Sports Poets Society

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10225284275443385&set=a.10216247140240653 BY LES WOODLAND Peter Post didn’t often say fond things but he called Johan van der Velde the son he never had . The two spent years together in the Raleigh team, where van der Velde could ride frighteningly hard to open the way over mountains for Joop Zoetemelk. Van der Velde, a long-legged, long-haired rider, had a precocious talent, riding his first Tour de France and finishing 14th only a year after turning pro . In 1980 he won the Dauphiné Libéré and was best under-25 in the Tour. Sadly, he turned out the son from hell.  Always a petty thief, a habit he said he acquired from his father, he also became addicted to the drugs he began taking in races . That set off a sequence of crime which put him in jail for stealing lawnmowers and breaking into stamp machines to raise money for his amphetamine addiction and gambling . He and his Belgian wife, Josée, lost their villa and almost all they owned . From