He was an assassin; a murderer of dreams.
And because of that, they hated him.
His name was Jacques Anquetil, the first
man to win the Tour de France five times, and this is
his story- or at least part of it. It is a story worth
knowing since it has more to do with modern cycling
than many of you may imagine. It is a strange story
of a man persecuted for his honesty and candor, and
because he refused to lower himself to the level of
a showmen dressed as an athlete. Anquetil suffered from
the stigma of being non-sensational, being good at what
he did, and being a little too honest about all of it.
This was in the days before media coaches and internet
and “Just Do It” commercials.
It was 1957. France continued to recover
from the war of wars. Their national identity was frail
and scared. As a nation, they clung to their icons for
healing power. The Tour de France, Le Tour, was one
of those icons that exerted a soothing effect on the
national ego. As a metaphor for the struggle that was
the Nazi invasion of France the Tour defined one man’s
desperate struggle against overwhelming opponents: Mountains,
time trials, foul weather and the frail nature of human
endurance. The French could enjoy the pastoral setting
of Le Tour from the roadside and on black and white
TV’s, hoping for a French victor to rise above
impossible odds in some flamboyant struggle- a cycling
metaphor for France’s national struggle in the
war.
Anquetil, as I’ve said, won Le Tour
five times. It was not his victories the French held
in contempt, it was his methods and his demeanor. The
organizers had envisioned a clash of gladiators in the
natural arena on the field of honor, but Anquetil reduced
it to a computation. Just as an assassin engages his
target with calculating detachment from a distance,
Anquetil would only strike when the odds favored him
and his adversaries could be singled out. He refused
to contest the race man to man in the mountain passes
or on the roads between the battlefields of France.
Instead, he administered a somewhat anonymous Coupe
de Grace during the time trials, he would euthanize
his opponents with the stop watch. And like a man who
takes life through a rifle scope from a mile away, Anquetil
was feared and despised, and he never got his hands
bloody.
His opponents would try all means of countermeasures:
They tried to lose him on dangerous descents; they attacked
him with volley after volley of accelerations. Entire
teams- and then combines of teams- leveled their best
rouleurs against Anquetil and his lieutenants. Anquetil
would sometimes falter under these fusillades of massed
aggression, but alone against the watch he was resplendent
and unbeatable. He picked his battles. Like a lone sniper
against a legion of soldiers, he would simply fade into
obscurity during the mass stages, but stalk his adversary
with ruthless cunning during the time trials. In the
mountains Anquetil would not square off against his
opponents mano-a-mano, but against the cruel, sterile
judgment of the stopwatch there was no quarter, no drama
and no where to hide.
It was when each man faced the stopwatch
alone that Anquetil would strike. With the cool detachment
of a surgeon he would amputate seconds from their lead-
just enough to contain the damage- no more. It was all
too antiseptic for the French public, and they assailed
the assassin with criticism.
Anquetil earned the rancor of France because
of his reserve and nonchalance. He never outwardly exhibited
panache, never won with a flurry or a salute. It was
all quiet, all calculated. After one event Anquetil
won by a scant five seconds a reporter asked him what
he thought of his thin margin. He coolly replied, “It
was four seconds too much.”
It was his candor that fostered the French
disdain for Anquetil. He was open about his motives;
they were entirely mercenary. Anquetil asserted repeatedly
that he only raced for money, and only raced hard enough
to win- no more. In fact, Anquetil’s dynasty only
toppled when threatened by an adversary with an entirely
different motive, the monster Eddie Merckx. For Merckx,
winning had little to do with money but everything to
do with pride. Anquetil was not subject to the temptations
of ego. He simply punched a clock like a dock worker.
Merckx, on the other hand, took every attack, every
challenge on the bike as a personal affront. Anquetil
could not have cared less as long as the checks cashed.
Anquetil was also open about using performance
enhancing drugs. He did not hide the fact, and once
said, “… it is impossible to win on mineral
water alone.” He defended the rider’s privilege
to use what “medicines” he needed to “treat”
himself. After setting the hour record, one of several
record setting rides, he refused a drug test on grounds
that it was not dignified or professional. His record
was disallowed and he was banished from the French National
Cycling Team, never to be reinstated. The affair resulted
in fisticuffs between his manager and French officials
and may have changed the face of cycling forever. Anquetil
tried to make what was happening the accepted norm,
or at least, to not conceal it. The other top professionals
saw him crucified in the press for it, and they took
note. The use of performance enhancing drugs became
a professional confidentiality.
Much has been written about who the original
“innovator”, the first rider to cleverly
employ technology as a weapon against his opponents,
was. Some suggest it was the American, LeMond, who used
carbon fiber frames, aerodynamic handlebars, plastic
sunglasses and even cyclocomputers to consolidate his
victories. Some say that Hinault and Merckx were the
ultimate technicians. But it was Anquetil who preceded
them all, and in a way, suffered the torments of a man
who won the race in a most unpopular way thus paving
the way for a new era of riders who all employed technology
to fortify their natural talents- one way or another.
In a way, drugs or not, there must be respect for Anquetil’s
openness. He did not make commercials or declare his
“innocence”. He was pragmatic about what
he did, and made no bones about it. He could have changed
the sport for the better. But instead, others saw what
happened to him and it changed for the worse.
To Jacques Anquetil, no piece of minutiae
was too small. In time trial stages he occasionally
raced without handlebar wrap to save weight. His wool
race uniforms were tailored especially tight in some
vague acknowledgement of aerodynamics. He employed enormous
cranks- in one instance a special one hundred eighty-eight
millimeter crank- to maximize pedaling leverage. His
pedaling style was oddly toes-down, a precursor to the
powerful mashing styles of Merckx, Hinault and LeMond.
He would use special tires encased in silk and said
to reduce rolling resistance. No detail was left unattended
to.
Along with his methods Anquetil had the
misfortune of history against him. Three decades before
a precise, calculating adversary had run rampant across
France and conquered with an antiseptic detachment.
Anquetil was a little too blonde, a little too antiseptic,
and a little too… superior. This nearly Aryan
countenance did not sit well with the French. It may
have worked in Anquetil’s favor on the race course,
but he was no darling to the fans. Instead, the French
revered the somewhat bumbling, often victim of Anquetil’s
precision, the decidedly less dashing Raymond “Pooh-pooh”
Poulidor.
Poulidor was deified by the French as
the hapless victim of Anquetil’s cold calculation.
He has been remembered as the “eternal second”
and his palmares reads as a weird list of seconds and
thirds, most them behind Anquetil. The rivalry extended
to the very moment of Anquetil’s death in 1987.
In a bizarre episode Poulidor was visiting Anquetil
on his death bed. During the visit Anquetil proclaimed
to Pooh-pooh, “You see Raymond, I shall beat you
once again…” Anquetil succumbed the next
day- passing into the afterlife before Poulidor. Anquetil
would finish second only to the stomach cancer that
claimed him.
Another aspect of Anquetil’s methods
that galled the French was his social habits. Anquetil
cut a dashing figure off the bike. His slim build and
gaunt face combined with his quiet demeanor made him
an enigmatic figure. He was said to play cards and drink
alcohol. While other cyclists maintained a strict regimen
Anquetil was a playboy, dining on lamb and drinking
champagne during the race season. He made it look too
easy, and he didn't’t hide the fact. The women
swooned.
Anquetil retired from cycling in 1969
during the ascendancy of Eddy Merckx, another story
altogether. He became a pastoral character as a farmer
and husband. His approach to retirement was the same
as cycling, simple, open, honest and unremarkable.
Anquetil is a notable character
in the long list of characters in cycling not because
of the tragic poetry of his victims or the precision
and calculation of his victories. He is notable because
of his innovations in attitude, technology, tactics
and preparation. His story is an important one since
it contrasts so starkly against an attitude of accommodation,
pageantry and window dressing that has consumed modern
cycling. We could have learned a lot from Anquetil or
made better choices with what we did learn. The problem
was (or is), an assassin seldom makes a good example
and honesty is so often subordinated to sensation.
