Laurent Jalabert’s 1995 is one of the most brutal campaigns ever seen
I have recovered an old conversation with Laurent Jalabert on his birthday, 55 years of one of the most loved and admired cyclists that I have been lucky enough to enjoy.
It was a talk about one of the best seasons that we have undoubtedly witnessed individually because if you ask Jalabert for a headline about the year 1995 it is clear: “I wanted to win everything.”
So let’s get to the heart of our conversation, we consider that Laurent Jalabert’s 1995 season has been the best season by a cyclist in the last 30 years…
“That sounds strong”
If we look since then, perhaps Philippe Gilbert approached you in 2011 and Alejandro Valverde in some campaign, for example in 2008, but little more.
You face that year very conditioned by two events from the previous campaign…
How did that victory in the Lakes of Covadonga influence Laurent Jalabert?
«Let’s see, I was running away with many minutes and without great pressure. However, those days he was brimming with confidence. The kilometers went by and people stayed until Roberto Torres and I could endure. He attacked me many times, but I held on and won on top. At that moment it was like playing the lottery, but he told me that I could do other things »
Until now you were labeled as a great sprinter…
«Yes, but that victory changed my way of seeing things»
And then the fall in the first stage of the Tour
«It was brutal, after that fall cycling took a backseat, I was only interested in being a person again. I was 24 years old and I went through very difficult times. It was not easy to get excited again, to be a cyclist, to lose the fear of those circumstances, in fact I began to think about competing in a different way, to not get involved in those massive and dangerous finishes, to seek success in sprints in larger groups. little ones. Until now I had enjoyed the easy life of a sprinter, who is on the wheel all day and the pressure appears only at the end, when it is time to compete.
What change do you experience?
«I am becoming more aggressive and complete»
First lap of your sporting career, a true Paris-Nice
«It was a key victory. He planned a long getaway with Vladislav Bobrik. I remember that he punctured 40 minutes from the finish line and I managed to get myself psyched up to go to the end alone «
A turning point
«From that day on I saw myself capable of anything»
1995 season, after the fall of the Tour and its recovery, after the loss of the Lagos, what objective did Laurent Jalabert have at the beginning?
«I had the will to show that I wanted to be a cyclist, both to myself and to others. He had no time to waste »
What role does Manolo Saiz play?
«It is key, even as a cyclist he insisted that it was useful for many other things. I remember that while I was still a Toshiba cyclist, he approached me one day and told me that I saw those legs in a Vuelta a España «
Premonitory
«You see, he believed in me more than I did. In the first races, ONCE worked for me and lost their wheel, or was in another part of the group, Manolo convinced me that if they worked like that it was because they believed in me, but I evaded responsibility.
What role does the head play in all this?
“It’s the key. Sometimes the point between defeat and victory lies in the head. I remember stages in which they pushed me to the limit, but I found a loophole to accelerate and show me that the other was worse than me.
I have always thought that the head was Laurent Jalabert’s great asset
«I had moments of everything, moments in which I flew and others that were more complicated»
After Paris-Nice, you aim for Milan-San Remo…
«I had every idea, I always thought that San Remo was my classic. For years, after the end of Paris-Nice, I stayed around the area, preparing and inspecting the finish, when it was rarer to happen then, planning every step. That day Maurizio Fondriest took out my eyes at the Poggio, he attacked just twenty meters before I had planned it. When he started, he caught me right behind his wheel »
What are those Poggio meters and the descent to San Remo like?
«Fondriest was very nervous, looking back all the time. On the descent I felt confident on his wheel and I ended up winning the sprint »
Why didn’t you ever like cobblestones?
«I already discovered them at Toshiba, when I was very young and it was hard, then I arrived at ONCE, a team in which there was no culture in those careers. We went as an obligation. I competed for a year in Flanders and ended up exhausted, you never know where you are, what you have left, it’s dizzying and that uncertainty takes away the strength that you need later.”
The Walloon Arrow is something else…
«It was a race that was going like a glove, that finish in Huy was perfect. “I arrived at the base escaping with Berzin and Fondriest.”
What happened in that Liege?
«I was overconfident, I was a little arrogant. The team controlled and controlled but with 100 kilometers to go I was exhausted, so I decided to take the risk on my own. I caught the escapees and eighty from the finish line I decided to attack. I ended up dead and the rivals were not just anyone, from Armstrong, Bugno and Bartoli to Gianetti who ended up winning.
Rest and Return to Catalunya, another one on the way
«Melcior was key to winning the race. We ran around his house, he knew everything inside out »
And the Tour arrives
«Curiously, I had never been very good at it. In 1992 I got the green jersey but I always had the feeling it was a race in which I failed, for whatever reason, plus there was the crash the previous year.
For a Frenchman, the Tour is not easy?
«There is enormous pressure from the press, you can’t imagine it, and then there was my confidence, which was not always the best»
But that ’95 Tour turned out tremendous
«I wanted a stage and green, those were the objectives»
What happened to you during the Liege stage?
«I was badly placed. We were on the straight and Indurain did what he had never done before, attack. He didn’t need that, he had a power in the chronos that allowed him not to attack, but that day he did and he caught me behind. When I moved to the front of the group he had already gone ahead with Johan (Bruyneel)«
However those days you flew
«In that Tour I had legs capable of anything, that’s the truth»
Mende, D-day, what do you think they call the place Montée Laurent Jalabert?
«If I’m honest I don’t really care, maybe it would have made sense to call it that the following year but…»
After the Tour, the Vuelta, what a Vuelta…
“We went with an idea, that ONCE would win the Vuelta, it didn’t matter who with”
We want to comment on two stages of an edition revised a thousand times, first Ávila
«It was not planned. At one point we said go all out and it worked out well for us. I escaped with Roberto Pistore until I was alone, while the team kept an eye on Abraham Olano, the main rival, from behind.
And Sierra Nevada…
«Then I had already won several stages. The tactic was to take the group together and if in the last thousand meters I looked good, try to get a few more seconds for the general classification. Bert Dietz -who escaped that day- led us three minutes to two from the finish line. When I started at the end, he was convinced that he didn’t get it, but… »
You caught him, what made you let him win the stage?
«When I passed the Telekom car I saw such a disappointed look on the driver’s face that I decided to get behind him and encourage him to sprint, there was nothing left, one hundred meters»
Olano casi the pilla from behind
«Yes, it was very little. The truth is that I didn’t have time to think about it, it came out that way at that moment.”
Why didn’t you go to the World Cup in Colombia?
«I finished the Vuelta exhausted, I had never maintained that level of stress for three weeks. I also had knee pain since the Vuelta stage in Luz Ardiden that had left me very affected, I even feared losing the race.
Did you see that World Cup?
«Yes, I was on vacation and I saw it. In those moments I came to the conclusion that my place was there, in Colombia, competing. It was a mistake not to have gone, without a doubt I would have had my options.
25 years have passed since all that…
«I’m not much for looking at the past, especially on days like today, when I think about the future before anything. When I think about that year, great memories come to mind, it was a very exciting part of my life.”
That year no one has managed to match it since then
«It’s just that you think about it and it’s very difficult to repeat it. Great seasons came to me after that one, but none at that level.”
A para ese holder 1995 by Laurent Jalabert
“I wanted to win everything”
Of the 139 victories he achieved, 22 were in 1995.
2023-12-01 23:33:07
#years #passed #premiere #Indurain #time #trial
