by Ned Boulting
* * *
The last time I sat down to write about Thomas Voeckler, a confession jumped spontaneously onto the page, rather catching me by surprise in the process. In July 2005 I had asked Thomas for his autograph. I just wanted it, because I was in awe of him. Because he was brilliant.
Asking for autographs, or rather, being asked by people to ask for autographs, is an occupational hazard for the sports hack. I still have bag full of football shirts from a chronically under-funded kids’ team in south-east London, which I promised to get Frank Lampard to sign four years ago. I still haven’t done it. I just can’t bring myself to ask sportsmen to sign things as it instantly places you in the debit column: fan, and therefore not qualified as a journalist. Not a price worth paying.
So it was with another inner gasp of surprise, that I found myself shouting ‘Thomas! Thomas!’ across the cobbles of the Champs-Elysées. The 2011 Tour was done. My work was finished for the month. My family were alongside me. And yet I felt fit to descend spontaneously to the level of a whooping pre-teen X-Factor fan at the sight of the legendary French rider parading through Paris with his teammates.
‘Thomas!’ I trilled.
He caught my eye. I showed him the jersey I wanted signed and the pen I had pinched off someone standing to my side. Probably a child.
He smiled politely. But looked away and rode off.
‘Yup’, I muttered to myself. ‘Let’s just pretend that never happened.’
I handed the pen back, and created a diversion. ‘Let’s go and get a drink. I want a beer. Coke, kids?’ My daughters trudged off with me in the general direction of fizz and sugar. Voeckler had done it again. For the second time, he’d turned me into a fan.
On Tuesday, 28 June 2011 Julie Voeckler gave birth to her daughter Lila. Her husband was at her side. He might have been forgiven for spending the previous few days gazing anxiously from the Europcar calendar on the Voeckler family wall, and back again to the sight of Julie’s full-term shape as little Lila bided her time. For Voeckler will have been sweating slightly at the prospect of the mother of all fixture clashes. A new child and the Tour de France. Sometimes life does capricious things like that.
A lot was at stake. The previous autumn, Voeckler had rescued his team from extinction after their sponsor Bouygues Telecom had decided that the best way to market their prestigious B-Box (whatever one of those was) was no longer to stick its logo on the diminutive French Champion’s Lycra. In short, they quit, taking their money with them. Voeckler had offers from a clutch of other teams, but remained loyal to the roster of riders who had been left high and dry.
Eventually, and solely because of Voeckler’s very particular charisma, a sponsor came forward. Europcar, who charge people money to drive cars they don’t own in an uncharacteristically reckless fashion, pinned their green flag to Tommy’s bony backside. They did so, not out of any great sentiment, but purely in the hope that Voeckler would make enough of a splash on the Tour for people like me to write sentences like this that contained the word ‘Europcar’ in future publications.
So the new father to a baby girl (he and Julie already had a son, Mahe) had added a considerable weight of responsibility on his slight frame. His teammates’ jobs were saved, for now, but the Tour had to deliver. A bit like Julie had delivered on the Tuesday, only without the drugs.
Four days later, on the Saturday, the Tour rolled out of his home départment, the Vendée. Predictably, he was subjected to a welter of affectionate attention.
Eight days after that, and just twelve days into Lila’s life, he crossed the finishing line in the main square of Saint-Flour, a town built on a rugged volcanic rock in the heart of the Massif Central. In that instant, and quite unexpectedly, he took over the lead of the Tour de France. Again.
The genesis of this story was, of course, the instant that Johnny Hoogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha were so famously wiped out by the French TV car. Overtaking the riders on a narrow, tree-lined country road, it suddenly swerved erratically to the right, and straight into the Tour de France. Flecha, who never stood a chance, slammed onto the tarmac with violent suddenness. Hoogerland catapulted over his handlebars, towards a barbed-wire fence and into cycling immortality. It was the defining image of the 2011 Tour. But there we will leave Johnny for now, unpicking the steely thorns from his backside. We will, of course, return to him, but up the road something else of huge significance was happening, almost incidentally.
Voeckler was the lead rider in the breakaway when the car struck. He looked over his shoulder, saw the crash, then stepped hard on his pedals and accelerated out of the shot.
Some of this might have been the pure adrenalin of the moment. Yet, like a darts player totting up the permutations of an unlikely checkout, Voeckler knew instinctively what to do. In that split second, he had calculated the consequences. Hoogerland was just twenty-one seconds down on him in the General Classification, a gap that the Dutchman, a more naturally aggressive climber, could surely have attacked over the remaining inclines on the stage. That is, Hoogerland could have attacked, had he not ended up tangled in a barbed-wire fence. That kind of slowed him down.
In short, if the peloton let the break go, that crash meant the yellow jersey. Seven years after his improbable defence of the race lead, which had entranced the watching world, Voeckler was suddenly at it again. He didn’t expect it. We didn’t expect it. And little Lila will be told about it for many years to come.
The clockwork of memories rewound to 2004. Could it really have been 2004? A whole seven years ago? I was just thirty five! A mere, slightly podgy sapling, bending in the force-9 gale of events in just my second Tour de France. Armstrong was smashing the race apart. It was such a long time ago that people still thought Jan Ullrich might win. After a while, with this race ticking away in your heart, you start to measure out your life to its annual rhythm. Because it changes shape each year, more often than not with one defining feature, it tolls the bell of my irresistible ageing. 2007: London. 2008: Alpe d’Huez. 2009: Ventoux. 2010: Tourmalet. 2011: Galibier. The gaps in between are just so much padding. 2004: Voeckler.
Now he stood in open disbelief on the podium in Saint-Flour, his face scrunched into a smile devouring his every feature. He grabbed a fistful of the Europcar (there, I’ve done it again) logo on his yellow jersey, and kissed it with a passion not usually accorded to nylon-based weaves. The consummate professional.
Two Voecklers: this one, weather-beaten and scrawny. And that one: the ‘baby-faced’ little cheeky chappy Tommy V, who’d captivated the misty-eyed sporting sentimentalists some seven years ago. We drew breath, and wondered what the future would hold for Voeckler, Part II.
There is stuff both to admire and to fear about the sporting comeback, the repetition of former glories. It seldom passes well, if truth be told. To watch on, as an act of greatness is repeated at the fag end of a career, carries with it the uneasiness of a warm October day. It cannot be enjoyed with the same insouciance, since it doesn’t contain promise in any measure, only fragility. So Voeckler’s moment of triumph in Saint-Flour gave rise to just one thought. This moment seven years on was just a pale yellow pretender. I yearned to go back in time, and to witness the authentic, unfolding drama of 2004 once again.
* * *
A few days later, I looked aimlessly around the pastel-coloured, echoing lobby of the Mercure hotel in Albi. I was weary. It was the morning of Voeckler’s third day in yellow. Behind me a French Eurosport crew were just putting the finishing touches to an edited feature on their laptop. In front of me, sitting patiently at a white plastic coffee table, Thomas Voeckler, already dressed from neckline to knees in acid lemon yellow, was being enthusiastically talked to by three besuited marketing reps. From what I could gather, they were pitching a new sponsorship deal for some kind of powdered glucose nonsense. Voeckler looked to be broadly delighted with their proposal. After a little while he shook their hands separately and, taking up a few free samples of the energy drink b
eing discussed, he took his leave and headed back towards the breakfast room, where Julie was trying to get their son to eat yoghurt. This she was managing to do, whilst simultaneously rocking their new-born daughter back and forth in a pram. If she needed help, then it arrived in the form of the leader of the Tour de France.
After breakfast, he went outside. I stood next to Liam, who was filming Thomas Voeckler playing with little Mahe in the chilly drizzle outside the hotel in Albi. Wearing matching yellow jerseys, albeit in different sizes, the two male Voecklers were running from one side of the courtyard to another. Mahe squealed with delight each time his father set off, waddling like a sped-up Charlie Chaplin, bowlegged and feet akimbo for his son’s amusement. He was running like he rode a bike: a bit strangely. In everything that Voeckler did on and off the bike, there was as much lateral movement as forward propulsion, defying all conventions of efficient technique. The ‘awkward’ gene was clearly very strong in his family. Back and forth and back and forth they went.
A little while later, after kissing his family farewell, he checked out of the hotel and, with a cursory nod of the head in my direction, consented to granting me a very quick interview. We rushed to his side and he continued walking. We talked from the front door of reception to the team bus turning its engine over some fifty metres away in the car park. It was one of those ferociously complex interviews conducted on the hoof, which drew on all the skill of the cameraman. Liam had to get in front of us, and walk backwards, keeping the framing, focus and shot steady, whilst having no idea what he was about to bump into. All this as we went across a courtyard, up two flights of stone steps, and then sharp left.
Voeckler was uncharacteristically grumpy that morning. I even felt, perhaps misguidedly, that there was a certain standoffishness between him and his unheralded teammates. They seemed to be keeping a little distance from the man who attracted all the attention. Perhaps they were simply horrified at the nauseating task of defending the jersey that awaited them. No longer could the team disappear in the pack. No longer would they, as single riders, be given licence to get in moves and look for individual honour. They would have to subjugate their efforts solely to protect their leader, a man who, let’s face it, had done all this before and had no need to repeat it all over again. I glanced at Anthony Charteau as he climbed on board the bus. He had been on the Brioches la Boulangère roster in 2004, and had once memorably obliged us by giving a revealing interview in which he admitted to being the lowest-paid rider on the Tour de France. I forget the exact figure, but you could comfortably have earned as much stacking shelves in the local branch of Hyper-U. But this morning he looked a little downcast, and I found myself wondering what kind of money he was on now.
As the riders gazed through the rain-flecked glass at the few interested fans standing out in the rain to see off Team Europcar, they didn’t look particularly optimistic. You could read their thoughts, ‘Today a long flat stage. Then tomorrow to Luz-Ardiden. After that it really starts.’ No, this would not be fun, and nor would it last long. In short, as the bus pulled away over the wet tarmac, it wasn’t the same vibe. The glass-half-empty part of me mused gloomily that it was set to be a bitter little imitation of 2004, precarious, sapping and doomed to failure.
How wrong I was. On Stage 12 they tackled the Tourmalet, on whose slopes Voeckler contrived to lose control of his bike and dent a campervan. Then on the first summit finish of the Tour, he held on by his fingertips to the big-name climbers, trundling in just behind Alberto Contador, and only forty seconds behind Andy Schleck. He was in agony as he dismounted, his thigh muscles bruised from the earlier collision. It was a brave ride, which hinted that he meant business.
Two days later, though, we witnessed the extent of his reinvention. He finished in the group of favourites, without ever looking particularly troubled on the final climb to Plateau de Beille. This was no longer hanging on, this opened up the possibility that more was to come. My misgivings about his reign in yellow melted away. 2011 had returned to the scene of 2004’s heroics, and trounced them. This was, arguably, better. We sat up and started to believe.
Voeckler, propelled by his splendid team, had already exceeded all expectations. His climbing, which had only ever been good enough for survival in a breakaway group of chancers at best, had changed beyond recognition. Not that he looked different, of course. He still threw his bike all over the road and gurned. But the speed, the ease with which he now rode. He comfortably matched the accelerations of the Schleck brothers and, far from losing time, actually looked as if he might have enough in reserve to launch his own counter-attacks. It was preposterous, thrilling, almost absurd. Voeckler was a man transformed. He hurdled the Pyrenees and then set his sights higher still.
Time after time over the coming days, before he eventually relinquished his status on the cacophonous slopes of Alpe d’Huez just two stages from Paris, I had the good fortune of interviewing Voeckler as his summer’s story fattened into something mythical. He passed through the full range of sentiments: self-belief, humility, delight and foreboding. From aspiration to realism. But all with great patience and his trademark smile. He didn’t need to win new friends, of course; he already had them in abundance. But he won them anyway.
‘Thomas, you’ve been climbing with the very best, and you’ve not looked uncomfortable. In fact, today, you looked like you might be able to attack them.’ I was speaking to him after he had climbed to Plateau de Beille. It was his fifth day in the leader’s jersey and by an extraordinary coincidence, the same summit on which he had so improbably defended the maillot jaune in 2004. ‘You’re not just there by mistake, surely you must start to believe that you are a real GC contender.’
He looked at me with his head cocked to one side, and a smile spreading widely. ‘Listen, I have a scoop for you. I am not going to win the Tour de France.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘The Alps will be very hard. The Galibier is a different climb. But I will try to defend it for as long as I can.’
And with that he was chaperoned from my sight, to face the next forest of microphones. His daily bread.
Five days, six, seven.
The Tour spanned the Camargue and then reached the Alps, dropping in on Gap for the millionth time. For Voeckler, who had survived the first two summit finishes with all of his unlikely lead intact, it was not without incident, of course. The race was too lively for that. Alberto Contador, who had fallen uncomfortably far out of the reckoning, kept trying to animate things. So too did Evans, who was attempting at every opportunity to put the Schleck brothers into difficulty (which mostly involved asking them to race their bicycles downhill in the rain). So the yellow jersey had taken some defending.
Weariness appeared to be taking hold of our plucky French hero. On the run in to Pinerolo, after two difficult and increasingly mountainous stages, Voeckler lost time with comic panache. It was one of those racing incidents that happen so unexpectedly that no camera captures them. All we get to see is the aftermath. And so it was when the helicopter suddenly cut to Voeckler riding around in circles on what appeared to be a disused petrol forecourt. He looked giddy. He looked knackered. Afterwards, he let us know that tomorrow he was finished. We nodded sagely. Tomorrow was the ascent of the Galibier. He was toast. Bernard Hinault, the last French winner of the Tour de France agreed when I spoke to him. ‘Il est toast…un croque monsieur.’ Something along those lines.
This is what we believed. I walked three miles on my own up the Galibier to see his toasting with my own eyes. As if the mountain itself wasn’t intimidating enough, the crest of the famous ridge where the finish line stood was wrapped in frozen cloud. Periodically, the gloom would lift, vertiginously. Either side of the Galibier pass, dizzying descents would burst rudely into sight, only to disappear a moment later. It was bloody cold. Clutches of tourists huddled together with Tour staff for comfort; unlikely allies against the chill.
The story of Stage 18 is well rehearsed. Andy Sch
leck’s swashbuckling attack, which ended up with a little too much buckle for his swash. And there was Evans’ quintessential, lonely ride. No one helped him pull Schleck back, so he did it on his own, head set to one side, hurting. And Voeckler, flanked by the fluid, young and increasingly prominent Pierre Rolland, grimacing his way to his finest hour.
As the mountain reared up ahead of them, Schleck began to fade. Evans remorselessly plugged away at the leader, keeping his losses within reasonable margins. And Voeckler held on. Although he lost touch just a little towards the end, he had done enough to defend his lead in the General Classification and, implausibly, to retain the yellow jersey through the sternest test of them all.
‘Voeckler, ce héros!’ L’Equipe declared the following day. They devoted the cover photo not to Andy Schleck, who’d made the big move of the Tour, nor did they dedicate their attention to Evans, who’d probably just done enough to win. They decided instead that Voeckler’s image was the one that their readership needed to see dominate their front cover, squeezing aside all but a few adverts.
In the picture, he has just realised he’s held on. His right arm is lifted in triumph at such an angle that his bike, unbalanced at the best of times on account of his extraordinary riding style, looks like it is about to topple over.
It’s a photo that says, ‘This far. And no further.’
And that, of course, is exactly what it proved to be, to the relief of certain people at ASO, I was astonished to learn. The following morning, I sat down for breakfast on Alpe D’Huez with a senior official from the Race Organisation.
‘How about Voeckler, then? What’d that be like; a Frenchman in yellow in Paris?’
I expected his face to light up. But instead he slipped his shades further up his somewhat Gallic nose, and pulled a sour face, moving his tongue around his mouth as if cleaning his teeth of something unpleasant.
