We Were Young and Carefree (18 page)

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Authors: Laurent Fignon

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I had a different problem. By the time Guimard came and told me ‘Go now’ it was too late to take the stage win. Herrera had too big a lead to be overtaken; he hung on by just forty-nine seconds and deprived me of the most prestigious stage win in the Tour. That evening I pulled on the yellow jersey a happy man: that was my goal. But could I ever have imagined back then that I would never in my entire life manage to win at l’Alpe d’Huez? Guimard’s excessive caution had done me out of it. In life, just as in sport, you must never ever let an opportunity go.
At the end of the afternoon on Jacques Chancel’s chat show the little incident with Hinault became a minor controversy. The journalist asked me this: ‘How did you feel when Hinault attacked at the foot of the Alpe?’
Without thinking twice I made the day even crueller for my former leader by answering: ‘When I saw him going up the road like that, I had to laugh.’
All I was doing was telling the truth. The truth and nothing but the truth. I wasn’t being deliberately unpleasant, but everyone thought I was laughing at Hinault. That simply wasn’t it, not in the slightest. I had absolutely no intention of being disrespectful, rather the opposite. Why would I have wanted to do that, to him of all people? Hinault, a man of honour, had understood exactly what I meant and he never made anything out of it. He just moved on. And in any case, as it happened we did speak to each other: we were engaged in a straight fight, with nothing done behind anyone’s back. There was no chance of that because neither of us was good at double dealing.
That evening at the hotel in l’Alpe d’Huez the new yellow jersey on my back didn’t change anything in the way I behaved. One of the riders on the team had pulled an ‘unofficial’ Miss France – with a rather different judging panel compared to the regular contest – and he needed my room to spend the evening with her. I never thought twice about leaving him the keys. I provided him with an alibi by telling Guimard, who was looking all over for him, that he had spent the evening with two journalists. It was a lie, and Guimard knew it.
On the stage between Bourg d’Oisans and La Plagne I broke everyone’s hearts on the final climb. I broke away, without getting out of the saddle. I simply flexed my lower back and no one was on my wheel any more. It was almost too easy. Such a feeling of domination might have turned my head. I was playing with the race: there was no other term to describe it. That very morning in
L’Equipe
, Bernard Tapie stated ‘I want Fignon!’ Two days later in a press conference I had the courage to say this though: ‘Next year, I may go back to being nobody. What happened last year was a dream. This year I am not as surprised by what is happening, so it feels different.’
Hearing me come out with statements like this, a lot of people felt that I had become big-headed. That was ridiculous. I just wasn’t going to come out with platitudes. But I noticed day by day that trying to be honest about things simply rebounded on me. The more I let myself go, with complete peace of mind, without any second thoughts, the more unpleasant things were written about me. But I was trying to be confident and modest, because on the same day I came up with: ‘Am I becoming “one of the greats”? I have no idea. But what I do know is that all good things come to an end. Look at Hinault, he’s won almost every big race. Two years ago everyone was still saying that he was unbeatable. Today he’s no longer the best. So what does that mean? And most of all, how do you manage to keep going at the same level?’ I was on the crest of a wave: but I must have been thinking clearly to come out with that. So why did people hold it against me? I didn’t understand back then, and I still can’t figure out the way certain journalists see things.
Between La Plagne and Morzine I tried to control everything, even what happened to the other riders. On the Col de Joux Plane I tried to help Greg LeMond escape so that he could move into second place, above Hinault. He wasn’t able to hold the pace. And the next day, on the climb to the stage finish at Crans-Montana, I did everything I could to enable Pascal Jules to snatch his second stage win. I slowed the group down as best I could so that Julot could hang on. But Ángel Arroyo and Pablo Wilches were stronger than him. So I had no option but to win.
I know that this amounted to a huge number of stage wins. The Renault team ended up with a total of ten: the team time trial, Madiot, Jules, Poisson, Menthéour and five for me. It was sporting heaven. It was a breeze from start to finish. The atmosphere was idyllic.
In addition, history will record that I won the final time trial from Villié-Morgon to Villefranche-en-Beaujolais, completing the show of strength in the most decisive way, with a fifth stage win. But not many people remember that sometimes the margins were infinitesimal: according to the timekeepers there were just forty-eight thousandths of a second between Kelly and me.
On the evening of the Champs-Elysées, the media went off into wild conjecture. They had just followed three weeks of ‘total victory’. Some wrote that it was comparable to Merckx’s first Tour win in 1969. My feelings weren’t quite so clear-cut and had a bit more nuance to them. I don’t remember one moment where I felt I had ‘become a legend’. My domination had been so overwhelming that a good many journalists were resorting to statistical comparisons and were already wondering – in complete seriousness, and there was a logic to it – ‘How many more can he win?’ I wasn’t thinking that way. But even so, finally giving way at the umpteenth time of asking, I ended up replying: ‘I’ll win five or six and then I’ll stop.’
You have to see it through my eyes. At the end of July 1984 no one was capable of beating me in a major Tour. That was obvious. So not surprisingly the idea took hold and I hoped I could win everything. No one had any more doubts about my talent: why should I have spoiled the party?
But having said that, let’s be reasonable. Even in 1984 I was not Bernard Hinault. Hinault was a better all-rounder, a better time triallist, better at hurting himself, and less susceptible to getting ill at the start of the season. I wasn’t driven by the same forces. I didn’t have pride like his, nor as uncompromising a personality.
One thing must never be forgotten: I did not have the class that was Hinault’s. To me, that was obvious, there was no question of it.
Dominating as I did in that 1984 Tour did not mean that I had lost my grip on reality, or my zest for life and basic pleasures. On a bike, all facades gradually fade away. Stylistic effects don’t last long. Cycling is the naked truth.
CHAPTER 18
POST-OPERATIVE TRAUMA
Bike racing at the highest level is one of the most reliable means of inspiring happiness and acquiring self-knowledge. However, it is also a production line turning out disappointments. The output is continually increased, without warning, at any time.
On a bike you not only compete against the opposition but against yourself, and your image of yourself. It’s not just a battle against time. I hadn’t yet got to the stage where I was counting the years, but you are constantly pushing your body to the limit, and unfortunately none of us has a grip on every physical parameter.
The start of the 1985 season went exactly as I had predicted. There was a lot of enjoyment. It was delightful progressing on every front with what amounted to a massive placard on my back denoting my new status. It was captivating, euphoric. The marvellous feeling of physical power which had lain dormant somewhat since the 1984 Tour began awakening as soon as the first race days arrived. All I can say is that the winter was exquisite and I was in dazzling form.
I was still wearing the red, white and blue jersey of a French national champion and bore it to victories in the prologue time trial at the Étoile de Bessèges stage race, then the overall standings at the Tour of Sicily, five days of sensual delight among lemon trees, olive groves, marble-fronted palaces and antique temples. There was plenty to be happy about with the start of the season. My teammates were content, because I felt fulfilled and that trickled down to them. I was still the same person inside in every way.
It didn’t last long. After the Étoile de Bessèges, the opening stage race of the season, I often felt a pain in my left Achilles tendon, originating in a rather stupid knock from the pedal. The pain didn’t seem anything to worry about; it came and went, but sometimes became unbearable when I had to press suddenly on the pedals. The specialists were perplexed as to the reason. After a fine ride at Flèche Wallonne (third) and a disappointing Liège–Bastogne–Liège (fifth) I stalled in full flight. Even training became painful. It was like being stabbed with a knife. Some people believed it was a mild tendonitis, others that there were microscopic ruptures in the tendon. Without any prognosis that I could rely on I decided to consult Professor Saillant, the authority among experts in this area. His verdict was that I had multiple internal inflammations in the tendon sheath. Saillant stated: ‘The tendonitis which is affecting Laurent Fignon leads to the formation of nodules of a considerable size and he will have to be operated on. What needs to be done is for the sheath to be opened to enable removal of the scar tissue which has been formed by a succession of minor ruptures in the tendon.’
I remember asking Saillant: ‘Do I have to go through with this operation?’
He replied: ‘If you want to ride your bike, you have no choice.’
There was no alternative. So I went for the only reasonable option: surgery. It made no difference what way I thought it through, I knew that this logical decision would send the rest of the season up in smoke. I would be out for at least three or four months. This was the price: no Giro, no chance of the hat-trick in the Tour.
Fate plays curious tricks on sportsmen. You can fall victim to the smallest thing. And the surgery was not superficial in the slightest. Compared with Bernard Hinault’s operation two years before – he had had minor nodules on the interior face of the knee in the Pes anserine insertion, a ligament known as ‘the goosefoot’ – what I had was clearly deeper, and in some people’s eyes I had waited so long that undergoing radical treatment was the only solution.
And all the while Cyrille Guimard – who was not delighted at what fate had thrown his way – was having fun sending the press off down blind alleys as he had done with Hinault in 1983. He told them anything and everything, kept the suspense growing. Up until Liège–Bastogne–Liège he was dropping heavy hints about my health without ever giving a precise name to the mysterious problem that was affecting me. He asked me to let him take personal charge of letting the world know, which ended up being counter-productive. Even the announcement that I was to be operated on, which was sent out through a release to the Agence-France-Presse news agency, had a disturbing side to it. The craziest rumours about me were doing the rounds. There were rumours of doping in particular, following the basic and utterly contemptible principle that there was no smoke without fire and I must have sinned in some way. I was deeply hurt, and disgusted.
I simply couldn’t handle the media bubble. I’ve often berated myself over it. All I needed to say was exactly what was happening at the moment it happened and nothing would have gone wrong. Instead of which the Renault team doctor, Armand Mégret, had to go on the record to calm down the press. The medic explained once and for all and his statement is worth repeating here.
Unlike certain other people who are being asked at random, I believe I have full knowledge of the pathology behind the infections, accidents and illnesses that affect top-class cyclists. First and foremost it should be underlined that in both the cases of Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon the issue is inflammation within the tendon sheath rather than within the tendon itself. Tendon sheaths are subjected to massive pressure for a host of physical and mechanical reasons; when pain appears it is an alarm signal that requires the doctors involved to prescribe firstly complete rest and then anti-inflammatory treatments. Unfortunately these two cases involve sportsmen of exceptional ability whose racing programmes cannot easily be curtailed; as at the same time it’s impossible to know the level of damage of the tendon sheath, surgery is the only answer. Contrary to what others say they believe, repeated medical controls have banned the use of anabolic steroids, drugs which were directly responsible for unrestrained growth in muscle mass and have caused serious problems in many sports. As for stating that the use of cortisone-based drugs might equally be at the root of these injuries, that goes against medical orthodoxy because it is completely untrue. Cortisone is primarily an anti-inflammatory and its repeated use can cause atrophy of the muscle-tendon ensemble rather than the opposite.
I didn’t want the public to witness my admission to the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital as a limping invalid. I didn’t want to turn the operation into a national issue. In the same vein, I didn’t want to be filmed or photographed in a hospital bed. Perhaps it was idiotic of me but I didn’t want to be seen in a hospital bed. I had that right. The public had a different image of me and it wasn’t that of a man lying in a ward. In any case, I didn’t want anyone to feel pity for me. I’ve always been like that: when I get ill, I roll up in a ball and take cover.
No one died. Let’s not get it out of proportion. The operation went perfectly and Professor Saillant, who had had more than a few people through his hands, had perfectly diagnosed the scale of the injury. He and his two assistants, doctors Bénazet and Catone, worked cleverly to ensure that the operation didn’t last any longer than it needed to. On opening up the tendon they found a nodule of abnormal size. Two other tiny ruptures in the tendon were treated with the same precision. Saillant took out the sheath completely – which no one was ever told about. If I had gone on as before, with individual fibres shearing off and forming small nodules, all movement would eventually have been prevented. I would not have been able to make the slightest effort, even to go on a touring ride.

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