BIKE PORTRAITS - Merci, Poupou

words by © CHRISTIAN GIORDANO
© Panache magazine 

It was a privilege to interview you, Poupou. 

2016 Paris-Roubaix's eve, six days before your 80th birthday. Your contagious sympathy, the cheerful self-irony, our effort to subdue even just for a brief moment the embrace of your people. Simple people like you. Your fans of every age. On the race départ stage in Compiègne, just an ovation. Pure and simple. As if you’d race tomorrow, even if you retired forty years ago. 

"The Eternal Second" who? For the French people nobody like you, Raymond - ever, never, in terms of “poupoularité” (copyright Antoine Blondin). Always first on the finish line of their hearts, Poulidor. So perfect, aristocratic and distant man, "Maitre" Jacques. 

That epic duel, shoulder to shoulder with Anquetil, on the Puy-de-Dôme stage during the ’64 Tour - an icon of an unrepeatable era. 

That square, earthy face that looked as carved in the Massif Central where your legendary life began. 

Eighteen years in the pro ranks, 14 Tour de France startings, 12 finished: 11 top-tens and 8 podium (he finished in second place three times, and in third place five times). Never first, never – ever - in yellow, not even for a day. Yet you have always been the most loved, the most supported, the never forgotten. 

Some people, however, too and too often forget your 189 victories, including Vuelta a España, Milano-Sanremo, Flèche Wallonne, two Paris-Nice in a row, seven Tour and four Vuelta stages, five Critérium International and two Critérium du Dauphiné, Midi-Libre, Setmana Catalana (Catalan Week), Grand Prix des Nations -- a sort of time trial world championship (“open” at that time) thirty years before they invented it. 

By the way, your road world championship: it was all about your same old (Tour) story. Four podiums and never, ever, the highest step -- a silver and three bronzes. 

"You see, Raymond, even this time I arrive first," the 53-year-old Anquetil told him from his deathbed. It was 1987. Poupou lived thirty years more than him, always chasing him. 

Now that you've got him - forever - his wheel, tell him, Raymond: it's your nephew Mathieu van der Poel the Anquetil of this age. Your last gift to the sport you loved - reciprocated - so much. 

Merci beaucoup. Merci, Poupou.