Tour radio: When things get exciting, like on the 9th stage when the second Pogacar (left) attacked Vingeggard in yellow, the information goes straight from the motorcycle to the head of Radio Tour.
Photo: imago/Panoramic
In front of your seat in the car you can see a kind of mixer with different buttons. What are they for?
We have different channels. The red button here is used to communicate with the management, i.e. mainly with tour boss Christian Prudhomme, who is in the number 1 car, while I am in the car of race director and route planner Thierry Gouvenou, which is always placed directly behind the peloton. Christian, on the other hand, is ahead of us, either in front of the field or just behind a breakaway. The yellow button is the tour radio itself. When I turn it on, the sports directors in the teams’ escort vehicles hear me, as does everyone else in the escort column. Journalists who have these receivers also hear it. And employees at the organizer Aso’s headquarters in Paris can now also listen in. The technology has developed over the past few years.
Exactly, I remember, in the first few years that I was at the Tour de France, the radio range was often only 40 kilometers long. If you were too far away from the peloton, you couldn’t hear anything anymore.
Yes, it has gotten better over time. Then we have two more buttons. The green one is used for communication between the racing jury. The head of the race commissioners from the world cycling association is also in the car with us. And he uses this channel to keep in touch with his colleagues who follow the race in the other vehicles. And the last button is very important for me. Because it connects me to three motorcycles that are at different points in the race. One is usually at the front of the peloton. Because from our position directly behind the field, I can’t see very well what’s going on up front. The other two bikes attach themselves to escape groups and chasing groups. In a way, they are my eyes.
This explains how you can see from your car behind the peloton what’s going on in front or even how breakaway groups are composed.
It wouldn’t be possible without my six other eyes on the motorbikes either. And down here I have another foot pedal. If I step on it, I can speak and the recipients of the selected channel hear me.
What is your most important task during the race?
The most important thing is to inform the sports directors in the column behind me. If a racer wants food, for example, he raises his hand and I inform the relevant team vehicle to come forward. The same procedure applies in the event of a defect. And if someone falls, I say so immediately so that our race doctors and the appropriate team vehicle can come to the scene of the accident immediately. But I also give information about the race, who is in the breakaway groups, what the distances are between the groups, who scored which points in the sprint and mountain classifications. And I also pass on this information when special dangers arise, for example due to a particularly tight bend or a poorly parked car on the side of the road.
How is the relationship with the sports directors? Are they above all grateful because they get all this information, which is sometimes the only information when the TV picture fails again or when radio communication with their own athletes is difficult to understand? Or are they sometimes angry, because it’s you who allows them or doesn’t allow them to drive forward and sometimes calls the escort vehicles to order. Is there tension there?
No, the relationship is good. It’s also gotten a lot tighter over the years. Most people know me, especially my voice, and there have never been any problems. And what you’re talking about, the announcements about the positions in the convoy, doesn’t come from me either. It’s the race officials who decide that. I’m just conveying that. There is no reason for conflict at all.
How flexible are the regulations as to when an escort vehicle may be behind a breakaway group? It’s always said, from a minute. But that also depends on the profile, right?
The rule states that escort vehicles may follow a group from a distance of one minute. But then it’s up to the jury to decide if that makes sense. The profile is a criterion, as is how quickly a lead can melt away again. The size of the group is also important. When 20 men from maybe 15 different teams are in front, the motorcade gets too big. Then you have to wait until the gap is two or even three minutes.
How did you get into Radio Tour in the first place? Do you also have a career as a racing driver behind you, like many here at race organizer Aso?
No. I don’t come from a cycling family either. I used to work at Eurosport, then I was a freelancer and also worked at the Paris-Dakar Rally. When John Lelangue left the voice of Radio Tour because he was going to the Phonak racing team, the Aso called me. I jumped in and started with the Tour of Qatar. Apparently that went well. Since then I’ve been doing tour radio.
Were there particularly beautiful or particularly dramatic moments?
Interview
Sebastien Piquet is the voice of the Tour de France. For 19 years he has been telling the sports directors via Radio Tour when a driver has a defect, when someone has fallen and when drinking bottles and energy bars should be ready to be handed over.
The good thing is I have bad memory. I really forget a lot. And that leads to the fact that I look forward to every new Tour de France as if it were my first. But sure, last year was special when we combined the yellow, white and green jerseys in a breakaway group in the mountains – Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar and Wout van Aert. It’s rare on the Tour that the point jersey wearer is so far ahead in the mountains.
