When I got home from the Tour, I began training again. Or a sort of training. My first real ride was a nightmare. Twenty kilometres, no more. It was h.e.l.l. It felt as if I was riding the bike for the first time. My legs didn't work. I had no muscles. I was just a dismembered carca.s.s sitting on a machine that wouldn't move forwards.

After having my shower I touched the place where they had operated. Where the scar was, I felt a kind of waterfilled ball. When I put my finger on it, the muscle did nothing. I thought that it was all over for me. I couldn't put any weight on the leg, not even to walk or do the movements you make in everyday life. Everything was difficult. And the slightest effort tired me out; I was so exhausted. But I had to get on with it, find the courage to deal with the pain. This is the desperate moment when you find out what lies underneath, where you have to look deep inside to find reasons to keep believing, to discover some purpose in the pain. You have to get through it, no matter the cost. You almost want to go under, but to stay in the game you have to survive.

I went to look for the sun in Nimes to gather my strength and have a change. I took my bike. With the wind that blows around there, I could hardly move. Cycle tourists the ones who didn't work out who I was just sped past without noticing I was there. But little by little the kilometres built up. I just took each day as it came without asking too many questions. Was I afraid of what the future might hold? I don't know, I don't think so. I remember going to do exercises with Armand Megret, the team doctor. I spent a lot of time doing rehabilitation work. As my ankle had gone a long time without taking any weight, making it flex again in a normal way was a long, long process. To begin with I was made to do walking exercises in a swimming pool and do floor exercises. Should I now admit something? Well, I never regained the flexibility I had before. Never. I was never able to bend my ankle normally. It was always a few degrees short. There is no need to point out that it would have consequences for the rest of my career.

I have to confess to something else. While I was convalescing I came down with a staphylococcal infection at precisely the same point where the blow from the pedal had left a permanent mark. During the early weeks of pain I had had a large number of injections which had ended up damaging the skin. It was so bad that when Saillant did the operation the scar tissue took a long time to form. For a good while, when the wound was cleaned out, you could see the bare tendon inside. It was asking for infection.

And this too is something that no one ever knew at the time: Professor Saillant had to operate again to clean out the wound. This second surgery gave me my morale back, in fact. Saillant said to me at the time: 'Now, it's down to you.' And that instilled confidence in me, making me believe that if I could regain control of my body everything would be fine. One day, out training, feeling that my body was responding well, I said to myself, 'There you are, you are the man you were.' I spoke too soon. In terms of muscle ma.s.s my legs looked just like they had been in the past. There was no problem. But when it came to power, I realised very rapidly that I had lost a good part of the strength that I had had. I felt it less when I was in my best form, but the rest of the time it was blindingly obvious; my left leg was not strong enough. Now we would say the watts weren't there. Right up to the end of my career it remained a handicap which I never really discussed publicly: getting the former muscle power back was an unattainable dream.

After training on the track at the Paris sports academy, INSEP, well away from the public eye and the bad weather, I rode my first official race in January 1986: the Madrid Six Day. There should have been nothing better for spinning the legs and working on the fast-twitch muscles. The organisers had asked me to ride an invitation pursuit race against Jose-Luis Navarro, the Spanish champion. I beat him, but as he rode up to congratulate me he crashed and made me fall as he slipped down the track. The medical bill: head injuries and a broken collarbone, but fortunately not a compound fracture. It was a bizarre way to come back to racing.

So I then fluctuated between bad times (which helped to make me stronger) and hopeful spells (I'm an optimist by nature). My real comeback race was the Tour of the Mediterranean where, to the surprise of everyone, including myself, I came fifth in the time trial up the Mont Faron climb. It was something to smile about.

The start of 1986 was not like any usual fresh start. Not at all. In a confused way something else was burgeoning within me, something that was more basic and which coloured my att.i.tude to everything. It was like being recast. I felt perfectly calm, but this is hard to express I had aged overnight. I had matured. I felt older and more serious. The cyclists who fluttered around me seemed sometimes to have come from another country. They spoke to me, I listened, and it was as if what they were saying was insignificant, uninteresting. I can't really explain what was going on inside me, but it was a key moment of transition.

Doors are either open or closed. They cannot remain ajar for long. You have to make things happen. That was the kind of state I was in, waiting in front of the door that opened on to life. It was partly open, and I had a dilemma: push it open or slam it shut. Looking at the long term, I decided I would live with whatever became of me. I was not someone else. I was just far more serious. Was it down to me? Was it the injury opening up a whole new chapter in my life? Or was it that cycling itself had just begun to change abruptly?

In the Systeme U team we had at least had the chance to retain the bulk of the structure that had come from Renault. It was good to be able to build on firm foundations, good to work with the same back-room staff. I returned to 'acceptable' form, but I rapidly became aware that I felt unable to do the same things as before. I was also in a hurry, a huge hurry. The people around me quite rightly warned me against forming expectations which weren't rooted in reality, and then I understood the inevitable truth. It was going to take at least six or perhaps eight months before I began to feel as good as before. I remember imagining a blank season: it was terrifying.

Compared to the other guys, I'd returned to being a 'decent' rider, but that was all. The exceptional champion, the one who could engage a higher gear with the outrageous ease I'd felt at the start of 1985: that champion had taken French leave. There were optimists who were delighted to see me everywhere I went, although I was going nowhere.

CHAPTER 20.

REJOICE!.

One day dragged into another. I couldn't take much more of it. My physical weakness was having an adverse effect on my mental state, which was decidedly shaky, and that was not something I was used to.

Ironically the weak little flame burst into life on 1 April 1986, believe it or not. Riding ParisCamembert on April Fool's day might have seemed a cheesy old joke but something prodigious happened. It was not something I wanted to boast about, to say the least. The photos of the time sum it up: you can see the Dane Kim Andersen winning the race with me not far behind, beside myself with rage, banging on the handlebars. My hand hurt terribly.

I had got into the winning move with Andersen, a solid character built like a lumberjack, a fine rider but not a quick sprinter because of his chunky physique. And here I was, at last. This was going to be my first win since the operation. The end of my Road to the Cross, the first shout of joy after almost a year of drawn-out agony. Getting rid of Andersen in the sprint? A formality for me, even after all those spells on the operating table.

As we went under the kilometre-to-go flag, he stopped working. I positioned myself at the front and without my being aware of it, my brain began to wander. This is the truth: it was as if I fled away from reality, from the race. Who knows why. I remember so clearly that at one point I began to wonder what kind of victory salute I would make. In my mind, I went over the gesture. Once, twice, three times. There I was, I'd done it. I have to say that a ma.s.sive feeling of joy suffused through my entire being. I celebrated like a kid, like I used to in the good old days. All that pain was forgotten. All those races I'd missed were forgotten, so was the Tour that had started without me. I was glad. I was satisfied.

And then, without telling me first of course, Andersen put in a sudden, brutal acceleration. It was about 300m to the line. Time has pa.s.sed but the shame still lingers: I had completely forgotten that he was there. I was somewhere else entirely. I remember as if it were yesterday: he spurted off my wheel, I saw him coming past me and I thought: 'What on earth is that guy doing there?'

I paid the price for my premature euphoria. Although I reacted, I never pulled back the thirty metres which he had gained at once. He won. I couldn't even call it a beginner's error because not even a beginner forgets his opponent. No, this little accident called for psychoa.n.a.lysis.

To recover from such a grotesque episode, there was nothing to equal a fine Cla.s.sic like Fleche Wallonne, which in those days actually resembled a major race. It was over 240km whereas today it's no more than 200km. 'We need an end to such horrendous demands,' they say today. That's bonkers. Long distances in themselves have never forced riders to take drugs. That is proved by the fact that in the last fifteen years races have been pared back like never before but this has been the time in which we have seen drug taking at its worst. Personally I liked long, selective races. There are plenty of champions who can get past 200 kilometres without falling by the wayside, but 240 kilometres or more is a different story and a genuine 'natural' process of elimination can take place. So the Fleche Wallonne that I dominated head and shoulders that year was not quite the same event as today.

On that occasion I rode a race that was tactically almost perfect. There was a 'royal' lead group including most of the big names: Sean Kelly, Moreno Argentin, Joop Zoetemelk, Rolf Golz, Steven Rooks, Johan Van der Velde, Jean-Claude Leclerc, Greg LeMond, Jan Nevens, Charly Mottet, Claude Criquielion, Andersen. I ended up in a chasing group with Hinault, Delgado, Yvon Madiot and Urs Zimmerman. We joined the leaders and then on the Cote de Gives my old friend Andersen the winner in 1984 made an even better attack than the one at ParisCamembert. The group seemed unsure how to react: I seized the moment, put it in the big ring and followed him. No one got on my wheel. So the two of us were out front for about sixty kilometres. I need hardly say that the last thing I was going to do was drag him all the way to the finish for the sprint again, so at the foot of the Cote de Ben-Ahin, about ten kilometres from the finish, I put all my strength together for one big attack. Andersen was unable to stay with me and I climbed alone up the final hill, the Mur de Huy.

So on 16 April 1986 I brought a fallow period of 386 days to a close. The last time I had smelled the perfume of a winner's bouquet was at the prologue time trial at the Tour de Midi-Pyrenees more than a year earlier. It was a whole world away. That evening I said to myself: 'That's it, I'm back.' With hindsight, however, I can see that I wasn't honest with myself, because deep down inside in spite of the win I could sense that something was missing. But I didn't want to think about it. I pushed myself into believing.

When I left for the Tour of Spain, I thought I was ready to conquer the world again. My heart was full; my hopes were high. The Spanish press singled me out as 'the logical favourite'. It didn't take a lot for me to believe that as well, and the prologue, won by my teammate Thierry Marie, made my cosy a.s.sumptions that bit more comfortable. I came fifth, just behind Alain Bondue: up with the best guys. But during the fourth stage, when I was already lying second overall, it all fell apart. I had a heavy crash and injured my knees but, more seriously, cracked a rib, and dislocated a bone in my chest. Then, I made a major mistake: I decided to go on, because to my mind it seemed a useful way to get in some kilometres to regain my form. I was on the Vuelta, so what was the point in going home when I could ride my bike every day? Guimard should not have given way to my stubbornness: I was incapable of riding within myself in a major race. I hung on, no matter what it cost, in order to help Charly Mottet, who was well placed overall. I didn't think about my own fate.

I should have gone home to permit my injuries to settle down in peace. At the finish in Madrid I still managed to finish seventh overall, first Frenchman in the standings, which was an unlikely outcome given the circ.u.mstances. I had fought hard for it, every day. And I went back to France completely in pieces, even though I was not yet fully aware of it. My physical power which was just coming back after months away from racing was seriously affected.

It was the point in the season when I no longer had any real idea who I was and what I was doing. To what did the name Laurent Fignon refer now? I went through the motions of daily life like a machine, like a good professional, like a puppet propelled by habit. Do this, do that. Do it again. Ride the bike. Sleep. Have a ma.s.sage. All these daily activities slid over me, without my ever feeling completely involved. This was the lowest blow of all: I was no longer in charge of my own existence. Clearly, I had driven myself too hard. My brain had overlooked the operation but my body made sure I remembered it.

As the leader of a team that was completely centred around me, I had to lead by example whatever the circ.u.mstances, on the bike, and in daily life. However, I was struggling. So I was almost amazed to see my result in the prologue of the 1986 Tour de France at Boulogne-Billancourt. Everyone was agog at my 'return to the Tour': I came seventh. For many people this was not merely a respectable result but 'definitely' was the harbinger of good things from the 'comeback man'. Some people were even excited, but I knew what was going on. In the prologue I was riding on natural talent and nothing else. It was all going wrong. I felt terrible physically. All I felt was determination and courage and that was serious. My body and perhaps my mind as well was registering deep fatigue rather than an urge to get on with it.

Any illusions were removed by the team time trial between Meudon and Saint-Quentin, which Systeme U won. Thierry Marie was in the yellow jersey, I moved up to third overall. Everything seemed to be fair, but I had had to make myself suffer horribly to hang on and contribute to the team's effort, and that was not normal. My teammates weren't fooled, although L'Equipe L'Equipe predicted 'A fine battle looms between Fignon, Hinault and LeMond', adding, 'Everything depends on Fignon. If he is back to his old self, the search for a winner will be brief.' As you can see, there weren't many people who were in on the secret and even Guimard to whom I could not lie only partly believed me when I said my legs were 'cotton wool'. He was certain that I would come round. It was bound to happen. predicted 'A fine battle looms between Fignon, Hinault and LeMond', adding, 'Everything depends on Fignon. If he is back to his old self, the search for a winner will be brief.' As you can see, there weren't many people who were in on the secret and even Guimard to whom I could not lie only partly believed me when I said my legs were 'cotton wool'. He was certain that I would come round. It was bound to happen.

We came down violently to earth. In the individual time trial at Nantes over 61.5km, I had a bellyful. I couldn't breathe, I hurt all over, and couldn't get moving. I was placed thirty-second, unworthy of my status. My body couldn't take any more. I was going under: you can't rebuild Rome in a day. During the stage between Bayonne and Pau, where Hinault and Delgado performed a merry little duet at the front, I chased behind them, berating myself to limit my losses, with no sense of how my body felt. I didn't want to believe that my muscles could refuse to obey me when I asked them to go faster. That evening, I fell asleep on the ma.s.sage table for the first time in my life. I had good reason: the next morning when the race pulled out of Pau I had a temperature of thirty-nine degrees and stayed in bed. In the village-depart village-depart, Hinault was sympathetic: 'I hope it goes better for him soon. When a cyclist has more than six months away from racing at the highest level, it takes him a year and a half to get back to full strength. I know what I'm talking about. To get back in order on a permanent basis, Fignon will have to wait until 1987.'

These were kind words, but spinechilling at the same time. I was taken back to Paris and spent three days in hospital recovering from a serious throat infection. I was pretty poorly. Apart from the emotional ups and downs between good results such as Fleche Wallonne and bad times like my departure from the Tour, apart from Guimard's lack of insight, what truly annoyed me about this whole infernal merry-go-round was my powerlessness, my apathy. This was not the real me.

With hindsight I'd rather Guimard had given me a boot in the backside or insulted me and told me I was 'dumb' and 'a weakling'. He should have tried, but then again, I wasn't Hinault. Guimard didn't know how to deal with what was going on but far be it from me to push all the responsibility on to his shoulders: I wasn't an easy person to deal with, and I'm still that way.

At the end of the season, with just enough motivation to raise my game, I lost the Grand Prix des Nations time trial in the most stupid style on a day of pouring rain. I crashed. It took a little time to pick myself up and get going again, and in the end I was six seconds slower than the winner. Six tiny seconds over a race of more than 100 kilometres. I was livid, because at the time the winner of the Nations was unofficially designated the 'best time triallist of the year', in the only race of its kind over a glorious course in the hills behind Cannes. The only comfort was that Kelly was the winner and I was fond of this trustworthy, solid Irishman, a consistently good rider.

In Cannes, it was dark when I crossed the finish line. It was dark inside me as well. I was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with blackness. I was sick and tired of this season, fed up that it was proving impossible to bend destiny to my will. A few days after BloisChaville I cracked mentally. I almost gave it all up. I wanted to stop altogether and get rid of everything. For the first time in my career I could feel true hatred: of myself, everyone else, and the whole world.

CHAPTER 21.

VICIOUS CYCLE.

My relationship with Cyrille Guimard was both complex and close. We had always been hand in glove and stayed that way in spite of everything that happened, in spite of my disappointing performances, which had an effect on everyone. But by now, Guimard the administrator had gradually gained the upper hand on Guimard the legendary cycling expert and former top pro. His calculating side got the better of his human side.

Without having my nose in the accounts although I was co-owner I could tell that things weren't working out in the team. Guimard wanted to cut back on everything although there was no reason to economise. I had already noticed a few serious gaps during the 1986 season but from the start of 1987 we began flirting with amateurism. There was a host of details that were lacking. It wasn't running smoothly.

Little by little I became aware that this was no longer the best team in the world this lasted until 1989 simply because Guimard was now refusing to get his chequebook out. As a result some of the team riders were unable to do what was asked of them over the long term. And apart from Charly Mottet there was no real co-leader for some of the races. The back-room staff weren't doing their jobs right in some instances. There were some things that might as well have been held together with string. No professional team can withstand such poor practice. There were some races where Guimard would only send two vehicles, which left us with no margin for error. Hitherto any problems such as a breakdown would have had no implications for the riders, but now it would suck in everyone. Time would be lost, tempers raised and effort wasted. Sometimes we were left asking other teams to give us a lift back to our hotels. It was rubbish, on the grand scale.

As for me, in the eyes of my teammates, I was at fault, twice over. Firstly because I was not producing results befitting my reputation and secondly because, as co-owner with Guimard, I was jointly responsible for the way things were going down the drain. But again, Guimard showed his weak side. The atmosphere got more and more tense, but instead of talking calmly with me about it, so that we could jointly make some decisions, he became fixated by the finances rather than the strategy. It was not the best support at a time when I needed to regain some stability.

There was a context. Times were changing quickly. Cycling would soon cease to bear any resemblance to what it had been, thanks to the joint effects of globalisation and the consequence of the arrival of men like Bernard Tapie strewing dollar bills behind them. I had come across Tapie when I was riding for Renault. He wanted to hire me, because he wanted all the best riders, but our meeting was a joke. He only wanted to talk about money, never about racing or competing. As a result we never really had the time to discuss a contract or its possible terms. We simply weren't on the same wavelength. He was backing the wrong horse with me. I wasn't ready to do anything for money, which may have come as a surprise to him.

Well, the fabulous blend of seriousness and frivolity which had long been the hallmark of cycling was dissipating before our disbelieving eyes. I liked change and would never be against a new order displacing an old one, but even I felt a bit disorientated, as if I'd been expelled from my old home. All the teams began being more professional, but they took it to extremes. Many of them now thought more about 'earning', and cash, than they did about racing to get results. The time had come when winners were to be constantly overshadowed by 'earners'. Cyrille and I had devised a system in which sportsmen were able to take full control, but we were its victims.

Guimard was a curious man. When it came to the sporting side of team management he was uncontestably the number one, one of the best in cycling history. But as an administrator he was miscast, completely out of his depth. He landed us in a mess and that in turn meant we wasted time, because reinvigorating a professional team which is dying is like getting an oiltanker to change course. It calls for patience, and a large amount of persistence to keep holding the wheel.

I should show some humility at this point. About now I began to display a character trait that was new to me. I wasn't capable of dealing with times of personal crisis either. I needed to plumb the depths of the abyss, because I had no idea how to stop falling. And at these times, when I was feeling utterly vulnerable, Guimard was of no help. Had we taken on too much together? Was I bearing too much responsibility for the team on my shoulders? Maybe, but until these episodes I had never felt under real pressure in anything I did; it had been the opposite. So why was it happening now? There were plenty of people who ended up wondering about my health, my willpower and my ability to return to being my former self. One journalist asked me straight up about it. I gave him a terse answer: 'Even if I'm not good, I will go on.' It sounded like an admission of weakness, as if I was aware of something. My mind had finally taken on board the fact that I might go back to being a mere footsoldier. But the 1986 Tour stuck in my throat. I had been deeply annoyed by the comings and goings between Hinault and LeMond, the sort of arrangement that they reached in view of everyone.

To stop the rot but without shaking up Guimard too much I hired Alain Gallopin at my own expense. He had had a curious career. He had turned professional at the same time as I did, in 1982. Three months after he made his debut, his own directeur sportif directeur sportif had run him down with a car. He suffered a serious skull fracture, came close to death and could not race again. A few months later he began studying to be a sports therapist. I told him: 'When you've got your degree, call me.' So in 1986 he phoned as agreed and I took him on, without being particularly aware that he would become far more than just company on the road. What is Alain? A friend, a confidant, a close companion. I have gone through more at his side than with all my family put together. There are not many like him: he plays fair, he's reliable, loyal and modest. A rare bird. had run him down with a car. He suffered a serious skull fracture, came close to death and could not race again. A few months later he began studying to be a sports therapist. I told him: 'When you've got your degree, call me.' So in 1986 he phoned as agreed and I took him on, without being particularly aware that he would become far more than just company on the road. What is Alain? A friend, a confidant, a close companion. I have gone through more at his side than with all my family put together. There are not many like him: he plays fair, he's reliable, loyal and modest. A rare bird.

I wanted him to work with me partly because of his skill as a therapist but also because he was disciplined and had organising ability that would take him far outside France one day. He was at my side continually and relieved my mind of everything that might have detracted from getting ready to race. I also needed to have someone I could rely on in my work and in a deeply fraternal way, and he did as well. He was many things at once: a brother, a confidant, a ma.s.seur, a trainer, a shoulder to lean on. We would work together until the end of my career.

To pile up the kilometres and get some speed in my legs I took part in the Bremen Six Day at the start of 1987. I had done plenty of work beforehand, but it wasn't enough to compete on even terms with the specialists. There was no doping control and there should have been a ma.s.sive trophy merely for the amphetamines doing the rounds. The pace was too high for me and on the first day I struggled to hang on to the wheels. Everyone thought: 'He's going to grovel', but they didn't understand my make-up, even though the racing was hard and the demands h.e.l.lish: we rode on six days and seven nights, about 200km each day at about 50kph average speed. Slowly but surely I got in the groove and came seventh, ten laps down on the winners. The 'stars' like me were well paid: about 50,000 francs a day. We were paid so well that the professional track racers objected to the sums paid to the non-specialists who were sometimes dangerous and often unable to put up a performance worthy of their status. I liked these working-cla.s.s events, with a glowing crowd overflowing with beer and knocking back hot sausages. With my blond hair, gla.s.ses and strong jaw, with the reputation I had for winning legendary events, in a modest way I helped to draw in the crowds twice a day, for an afternoon and a night session. I gave it all I could among the little tribe of trackies, who were halfway to being zombies. They kicked off the night by dipping their lips into flasks of pure amphetamine and ended up in their little huts in the wee hours among the beer fumes and the snores of fans sleeping off the drink.

As it was now public knowledge that I was being well paid to race and as I could turn a pedal or two, the big guys had no option but to get me into their combines, but beforehand some of them did their best to make me pay in the literal sense as well. They wanted cash, nothing else. And if you resisted you had to watch out for anything, right up to having your kit stolen. There were threats: the whole thing was built on a web of power and intimidation. To survive, you had no option but to be strong. There were Madison relay races that could last up to ninety minutes, where everything was rigged but you still had to hold your place. Only a few teams the best were in on the deal and knew in advance how many laps they could gain during a Madison. The big guys would sort it out among themselves and would come to see us and allot each team their number of laps. They might say 'seven laps' and then you would have to suffer for your bread, because those laps had to be gained during the ninety minutes. It wasn't easy going through with it. Because if you didn't keep your end of it you might be left out the next time the deal was done. You would be relegated to the ranks of the 'small teams' and then merely make up the numbers. And you could kiss goodbye to respect and status.

These happy festivities dedicated to the kings of the boards half party, half proper racing restored my strength and vigour. I was ready to get back on the road, with a fighter's morale, even if I was still not at the level that might have been expected of me. What was more, although I was insulated and perhaps actually privileged simply because I had Alain Gallopin to look after me, the structural problems within the team continued to deepen. At the height of the crisis Guimard and the Madiot brothers fell out. But Yvon and Marc were two corner-stones of our credibility. Arguing with them was just taking yet another risk but the hostility would persist until, inevitably and stupidly, it arrived at breaking point.

When I started the Tour of Spain, with the status of 'outsider', no longer that of a favourite, I had been struggling for several days with a raging sinusitis. The doctor didn't want me to start, and it was a death ride for several days. My results were pathetic. After finishing twenty-eighth in the prologue I was pushed out of an echelon on the first stage and was eighty-third. It was just one debacle after another, in spite of one great ride through the hills for a prestigious stage win at Avila, the same one that Hinault had won in 1983. I was not capable of moving mountains and my 'outsider' status was confirmed with an overall placing that still left me with a sense of what might have been: third. I wasn't able to win or finish where I wanted but at least I wasn't thirty minutes behind the leader, the Colombian Luis Herrera.

Which brings me to a little story. Herrera's team manager had a quiet little word with Guimard before the last stage. Herrera had only a small lead on the German Raimund Dietzen and the whole Colombian team was afraid that Dietzen's team might attack if the final stage was windy. Guimard warned us that the Colombians were offering to pay us not to join in any attacks; as far as we were concerned, we had no intention of attacking anyway, so we accepted the offer: 30,000 francs per man. On that stage, there was a howling gale, three-quarters tailwind, and the Colombians had been right to be nervous: it was just the situation to set up echelons and split the race apart. In fact, if we had wanted to take the initiative we could have blown their scrawny carca.s.ses to the four corners of Spain.

To be honest, I'd had enough of Spain, which clearly was never going to work for me and I had absolutely no intention of missing the plane I was booked on that evening, two hours after the scheduled finish. But with the tailwind on our backs, the organisers put the start time back and made it look as if we might end up missing the Paris flight. You should have seen Herrera's face when all the team went and began riding on the front. Panic set in and he believed we were stabbing him in the back. 'What are you riding for? We paid you!' he shouted at me. I soon put him in the picture. I was just homesick. He was overjoyed to put his name on the Vuelta's role of honour. The Colombians were hysterical with joy and a couple of them dished out cocaine by the packet to whoever might want it. Some of the team used to bring it into Europe hidden in the frames of the bikes.

I left that Tour of Spain with my head hanging, in a rather undignified way. I was unhappy with it all and didn't go to the podium where the first three on overall cla.s.sification were rewarded. It was an affront to the organisers but my mind was elsewhere. Not that I have any idea where.

I was driven to the airport, still in my racing kit. Before taking the plane that would fly me home I got changed in the public toilets like a common thief. I desperately wanted to get away. It was shameful.

CHAPTER 22.

BOTTLE BUT NO DRUG.

On the one hand, you have n.o.ble tales of high deeds; on the other hand, you have a gutter press which exaggerates cyclists' misdemeanours out of all proportion. On 28 May 1987 I experienced one of the strangest and darkest episodes of my career. I was riding the Grand Prix de Wallonie, a fine race which was run over 215 kilometres around the Namur area. I won fairly easily ahead of Pascal Poisson, which was something to be pleased about. A few days later, however, I was notified that I had tested positive due to the presence of amphetamines in my urine sample. I was devastated because it was rubbish, just like the rest of the story.

As I will show later on, I am perfectly willing to take responsibility when I do something wrong, but unfortunately the truth about this positive test was different. I say 'unfortunately' because I believe I was the victim of a conflict between two competing laboratories who were fighting over the market for anti-drugs testing for the whole of Belgium. The samples were taken in Namur and the flasks then took three days to arrive in Liege. Why? Where were they?

I was innocent but I will never be able to prove I was, because at that time, incredible as it may seem, it was still against the rules to request a second a.n.a.lysis in a laboratory other than the one in which the first, positive test had been carried out. That was ridiculous why would a laboratory contradict its first finding?

The story behind this race also needs to be told so that you get the picture. Usually there were no drug tests at the event. Everyone knew it; this was part of the 'tradition' at certain races on the calendar. A lot of riders must have a.s.sumed that this year's edition would be run in the usual way, except that the organisers came to warn us the day before: this year, there were to be drug tests. At least then it was clear. A lot of the peloton were glad they had been warned but it didn't make any difference to me for one simple reason: I would never have dreamed of taking a drug that might be detected on the day of a race. And what's more, that year, I went flat-out for the win knowing that there would be a control, which proves if you need extra evidence that I had a clear conscience. And a few days after positive. It was a lie.

I have to admit that this business really upset me. We knew through the grapevine that there were sometimes dodgy dealings and we got wind of things that were really underhand. According to the stories that we heard, there were even occasions when directeurs sportifs directeurs sportifs might betray their own riders. As far as I was concerned, when I was given anything for medical reasons, whether it was vitamins, supplements or even antibiotics, I was adamant that I had to be shown the boxes or the tablets in their original packaging. I only believed my own eyes. might betray their own riders. As far as I was concerned, when I was given anything for medical reasons, whether it was vitamins, supplements or even antibiotics, I was adamant that I had to be shown the boxes or the tablets in their original packaging. I only believed my own eyes.

After all this, I had no great desire to compete. I was depressed by the rumours that inevitably began circulating after this mishap. No one believed I was telling the truth, obviously. Since my operation, which had followed Hinault's, and above all since the succession of injuries to Marc Madiot, Pascal Poisson and Martial Gayant, there were people out there who dreamed up stuff about 'Guimard's way of doing things'. There was one journalist who had no qualms about suggesting that we all limped with our right legs because that was the leg in which we received injections. The craziest thing is that there were people who believed this nonsense.

At the Tour of Switzerland, everyone understood that I was not in my usual state. My moral was at a low ebb. I felt an insane desire to send everyone packing. All anyone wanted to discuss was my 'positive' test and I was undermined by the notion that anyone could believe I was a cheat. In addition, my wife was pregnant and I simply wanted to think about things other than bike racing. I felt a bit as if I didn't want to be there and the way I behaved may have seemed strange to onlookers. I was irritated, and got worked up over nothing. I became provocative at the slightest opening. We were by now only a few days away from the start of the Tour de France and I was having grave doubts about my ability to return to the top of my sport.

In Switzerland a 'great' journalist arranged an interview. I say 'great' because he was a national celebrity in his field and that is how he introduced himself to me. He had clearly never spent any time in a cycling team's hotel and he had no notion of the routine that we stick to in the evening after a stage. My ma.s.sage ran late and I was fifteen minutes behind schedule for the interview in one of the meeting rooms. He made it clear that he was not happy, even showed a certain amount of irritation. My attempts to explain what had happened were not good enough. Then he began the interview. It was surreal. 'What are you called?' he began. I was dumbstruck. Then he continued: 'What is your date of birth?' And then: 'What big races have you won?'

I had no option but to bring this session to an end, rather abruptly. I said, 'Stop. We can't go on with this. If you don't even know the basic minimum about the person you are interviewing you have no business with me.'

He yelled 'I'm one of the most important journalists in Switzerland, and just wait till you see what I write about you.'

He thought I might be intimidated. I leant towards him, pointed my finger at him, and said: 'I don't give a monkey's, you can write what you like.' And I turned on my heel.

The guy was beside himself, and who knows what he yelled at me as I walked out. It was an incredible spectacle.

I've totally forgotten the name of this journalist and I never actually read his article. No doubt he took great pleasure in taking my character apart, and he probably demonstrated immense writing skill.

CHAPTER 23.

THE END OF A LITTLE WORLD.

At the height of my glory in 1984, with the dumb confidence of a man who knows just how good he is, I had declared: 'I'll race until I'm thirty and then I'll live off my winnings.' It was said in total sincerity and was typical of the way I could behave. But the pa.s.sing of time takes no account of our expectations. I had not the slightest inkling that I might be injured, nor that I might have a year out of cycling, nor what the physical consequences might be. I was now aware that it had been stupid to name a date in this way because saying this kind of thing can look like a commitment. Whenever I was asked about it I would display a genuine lack of certainty about how much time I now had in me. I could barely even see as far ahead as the 1987 Tour, even though it was now imminent, so a possible end of my adventures in the peloton was further than my imagination could stretch.

I knew better than anyone that La Grande Boucle La Grande Boucle is an unforgiving arena. It even seemed to me that the whole of human life was written in the twists and turns of a single Tour de France. Great joy would give way to misery, and the wheel kept turning, turning. I had believed that I was hugely strong not invincible but fate had brought me brutally back to reality. I have to confess that in that summer of 1987 my situation was a dire one. I had been riding like a shadow of myself for two years now. It's hard to put my feelings into words but I could feel what was coming, like a wild animal senses an approaching storm. Do people actually understand just how difficult bike racing is? Have they ever wondered why it is that the greatest minds of the twentieth century have always compared cycling to boxing, putting these two sports above all others for their sheer toughness? is an unforgiving arena. It even seemed to me that the whole of human life was written in the twists and turns of a single Tour de France. Great joy would give way to misery, and the wheel kept turning, turning. I had believed that I was hugely strong not invincible but fate had brought me brutally back to reality. I have to confess that in that summer of 1987 my situation was a dire one. I had been riding like a shadow of myself for two years now. It's hard to put my feelings into words but I could feel what was coming, like a wild animal senses an approaching storm. Do people actually understand just how difficult bike racing is? Have they ever wondered why it is that the greatest minds of the twentieth century have always compared cycling to boxing, putting these two sports above all others for their sheer toughness?

When the Tour came, once again I would learn where I stood, even if I was afraid of what the answer might be. I arrived at the start in a lousy mental state. From what I could see my form was uncertain and I was still desperately seeking the psychological turning point that would enable me to bury my doubts and get rid of everyone else's worries at the same time. And what's more, the problems within the team were becoming more and more poisonous. The atmosphere was difficult, tense. Our system was disintegrating. In theory, Guimard was in charge, but Guimard wasn't a natural boss. Insidiously, perhaps without even formulating the thought in our minds, we were each beginning to have our doubts about the other. He wasn't sure I could return to the top, I wasn't convinced of his ability as an administrator. That didn't help at all.

I began with a catastrophic ride in the prologue time trial in Berlin: seventy-second was shameful. I can no longer remember how I reacted, or how other people looked at me. And in the first few stages, it was as if I wasn't there, and part of me was indeed somewhere else. My body was pedalling but my mind was wandering. Nothing was going right. My wife Nathalie was about to give birth; I thought a good deal about becoming a father, and taking part in the Tour at this important time seemed almost incongruous. That did not explain why I was performing so badly, however, but every time I met the slightest obstacle, I felt an almost tangible urge to run for home. It was like being in a dark tunnel. As soon as I found myself in a slightly tricky situation I would always tend to go into my sh.e.l.l, whereas before I had always managed to pull out a little bit extra.

Guimard, who was always at the forefront of technical development, had made us wear some of the very first pulse monitors to hit the market. According to him, they would revolutionise the way we a.n.a.lysed the physical effects when we pushed our bodies hard. After tests the doctors had advised me that '165 beats per minute is your absolute limit. Above that you will blow up very soon.' To begin with I didn't take it that seriously but soon, the second I noticed my heart-rate monitor above 165, I would rein myself in. It became impossible to force myself to go that little bit harder.

I worked out later that mentally I was not willing to go past a certain level of pain, but still, as a matter of course, and with as much enthusiasm as you could wish, I set to work for Charly Mottet, who was well placed overall. That made me a star turned team rider, but I had no trouble with my ego in this respect. On the contrary.

On the other hand, I was beginning to know by heart just how painful defeat always feels. That ache had been ravaging me for so long, and so unfairly. The way people behaved towards me had changed radically. Since 1986 I had noticed that journalists were keeping away and there were fewer letters in the post. That all seemed reasonable to me, but none of us is ever ready for this kind of change. What did shock me on the other hand was the speed with which people forget what you have achieved. A rider who has won the Tour de France two years in a row should always be worth two Tours in other people's eyes. But I ended up being completely undervalued. I couldn't work out why. Even my appearance money was slipping downwards. I understood completely that there would be more interest in the riders who were making headlines, but I didn't understand why race organisers didn't want me at the same price as before. To be honest, that only happened in cycling. I remember falling out with the organisers of the Paris six-day race, who refused to meet what they termed my 'financial pretensions'. They were having a laugh. They simply wanted to get me at a discount. I didn't mind haggling if that was necessary, but going below the limit that I had set for myself would have been degrading. At a certain point I would believe wholeheartedly that I was worth so much and they could take it or leave it, and it didn't matter if I started or not. I would rather not race than feel anything akin to humiliation.

On that Tour de France, I felt I was suffocating, right up until the celebrated time trial stage up Mont Ventoux. It's a legendary mountain, backdrop for all kinds of cycling feats. It's a majestic theatre, a symbolic frontier between northern and southern France and a sanctuary to Tom Simpson's memory. That is where Jean-Francois Bernard achieved the feat that everyone knows about, collapsing in tears on the finish line in the arms of his guru Bernard Tapie. The boss, father and master, perhaps already totting up the rise in his share prize and drawing all the cameras towards him. The rider, seemingly the son but probably more a slave, reaching here, on the sacrificial altar, the climax of a career that already bore the genes of its own very premature downfall.

On this mountain top, in front of a hysterical crowd, I had decided to give it my all, absolutely everything I had: motivation, concentration, will to win. Unfortunately nothing happened, nothing at all. All I had was the coup de pedale coup de pedale of a cycle tourist. There was emptiness, nothingness. Everything simply subsided at once: I'd had too much emotional turmoil, too many troubles to deal with. What else can I say, other than that it was all very real. My placing was sixty-fourth, more than ten minutes behind Jean-Francois Bernard. I was appalled by my performance. of a cycle tourist. There was emptiness, nothingness. Everything simply subsided at once: I'd had too much emotional turmoil, too many troubles to deal with. What else can I say, other than that it was all very real. My placing was sixty-fourth, more than ten minutes behind Jean-Francois Bernard. I was appalled by my performance.

My son had been born the day before. I almost went home. On the climb there were spectators who had found out who shouted, 'Come on, dad!' It was savage. I simply couldn't move. It hurt all over. Such was Mont Ventoux.

Climbing into the team minibus on the finish line I cracked. 'I'm never going to make it,' I thought. When I was well away from prying eyes, I wept for a long time.

That evening, a journalist happened to meet me at the hotel and asked me: 'Is Bernard your successor?'

I answered: 'Does that mean you've got me dead and buried already?'

He said: 'Maybe.'

I replied: 'Well, that's yet another way of getting me to show you you are wrong.'