SPORTS SPECIAL - Tour de France

It’s shortly after two on a damp Saturday in central Dublin, and the capital city is totally transformed. Gone is the horn-honking, headache-inducing, road-raging mass of traffic which usually clots the thoroughfares. Gone too the consumer rush, the flow of bag-carrying, wallet-wielding shoppers who normally bustle, hustle and elbow their way ruthlessly along O’Connell Street. The standard sense of urgency has been replaced by different feelings of curiosity, anticipation, and rising excitement.

It has the air of one big party. The St Patrick’s Day bunting has been dug out again, and extends from the lamp-posts and buildings along Westmoreland street across the river and past the GPO. Trucks – a whole fleet of them – rest on the central plaza, obscuring the battered Floozie in the Jacuzzi from view, while two 20-foot towers marked ‘Arrivée’ support an abstract looking construction of iron and coloured spheres that spans O’Connell street. Alongside this finishing area other constructions loom: a two storey enclosure which houses representatives from the world’s television stations; a large stage area complete with Antenne 2 banners and a number of video screens, and a smaller stage housing a podium and backed by a mechanically operated hoarding which cycles through the displays of various sponsors.

And to facilitate the huge crowd which has gathered, there is a giant television screen standing at the corner leading onto Abbey Street. The spectators themselves line the metal barriers running from O’Connell bridge to the finishing line. Packed ten-deep in some places, many wear official baseball-hats and tee-shirts, while the odd die-hard fan sports lycra clothing which betrays allegiance to one team or another.

At 25 minutes past two, the first cyclist thunders down the ramp from the starting house located outside Trinity College. Wearing an aerodynamic helmet, clothed in a skinsuit and astride a hi-tech, streamlined machine worth over two thousand pounds, Denis Leproux of the French Big Mat team sprints around the 5.6 kilometre course as if his life depends on it. The Frenchman can’t be considered one of the top riders of the peloton, but this matters not to the massive crowds who line the course, choke the finishing straight and carry him home with the strength of their roars.

Leproux, along with the 188 riders who follow, enjoys a rapturous, enthusiastic reception from the crowds witnessing the biggest sporting event ever held in Ireland. This is no mere hype, what we are witnessing boasts not only some of the world’s fittest athletes, but also a unique blend of colour, culture and atmosphere. The carnival has started; the Tour de France has begun. And Ireland embraces it with open arms. For this long-time fan of the sport, it is a deeply satisfying moment.

But then, disaster. A massive drug seizure in one of the team cars, police arrests, riders thrown off the race and more headlines than you would have believed possible.

They say no news is bad news, but six weeks after that prologue, Pat McQuaid must be livid. Working for years to bring the race here, consumed by the dream that the world’s biggest annual sporting event could begin on Irish soil, the former professional rider combined with business partner Alan Rushdon to pursue the goal. Aided at times by Stephen Roche, their proposal enhanced by the stellar careers of the former Tour winner and that of the great Sean Kelly, McQuaid secured the necessary financial backing from the government and won the approval of the Societe du Tour de France. What seemed like an impossible fantasy was suddenly achievable. For the first time ever, Le Grand Départ would take place outside mainland Europe.

McQuaid was delighted. As president of the Federation of Irish Cyclists, the governing body for the sport here, the explosion in public interest would be sure to inspire an upsurge in the numbers of those cycling. The sport had peaked here in the late ’80s, but since then the lack of Irish competitors in the peloton meant that media coverage fell, and with it public participation. But hosting the prologue and two stages of the biggest race on two wheels was sure to capture the imagination of those who watched it. It was sure to increase the numbers who took to the saddle, and thus increase the likelihood that someday another Irish rider would have the cycling world at his cleated feet.

So, on the eve of the race, Pat McQuaid would have sat back, breathed a sigh of relief and smiled to himself. Mission accomplished. Little did he know that it was all about to go horribly wrong. That six weeks after the Tour de France kicked off in Dublin, the reputation of the sport would be in shreds. And that the shadow of the syringe would threaten not only Pat McQuaid’s plans and aspirations, and not only cycling, but each and every professional sport across the globe.

The scandals of the 1998 Tour are a gut-wretching shame, for cycling is a fantastic sport. My earliest memories of following it go back to 1986, to the images of a mud-splattered, bone-shakingly masochistic race held on the cobblestones of northern France. Back then Kelly was King and the champion was revered in his home country; there were acres of newsprint dedicated to the efforts of the world’s top rider. Any Irish success was big news – this was before The Joshua Tree catapulted U2 to the top of the international charts, before Jack Charlton took the Irish soccer squad and hammered it into some semblance of a winning side. Ireland still had an inferiority complex, and our cycling heroics held the country riveted to the television screen.

One of these awe-struck spectators was a small, skinny teenager who, along with his father, watched Kelly in the 1986 Paris-Roubaix race. Coming to the end of that torturous classic, regarded as perhaps the most prestigious one-day race on the professional calendar, the native of Carrick on Suir was clear with three others. Behind, the cream of world cycling were devastated and beaten. The victory rested with one of these four. And when Kelly saw the line, when he rose from the saddle and kicked for home, the acceleration was a formidable thing which carried him clear to one of the most powerful wins of his career.

For the teenager in question, the effect was immediate. The old bike was hauled from the shed, scrubbed down and taken to the roads. Thus the beginning of a love affair with the sport which would fuel obsession, dedication and hundreds of fruitless training rides in an attempt to emulate Kelly, and one year later, Stephen Roche. Paris-Roubaix was the goal, but even more so was the Tour de France and the dream of being part of it all one day.

Twelve years on, that dream has been realised. Well, to a point. The small skinny teenager has become a marginally taller, still-skinny adult, that old pig-iron bike has been replaced by a faster, lighter machine and many miles have passed beneath those narrow-section wheels. But at a point somewhere along the way it became clear that the legs would never realise the ambitions of a fanciful head. No matter. For in one of those peculiar twists of fate, the pen became mightier than the bike and that coveted, cherished Tour accreditation was obtained. I was there.

It was like Christmas arriving five months early, like seven numbers coming up on a Saturday night. The grin lit up the whole of Dublin Castle when that press pass was handed over, and it took hours for that tingling spine to return to normal. From that point onwards, things really took off. Being waved through all the checkpoints (Tour security is unbelievably tight), rubbing shoulders with former winners and shoving a microphone under the noses of those two Irish role models – things couldn’t have been much better.

Now, a couple of weeks after the end of the race, the memories are evening out. Much as a prospector who filters out precious yellow grains from the sand which passes through his pan, time is starting to reveal the nuggets which will remain from that three week rollercoaster ride. A few spring instantly to mind: driving in the race cavalcade on the first stage through Wicklow, dangling out the window of the car and interacting with the huge crowds en route. Weaving through the same publicity cavalcade each day, and murdering the French language in my attempts to beg yet another cotton race cap while moving at fifty miles an hour. Attending the Village du Depart each morning, where free breakfast, the Credit Lyonnais girls and the riders of the peloton all competed for attention.

The racing was pretty good too. The opening week was notable for victories by the specialist sprinters, and the opportunists willing to risk all on a long-distance breakaway. Defending champion Jan Ullrich stamped his authority on the Tour with victory in the 58 kilometre individual time-trial from Meyrignac l’Eglise to Correze, while the mountains of the Pyrennes and Alps provided the expected mixture of suspense, pain, heroism, dramatic crashes, and explosive racing. Here, pre-race favourites Abraham Olano, Laurent Jalabert and Bjarne Riis wilted, while Ullrich, American Bobby Julich and Italian Marco Pantani illustrated their class. Especially Pantani.

It was the fourth Tour for the featherweight, goatee-wearing, shaven-headed Italian and he was simply superb, in the end carving out an extraordinary victory. Fresh (although he claimed otherwise) from an overall win in the Giro d’Italia, Pantani kept a low profile for the first ten days of the race. An anonymous ride in the Dublin prologue, where he placed eighth from last, time spent lurking at the rear of the bunch on the flat stages and a modest 33rd place in the Meyrignac l’Eglise – Correze time trial, lulled many into the belief that the Giro had taken too much out of the 57 kilogram rider. How wrong we were.

For when the road kicked skywards on the stages to Luchon, Plateau de Beille and Les Deux Alpes, ‘The Pirate’ was unstoppable. Rocketing clear from the best climbers in the peloton, Pantani danced on the pedals as only the true mountain goat can and, each time, opened a decisive lead on those who struggled to follow. It was a return to the days of Frederico Bahamontes, Charly Gaul, Lucien Van Impe and Fausto Coppi; great climbers who would humiliate others with their ability to scamper up hills faster than everyone else. And what hills – the Col du Galibier, which featured on the road to Les Deux Alpes, is three times longer and five times higher than the Wicklow Gap, which featured on the Dublin stage. Even driving these monstrous climbs was a humbling experience.

Such is the Tour de France. Man against man, certainly, but it is also a test of man’s resilience in the face of searing temperatures, lashing rain, extreme distances and some of the hardest, most muscle straining terrain imaginable. If the Tour needed a motto, a variation of the old reliable would be ideal: Bigger, Faster, Harder, Hillier.

Unfortunately, also Dirtier. The 1998 race will not be remembered for its start in Ireland, nor for Pantani’s dominating ride to become the first Italian victor in 33 years. Instead it will be remembered for a succession of drug scandals which contaminated the race and threatened to cancel the event for the first time since World War Two.

The rot started three days before Le Grand Depart, with the arrest of Festina soigneur (helper/masseur) Willy Voet. A car full of performance-enhancing drugs: the tremors ran right through the Tour entourage. Most observers of the race probably suspected that doping was commonplace, not just in cycling but in all top-level sports. Going to the Alps last year as a spectator was a trying time; the general consensus among followers of the sport was that most of the riders were charging up. At the stage start in Bourg d’Oisan we found ourselves looking for unnatural behaviour, dilated pupils and wondering at those impressive muscles. It was a confusing, unsettling experience, but no proof existed to fuel the suspicions and we reverted back to being wide-eyed, innocent fans.

But this year was different. And sadder. The Festina affair changed things. Last year I was on the outside looking in, this year I watched the fanatical spectators who gathered at the stage starts and envied their innocence. For becoming one of the journalists on the Tour meant an end to the glamour, an end to the adulation. They say the death of your heroes is when you meet them, and I guess it’s true.

I bumped into Stephen Roche in the sanctuary of the Village du Depart in Cholet, on a dark damp morning on July 16th. My childhood idol was friendly, chatty. But as we talked, he became serious and told me of the press conference scheduled for that morning. It would, he said, relate to the Festina squad and he expected them to be thrown off the Tour. Concern was written all over his face – Roche loved the sport, hated the effect that the doping scandal would have. Those blue eyes became sad, as he said something which proved to be prophetic. “Hopefully it will clean up the whole scene. But it will get worse before it gets better.”

I desperately wanted him to tell me otherwise, to prolong the illusion, but deep down I knew it was true. And over the next two and a half weeks the majesty of the Tour de France unravelled around us. Festina’s exclusion from the race the following evening; the admission of the riders that they had used drugs; the revelation that they were not alone in doing so. The suspicion concerning the TVM squad. Their detention by police for four hours in order to take hair, blood and urine samples. The two days of striking by the peloton. The withdrawal of six teams. The arrest of the king of the mountains Rudolfo Massi. The changing mood in the press room. The change within myself as I realised I was losing interest in the race. The final loss of wide-eyed innocence.

Six weeks ago I was euphoric upon receiving the accreditation to work on the race. What was it I said? Ah, like Christmas had arrived five months early. In ways the three weeks on the race were a fabulous experience; the scenery was superb, the spectators enthusiastic, the craic was good. But thinking back to the scandals, the suspicion, the second rider’s strike, something has changed inside. Sport, not just cycling, but sport in general seems different. More a business. More cynical. Less honest.

It is easy, now, to imagine people dismissing cycling as a druggie sport. Hundreds of thousands stood by the side of the road, provided a human corridor of noise and encouragement when the Tour started here. The fear is that those who reacted as Pat McQuaid hoped, those who saw the beauty of the sport, will now be turned off by the rot made apparent in the past few weeks. But to blame the riders is to miss the point; cycling is not alone in having such a problem.

Athletics, swimming, football – every sport is involved. For as long as the lure of money and pressure from sponsors combine with ineffective testing, sportsmen and women will be tempted to stray. One can only hope that the lessons of the 1998 Tour de France will be learned across the board. That changes will be made, solutions found.

And, that someday soon it will be possible to reclaim the innocence enjoyed by that skinny teenager who marvelled at the images of the 1986 Paris-Roubaix race. Most of all, I wish for that.

The drug scandal that shook the Tour De France

On July the 8th, three days before the Dublin prologue, Festina team soigneur Willy Voet is stopped while driving a marked team car across the Franco-Belgian border. When examined by customs officials, the vehicle is found to contain large quantities of Erythropoeitin (EPO), a blood-boosting performance-enhancing drug, along with human growth hormone and steroids. The Directeur Sportif (manager) of the squad, Bruno Roussel, strenuously denies any knowledge of Voet’s activities, but is taken away for questioning one week later, after the soigneur states he acted on team orders.

The riders of the squad, including last year’s runner-up Richard Virenque, current world champion Laurent Brochard and two time Tour of Spain winner Alex Zuelle deny any wrongdoing. But Roussel then cracks under interrogation and, on July 17th, admits to systematic doping within the team. The nine riders are thrown off the race, with a devastated Virenque in tears. They too are brought in for questioning, and amid allegations of police maltreatment, seven of them admit to doping.

Three of the riders, Armin Meier, Alex Zulle and Laurent Dufaux, later testify to the widespread use of EPO and other substances within the peloton. Roussel and team doctor Erik Rijkaert are charged with importing and distributing banned products.

On July 23rd, the Director Sportif and team doctor of another squad, the Dutch TVM formation are arrested following the revelation that a quantity of EPO was discovered in one of their team cars last March. The team hotel is raided and cortico-steroids and masking agents are also discovered. The following day the peloton stages the first of two ‘strikes’, protesting at what is described as excessive coverage of the drugs issue by the media. “The Tour de France, and with it the riders has been relegated to second place,” states world number one rider Laurent Jalabert. “We have been treated like idiots, so we are going to ride like idots.” The cyclists take an hour and a half to cover ten miles.

On Saturday July 25th, a meeting is held between International Cycling Union (UCI) vice-president Daniel Baal and riders’ representatives, and it is decided to reconvene at the end of the season to discuss the doping situation. A set of health tests, believed to include analysis of hair and blood samples is agreed to, but will not be introduced until 1999. Three days later, the six remaining TVM riders in the race are taken to hospital by the police in Albertville, where hair, blood and urine samples are taken in an effort to establish proof of doping. The riders are not returned to their hotel until after midnight. They protest strongly at the disruption to the normal post-race routine of shower, massage and feeding, a regime which is regarded as essential for an event as difficult as the Tour de France.

The following day the peloton stages its second strike, and Laurent Jalabert, his Once team-mates, along with the Banesto and Riso Scotti squads, all abandon the race in protest at what is termed “scandalous” police behaviour. The remainder of the peloton ride at a neutral pace to the stage-end in Aix Les Bains, arriving two hours behind schedule. That evening two more squads, Kelme and Vitalicio, pull out, while the police detain the director sportifs of the Casino and Francaise des Jeux squads.

The king of the mountains, Rodolfo Massi, is also detained, while the following day Once team doctor Nicolas Terrados is taken into custody. Both are charged on July 31st, Massi with the sale and distribution of banned drugs and Terrados with their supply. They deny the charges. The five remaining TVM riders withdraw from the race, due to “mental exhaustion”.

l The day after the Tour’s finale on the Champs Elysees, Terrados calls a press conference to state that he had “never utilised anything that would compromise the health of the riders”. The Once doctor claims that the substances concerned were asthma medication for Manolo Saiz, the team manager. Saiz himself announces that the team would be withdrawing from three French races in protest at the events of the Tour. Meanwhile, Heinz Verbruggen, the head of the UCI announces that hair strand tests will be introduced in an attempt to eliminate doping. He vows to resign if it emerges that drug taking is commonplace throughout the peloton.

As we go to press: Four Italian riders have been thrown out of the Tour of Portugal on grounds of suspected EPO use, while the winner of the recent San Sebastian classic, Francesco Casagrande, is reported to have been fired from the Confidis team for failing a drugs test. Ironically, several of the Festina riders ejected from the Tour de France, who have admitted to doping, continue to race without sanction. Meanwhile a meeting has been held between the representatives of professional cyclists and the UCI to discuss measures to eliminate drug use in the sport.