Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape

by Paul Howard

  More significant than all of this, however, was the appearance of Poulidor himself, the first direct confrontation in a rivalry that would endure for the rest of Anquetil’s career. Even before the Tour had started, there had been considerable speculation and anticipation in the press as to the level of challenge Poulidor might be able to pose. After all, in only two years as a professional Poulidor had already accomplished two important victories that had as yet eluded Anquetil: the French National Championships – a feat Anquetil would never achieve as a professional – and the Milan–San Remo classic one-day race – it would be another two years before Anquetil won a one-day race abroad. To add more fuel to the fire, it was common knowledge that his absence from the Tour the previous year, when still run in the national teams format, was not down to his relative inexperience or youthfulness – he was only two years younger than Anquetil – but because his manager, Antonin Magne, didn’t want him to have to play second fiddle.

  ‘Straight away, journalists set me up as a rival to him, as I’d been noticed right from the start of my career,’ Poulidor recalls. ‘I’d won or led a lot of races, and the public had also become aware of me. So, that got the journalists talking even more.’ Straight away, too, Anquetil took umbrage at this parvenu, a reaction which Poulidor, with typical humility, still finds entirely understandable: ‘He didn’t react very well, and for good reason. I was set up as a rival, but I didn’t have the victories to prove it. I had nothing.’

  It looked as if nothing would come of the first confrontation at the Tour, either, after Poulidor broke his left wrist in the run-up to the start in Nancy. He only managed to ride at all in 1962 after being fitted with a special, lightweight plaster cast, immediately throwing doubt on his potential to mount a credible challenge. Far from dampening the potential rivalry, however, this unfortunate turn of events simply proved to be the beginning of Poulidor’s love affair with the French public, which in turn would be a major source of antagonism between the two men.

  ‘I had my arm in plaster at the start, so my popularity started from there,’ he recalls. ‘The first day, I lost nine minutes. I was low in the evening. We went through the feed zone, and it was a jungle. There was only one, so you couldn’t miss it, but I only had one arm . . . I couldn’t keep up with the first riders through the zone, then there were a few breaks, and I lost nine minutes. It could have been the same the next day, but I managed to catch up the first break, and it was OK.’

  Things improved steadily thereafter, and by the time the race came to the Alps Poulidor was lying third overall: ‘I did the first eight days with my arm in plaster and only took it off when we arrived at the Pyrenees. Then I won a major mountain stage in the Alps [the 19th stage from Briançon to Aix-les-Bains] and came third in the final time trial behind Anquetil and Baldini, finishing third overall. Our rivalry started from there. When we made it to the Parc des Princes, the crowds were on their feet, and it was all for me.’

  This in itself was enough to irk Anquetil: ‘How did he react? Certainly it must have been difficult for him. All the adulation was for me, so if I put myself in his place . . .’ Yet according to Poulidor it was the practical consequences of this popularity that proved to be the biggest thorn in Anquetil’s side: ‘What was harmful to his career, I now understand, was this popularity, because I was paid the same rate in the criteriums as him, even though I hadn’t won, so for him it was frustrating. I understand. I would have reacted in the same way, and even other rivals reacted in a similar way to Anquetil. I was casting a shadow over all of them, so it was normal that I didn’t win. But then the more they didn’t let me win, the more they ganged up on me, the more popular I became.’

  Yet it was Anquetil who had equalled Philippe Thys and Louison Bobet’s achievement of three Tour de France victories, a feat made all the more remarkable by the concerns surrounding his health only a few weeks before the start. Dr Hermier, the doctor who diagnosed the viral hepatitis, was certainly impressed: ‘I congratulate you on this new victory, but as far as I’m concerned you should no longer consider me your doctor. You’re not made like other people.’ Further evidence of this unique constitution came in the form of the tapeworm from which he’d also been suffering during the Tour, and from which he was still recovering when he partnered Rudi Altig, his nemesis from the Tour of Spain, to victory at the Baracchi Trophy in Italy. Once again, Altig proved more than a match for his more illustrious partner, although it was Altig’s own hunger for victory and his sense of rage inspired by Anquetil’s atypical reluctance to prepare thoroughly that were more significant in his subsequent humiliation than his tapeworm.

  ‘Two or three days before the race, we should have gone out training, but it was raining heavily, so Jacques didn’t want to go out,’ Altig recalls with a degree of relish. ‘So, I went out on my own, and I found a road tunnel that was being repaired, and I rode up and down inside that for three hours. I was angry, because Jacques hadn’t prepared as seriously as he normally would. The Baracchi Trophy was an important race, so I said, “If he’s not going to train, then he won’t forget this race in a hurry, because I want to win.”’

  This would turn out to be an understatement. After 70 kilometres of the 111-kilometre event, Anquetil cracked, and Altig had to resort to chivvying, haranguing and even pushing his partner. Pictures of the event reveal Altig, riding one-handed but still in the lead, imploring the hapless, glassy-eyed Anquetil to one last effort. By the finish, Anquetil’s famous lucidity under duress had for once deserted him, and he was incapable of negotiating the final corner onto the track. Instead, he rode straight ahead into the crowd and crashed so heavily that he had to be immediately taken to hospital. ‘Yes, he fell because he was no longer capable of thinking straight,’ Altig recalls. ‘I had pushed him and pushed him, and then I said, “Turn left, we’re going into the stadium,” but he just went straight on into the crowd. He had great courage to have held on for so long.’ With considerable feeling, demonstrating that he too had the competitive drive inherent in all great champions, Altig adds, ‘Fortunately, the time was taken at the entrance to the stadium, so we still won.’ A sentiment no doubt shared by Anquetil, if not immediately.

  THIRTEEN

  An Insatiable Appetite

  WINNING, OF COURSE, WAS Anquetil’s raison d’être. When still a novice, he had been advised that if he raced to make money, he wouldn’t win, but that if he raced to win, he would make money. ‘He quickly understood that the best way to make money out of riding a bike was to win races,’ remembers his friend Dieulois. It may not have been rewarded with great popularity, either with the public or his rivals, but Anquetil did not let this deter him. In fact, his run-in with Altig and the growing threat posed by Poulidor, both on the bike and in terms of the public’s affection, only served to encourage Anquetil to even greater achievements – 1963 was to be his most successful year to date.

  It should be noted, however, that simply winning any old race wasn’t enough – the standing of the event was almost as important as victory. One of the great ironies of Anquetil’s rivalry with Poulidor is that it was Poulidor – the eternal second – who ended his career with more professional wins (189 compared with 184). Of course, the vast majority of Anquetil’s victories carry far greater prestige than those of Poulidor. Although prepared to go to enormous lengths to assert his authority, he was inspired by pride and a careful assessment of the races that were most important in sustaining his reputation – and contract value – rather than the later all-consuming gluttony of Eddy Merckx, for example. When Merckx was nicknamed ‘The Cannibal’, Anquetil was dubbed ‘The Civilised Cannibal’ by Jacques Augendre.

  ‘I think it wasn’t in his character to want to win everything,’ explains Dieulois. ‘The season was long, so he targeted some races and was happy to win those to maintain his status and the commercial value that allowed him to earn his living. He wasn’t like Merckx. Jacques could have had a fuller palmarès [race record] if he’d really knuckled
down to it, but he just based his season on the Tour and the time trials, and that was enough for him. He was quite calculating in this way.’

  To this end, starting the season with his third win in Paris–Nice was the best way to demonstrate his form and send out a clear message to his rivals. The victory didn’t come without some controversy, however, and once again it involved Altig.

  Following the problems surrounding their partnership in the same team the previous season, Géminiani had established a policy of ‘horses for courses’ at St Raphaël. As a result, Anquetil had been appointed leader for stage races, while Altig, along with Jean Stablinski and Jo de Roo, had been nominated to the same role for the far more numerous one-day races. The distinction was not unique, and in principle would seem to have been a step forward from the previous year’s tribalism. Even if both Altig, as winner not just of one-day races but also of the previous year’s Vuelta, and Stablinski, one-day man par excellence and himself winner of the Vuelta in 1958, could have justifiably felt aggrieved at the division of labour, Géminiani was moved to describe the mood in the training camp at the beginning of the season as being reminiscent of the musketeers: ‘All for one, and one for all.’

  At Paris–Nice, Altig was to discover first hand how keen Anquetil was to ensure the first half of that famous motto was adhered to. Shortly afterwards, he would also discover Anquetil’s reluctance to fulfil the second half of the pact. First came Paris–Nice, however, and an enterprising Altig took advantage of the tight marking to which Anquetil was subjected to gain a lead of 35 seconds over his teammate. Having learned his lesson from the Tour of Spain, Anquetil swapped high dudgeon for backroom politics and made sure Géminiani was on his side when it came to enforcing the team policy. In Les années Anquetil, Géminiani wrote:

  ‘I don’t like the idea of going into the time trial stage in second place,’ he told me. Being the one behind this policy, I couldn’t disagree with him. Fortunately, Rudi was as good as his word and didn’t balk at the request. A rider with great class and a fine temperament, he made sure he lost some time during a stage, allowing Jacques to put on the leader’s jersey that he would then wear all the way to Nice.

  Altig’s reward for his selfless team work was to finish second in anticipation of Anquetil returning the favour a few days later in Milan–San Remo. This was not to be, as Altig recalls: ‘We had an agreement that I would help him in stage races and he would help me in the classics, but it was difficult. I could hardly wait for him at the side of the road. I did it once in Paris–Nice, then three days later he was supposed to help me in Milan–San Remo. But he only did 50 kilometres before stopping and getting into the car with Jeanine, who was parked at the side of the road. I said to myself, “I can’t tolerate a teammate like that.”’ Perhaps revealing the reality behind his claims to be a born-again egalitarian, Géminiani, who places the same incident not in Milan–San Remo but in Paris–Roubaix, dismisses it as no more than a ‘hiccup’. Either way, it marked the beginning of the end of Anquetil and Altig’s working relationship, although not of their friendship. When I spoke to Altig, he maintained he had always managed to keep a distance between his professional and his private lives, a distance that allowed him to be friends even with rivals: ‘In races, he was too selfish, so we decided not to mix racing and friendship. What I can say about Jacques is that since his death he is someone I have missed.’ In fact, this is a phrase he repeats several times during our conversation, clearly wanting to underline the warmth of their friendship rather than any lingering bitterness over races won and lost.

  Back in 1963, Anquetil was keen to continue to underline his authority. Beating Poulidor in the Critérium National helped, but the next big challenge was to remedy the previous season’s failure in the Vuelta. Things started off well. He put on the golden jersey of race leader after the first time-trial stage, and the rest of the team still found time for three stage victories, including one for Guy Ignolin, while helping Anquetil defend his position prior to the next time trial on stage 12. Here, Anquetil was expected to cement his overall victory by extending his lead, but Géminiani records that as early as the 20-kilometre mark he began to look in trouble: ‘His face was contorted, and he was sweating more than normal. With a move of his head, he made me understand that things weren’t going well and that he felt sick and was spent. The last 20 kilometres were heroic.’

  Anquetil indeed achieved the unthinkable in such a state and held onto his leader’s jersey, even if he did lose the stage. This was enough to lead to plenty of speculation about his well-being, and Géminiani was fully aware that the rumour mill would run wild if this performance was then followed by any visible signs of weakness. Accordingly, Anquetil was whisked away from the finish area and immediately hidden in his hotel room, where he was in such a state that it took Géminiani and Anquetil’s masseur working together to manage to bathe him. Further reclusiveness was impossible, however, as all the teams were sharing the same hotel and, more importantly, the same dining room. Géminiani later wrote:

  Sitting down to eat without him would have confirmed their suspicions. Taking advantage of a slight improvement, we dressed him and, surrounded by his teammates and in full sight of everyone, started eating. All except Jacques, of course, who couldn’t swallow anything and simply wanted to throw up. Everybody passed their napkins to him to allow him to do this discreetly while all our rivals seemed mesmerised. Having shown himself, Jacques could return to his room.

  He could also continue to recuperate, which he did at a remarkable speed: by four in the morning, he had managed to devour a whole cooked chicken and some beer left for him by Géminiani. That his recovery was complete the following morning was confirmed when he became aware of the speculation surrounding his health: ‘So, they thought I was out for the count, did they? Well, tell the lads we’re off to Valencia [the destination of that day’s stage] in top gear.’ The fairy tale was complete when teammate Shay Elliot won the stage, and Anquetil held onto his lead until the finish in Madrid two days later.

  Unlikely as this may seem, Ignolin was there at the time and confirms the story: ‘Yes, he must have eaten something that disagreed with him. He was throwing up, and the masseur was hiding the plate using our napkins. Afterwards, he went up to the room to recover and ate some cold food during the night, and the next day he was going like a motorbike again.’

  If the experiences of the Vuelta demonstrate one aspect of Anquetil’s remarkable constitution, there are plenty of examples that reveal the more familiar, if sometimes exaggerated, stories about his levels of consumption. In fact, the reality was such that no exaggeration is required, even if he sometimes couldn’t help himself. In an article for Le Cycle magazine, French journalist and until recently official Tour de France historian Jacques Augendre remembers two favourite Anquetil aphorisms: ‘I tried to drink water once. It made me sick’; and ‘Health Food? Such an uncivilised phrase will never be uttered in my house.’ He also remembers Anquetil’s unique way of paying tribute to Pernod for their continued sponsorship of the season-long competition for the rider with the best overall performances, a competition he won four times: ‘He won a Baracchi Trophy not with lemon tea in his bottle but with Pernod. Then he got off his bike and offered his bottle to the journalists who were interviewing him and said, “Would you like an aperitif?”’

  Even for Anquetil, such indulgence during a major event appears to have been unusual, notwithstanding the regular consumption of alcohol as a pick-me-up and painkiller by cyclists of the time. It should be remembered that beer, wine, champagne and even brandy were frequently consumed after one of the many café raids that supplemented the meagre refreshments provided by race organisers and team cars.

  ‘I never saw him eat excessively during important races,’ insists Ignolin. ‘But after the Tour, during the criteriums, oh yes. I went on a few trips with him. I remember lots of steak tartare, lots of pepper and lots of champagne – ooh la la. After one race near Reims, there were
four of us: me, Jacques, Jeanine and Shay Elliot. We took our supper together after the race at about midnight. What spices there were on the steak, and four bottles of champagne for four people. We raced the next day in Limoges, so we had to drive from Reims to Limoges. I had a sore head the next day.’

  His friend Pierre Chany told Sophie of his exasperation at hearing exaggerated stories of Jacques’ consumption being repeated so frequently that he came to be seen as a dilettante rather than a serious athlete blessed with unlikely physiological capabilities. Stories such as his victory in the 1967 Critérium National in Rouen after he had been drinking and playing cards until 3 a.m. on the morning of the race and only deciding to participate after finally succumbing to Géminiani’s jibes that Poulidor was going to win on his doorstep. Yet it was Chany who inadvertently added grist to the rumour mill when he was involved in one of the most famous of all Anquetil’s dietary exploits.

  The location was Géminiani’s home town of Clermont-Ferrand on the eve of the local Ronde d’Auvergne one-day race. In mid-August, in prime criterium season – and therefore prime money-earning season – it had taken a good deal of persuasion to get Anquetil to the start line. The only persuasion that had worked, in fact, came in the form of a promise from Géminiani of a lavish meal and plenty of liquid refreshment. Given what was consumed, it’s perhaps small wonder that Géminiani and Chany’s recollections seem a little hazy and in fact differ in the detail of who was there (in Les années Anquetil, Géminiani lists Anquetil’s teammates for the event as well as a couple of former rugby-playing friends, while in Pierre Chany, L’homme aux 50 Tours de France Chany suggests serious contenders for victory in the race such as Stablinski and Van Looy) and also in the exact quantities involved. Nevertheless, both recall that Anquetil stayed up until 5 a.m. drinking champagne, beer and whisky and outlasting all his companions in doing so. For good measure, Chany adds that Anquetil needed to supplement everything he had consumed up to that point by having two fried eggs – washed down with two more whiskies – before going to bed, and was still capable of being taught how to safely eat the glass from which he was drinking (nibble the rim, chew it up and it forms a harmless paste, apparently).