July 23, 1989. I finished my time trial – 15 miles from Versailles to the Champs-Elysées in Paris. I know the road from the beginning to the Seine from my amateur days at ACBB and the rest from previous Tours de France: mostly downhill, decent underground and a couple of underpasses that slow you down a bit. The hardest part is the climb to the curve on the Champs-Elysées, which we do in the opposite direction.
I’m trying to hold onto my place over Sean Kelly at GC so I’ll put a ’54 outer ring on the Lo-Pro bike and do a decent warm-up. After setting out, I don’t feel well, but I seem to be riding fast on the descents and on the flat spots along the river. The only time I change gears is climbing out of the underpasses, but I never go any deeper than the 15-sprocket so I pretend I can’t do it badly.
When I cross the line, Thierry Marie has the best time and I’ve lost a few minutes which, given my abilities, I’m not that disappointed with. As the French would say I was in my place… I was at the expected place.
A few people in front of me come and go while I hang around at the finish, waiting for Laurent Fignon to come down the famous cobblestones of the Arc de Triomphe and be crowned victor. It is an odd thing to end a three week tour with individual effort and not be surrounded by your fellow travelers. So I take in the atmosphere as best I can, even though my limbs hurt.
Then rumors began to circulate about Greg LeMond: he flies, crouches in his triathlon position and drives like a train. In contrast, Fignon struggles with his bike.
A muffled silence comes over the space behind the finish line. LeMond is racing down the hill and Daniel Mangeas announces best time for the American and at a record speed. Three minutes and a little faster than me seems ridiculous, but what is even more amazing is that Fignon is on the verge of losing victory if he sprints with all he has.
There’s a countdown as he approaches and then a roar from the collection of hangers, partners, healer, Journalists and race directors who make up the crowd according to the goal. I know I have goosebumps. Greg wins, Laurent loses and everyone’s heads are in an uproar.
20th September 2020. The task for Tadej Pogačar looks insurmountable; Taking almost a minute from race director Primož Roglič is a dream. It’s more likely that he’ll lose that much, considering how the older Slovenian controlled the race and responded to the 21-year-old’s attacks. If they were racehorses then Roglič is definitely in the superior form and you won’t get much of a chance of another Jumbo Visma stage win with the bookies.
Predictably, Wout van Aert set the fastest time, then Tom Dumoulin beats her and the yellow hazards seem to have everything under control. Once again.
Pogačar starts and I can hear the first line from The Who’s Father O’Riley play… Out here in the fields I fight for my meals. It always reminds me of Flanders for some reason.
The UAE Emirates driver’s best young driver’s white jersey is little different from his team kit, and he looks powerful when going at 60 km / h on the flatter part of the track. Two minutes later on the road, Roglič steps into a lower gear, hardly slows down, but still slower, and there could be a race. That wasn’t in the jumbo plan, that’s for sure.
The murmuring starts in the press room; that could be close. These can be Fignon and LeMond – seconds instead of minutes. Someone mentioned that stage bonuses could be the deciding factor. All contingencies are suddenly on the table again as Roglič tries to stabilize the gap, but it grows and Pogačar does not slow down. The quick start theory to scare its rival seems to be just that – a theory. Perhaps the race director has been saving himself for the last 6 km to the Planche des Belles Filles since the 9th stage. Maybe that’s as stupid a theory as scaring him into getting too hard.
The last proper climb of the 2020 tour is beginning and the UAE are doing a relatively average bike change in time for Pogačar – not the fastest, but not the slowest. Mountain classification is at stake between Richard Carapaz and Pogačar of Ineos Grenadiers, so the lighter, better-known road machine makes a difference, although there are some awkward moments to adapt to different driving characteristics.
Three minutes later, Roglič also has a bike change, a little further up the mountain, and it’s a much faster affair that takes longer. Panic has set in. The 30-second defeat against Pogačar turns 40 immediately, and he is still driving away while Roglič turns a comparatively tiny gear ratio. One of them is walking forward and one looks like it is standing still.
Moments later, the virtual GC flashes on the screen and Roglič’s 57-second lead has been eaten up by his only rival, and anyone who watches knows that history is being made here.
Until the finish line, Dumoulin and Van Aerts opened their mouths – this time not because of oxygen debts, but because of the realization that Primož Roglič’s bad day came on stage when they least expected it. All these miles in the wind, under control, safe, focused, dedicated, commanding, and they were attacked by a child.
Pogačar wins the stage, the dotted jersey, the white jersey and the overall title of the Tour de France. The UAE did the unthinkable and achieved four stage wins and three jersey classifications – and all of this by a team that was neither a GC squad nor a sprinter paradise.
As their sporting director Allan Peiper mentioned a few days earlier, they are aware that they need to strengthen the squad to support Pogačar in the years to come. Hopefully there will soon be another super team fighting with Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers.
There aren’t many people who won a Tour de France on their first visit – and even fewer who won multiple jerseys. Eddy Merckx comes to mind, but these are different times with more information and a calculated approach. This is precisely why the goosebumps associated with watching Tadel Pogačar are all the more exciting.
