His first job was to cover high school sports at a time when the coaches were striking over pay. Consequently, there was little sport. “But if this mess doesn’t get settled, what will there be to write about?” he asked his editor. “As you say, the mess.” Perhaps in recent years “the mess” of doping has overshadowed the sport to an unhealthy degree. Of course it is an important, dare I say inter- esting, subject. But there is so much more: the deeply fascinating—often fascinatingly deep—people who make up the peloton; the complexity of INTRODUCTION ix road racing, with its teamwork and tactics; the courage and skill of a stage winner, whether a journeyman like Joël Pelier, a winner in 1989 (and now a sculptor), or Mark Cavendish, arguably the greatest sprinter of all time. I hope that the following tales illustrate all of this, and do convey at least some of the mystery, the beauty, and the madness. 11 THE DEVIL JULY 18, 1992 STAGE 13: SAINT-GERVAIS TO SESTRIERE 254.5 KM/158 MI. HIGH MOUNTAINS CLAUDIO CHIAPPUCCI asa Chiappucci is a three-story building on the edge of a small village in northern Italy, near Lake Como. At the entrance, three buzzers, each labeled “Chiappucci.” But it would appear that Claudio, the dazzling little climber of the 1990s, is not at Chome. A man appears on the balcony of the first floor, introducing himself as Claudio’s older brother. He says he doesn’t know where Claudio is. He adds that he never knows where Claudio is. “You can wait,” he says. “He’ll be back soon.” Ten minutes later, the electronic gate clicks and whirrs and begins to slide open. Instantly recognizable, the cyclist once known as “El Diablo” (the devil) appears behind the wheel of an SUV with a 20-something girl in the passenger seat. He is 50 but looks and dresses about 30 years younger: distressed jeans, tight black shirt, chunky white watch, and sunglasses perched on his head, acting as a hairband for his glossy black mane. “Ciao, ciao, ciao,” a smiling Claudio leads us into the building then bounds up three flights of stairs. At the top, we are greeted by Mama Chiap- pucci, a small, hunched woman in her late seventies wrapped in an apron. She offers a warm welcome and shows us into the living room, or shrine. Everywhere you look there are trophies, trinkets, and photographs of Clau- dio riding and winning races, as well as one of him meeting the Pope.