The Enemy Within

Tour de France: stage 17

Toulouse to Luz Ardiden was a frustrating day for Greg. Full of riding and strenght, he could have undoubtedly gone on and made up time on his teammate Bernard Hinault. The La Vie Claire management of Paul Koechli and Bernard Tapie made sure that didn't happen.

"Do what you want. 

Say what you want. 

I'ain't going home."

   - STEPHEN ROCHE

Guy Andrews

Greg LeMond: Yellow Jersey Racer

For Irishman Stephen Roche, 1985 was a turning point. He'd already been recognized as a major talent, and both he and Greg had been tipped as potential winners of the Tour de France. That year, however, Roche unwittingly became the architect of a rift at the top of the Tour's leader board. On stage 17, Roche took his chance and, with Pedro Delgado and Fabio Parra, attacked the leaders and built up a gap. That climbers of their caliber should escape was no great surprise, but with Roche sitting in third place overall, second-placed Greg LeMond decided to go with them. The notable absentee from this group was Bernard Hinault, the yellow jersey holder and Greg's teammate, who was left struggling behind. The resulting breakaway stalemate began one of the biggest rivalries in cycling history.

Roche was an effortless, almost lackadaisical pedalist, a rider with the style of a dancer - à la danseuse, as the French would say. He rarely made a mistake, and was able to mask his difficulties like no one else (in cycling, bluff is sometimes all you have). As his career progressed, he'd have to call on this talent, too. Cycling is not a sport for the faint-hearted, and despite the suffering that goes on in the mountains, very often it's your rivals and adversaries that create the most danger and anxiety. When those rivals are your teammates, cycling can reveal one of its darkest, most treacherous sides. If Greg's nemesis in 1985 was Bernard Hinault, then Roche's in 1987 would undoubtedly be the Italian Roberto Visentini. As teammates with very similar ambitions, their rivalry came to a spectacular head- to-head during the 1987 Giro d'Italia.

Roche's career was cemented by his incredible treble, winning cycling's Triple Crown in 1987 and joining Eddy Merckx as one of only two riders in the history of the sport to win the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the World Championships in the same year. Many great riders are ultimately thwarted by a serious injury, forcing them to spend the rest of their careers defending or guarding their position. For Roche, it would be a knee injury caused by an accident on the track during a six-day event in 1986. The problems it created were only exacerbated by a relentless racing schedule and pressure to perform in every race. Roche's injured knee would be his Achilles' heel, preventing any reprise of his great performances of 1987.

Prior to the Tour in '85, Stephen and Greg had fairly similar race programs, and despite having youth and enthusiasm on their side, they were often overtrained, under-rested, and in many ways physically abused by their teams and managers. Indeed, Roche was once told by his directeur sportif that he'd be "sent home to Ireland" if he didn't win the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs (he did).

Both Stephen and Greg were exceptionally talented all-rounders and Grand Tour specialists, with a variety of unique talents at their disposal: Greg could sprint and descend with the best of them, whereas Stephen was a strong climber and an excellent time trialist. What's more, neither seemed to have a particular weakness. So, if it hadn't been for their respective injuries, they would no doubt have produced many more mouthwatering duels.

In 1985, bike racing appeared to change for a variety of reasons. Not least among them, perhaps, was the fact that English-speaking riders were starting to make a difference to the results. They were starting to take over.

1985: Stephen Roche

"Three days before (stage 17 of the 1985 Tour de France), Hinault, in the yellow jersey, had fallen at Saint-Étienne. Everyone was speculating [whether] he had a broken nose. He wore these dark shades that hid his black eye, so we couldn't really tell [whether the stories were genuine or not], but I think he got away with it. Myself, Greg, and Pedro Delgado got away [from the pack], and then we were riding for a time with Hinault behind. We'd started on the Col d'Aspin, then rode the Col du Tourmalet, and finished on Luz Ardiden. So we started the final climb, and we were getting time checks from Greg's car [on Hinault's position], around the one and a half, two minute mark. That day on the climb up to Luz Ardiden, Greg wouldn't ride with me, but he kept attacking me, so I kept riding at 80 percent because I knew I was third or fourth overall on GC [general classification]. I also knew that if Greg got away from me, I could say goodbye to winning the Tour that year. So I felt by holding on to Greg, I could hopefully do as good or better than him in the time trial. And I wasn't going to bury myself in the road and have him attack me and then get away from me altogether.

"We got caught near the top, 

but Hinault wasn't there."

"We got time checks from Greg's car [again], and they seemed to be okay-in and around the one and a half, two minute mark. We didn't seem to be losing any time, officially. What was actually happening was that [Paul] Koechli was lying, because he was making us feel we were comfortable whereas, in fact, Hinault was charging behind, catching up on us. If we had known Hinault was coming back at us, I'd have worked a bit harder with Greg and maybe tried to put more time into Hinault. Koechli was telling Greg that Hinault was almost two minutes back. So I thought, I don't have to worry about Hinault, I have to worry about Greg. But in fact Hinault was closing in on us all the time. I remember Greg kept trying to attack, attack, attack, but I said, 'Greg, forget about it. He ain't going nowhere.' And I knew if I rode 100 percent Greg would've attacked me and I wouldn't have been able to catch him back. So I just rode at 80 percent and matched him. We got caught near the top, but Hinault wasn't with them.

"Greg was definitely the stronger rider that year. Maybe in '86 it was the contrary, [but] definitely in '85 Greg was stronger than Hinault. Perhaps Hinault held him back. The rivalry? I didn't pay much attention to it. We weren't really aware of all the rivalry because they put on a good show-until stage 171 Greg wouldn't have won that stage alone [Delgado did], but we could have gone on and made up more time (on Hinault]. But on the Tour in general, if Greg had played his own hand, I think yes, he probably was stronger than Hinault. But we weren't aware of the hard rivalry that happened in later months.

"When the '85 Tour was announced in October '84, they announced a 55 kilometer morning stage up to Aubisque, with 100 kilometers in the afternoon on the other side of the Aubisque back into Pau. And our DS Raphaël Géminiani said, Roche is going to win those two stages. He said, he's gonna win them because he has an incredible turn of speed, and he won't only win the morning stage, he'll win the afternoon as well. That's pressure for you! He maintained that story right through the whole of the year. Right up to the morning of the stage, when he came to my room and gave me a specially commissioned skinsuit that had a silky aerodynamic top, and silk wasn't really done in those days. 'Here, Stephen,' he said. 'Here's your winning outfit for the stage.' 'I can't go on the start line with that!' I replied. 'Everyone knows. Everyone listens to you saying Roche is going to win. If I wear that, everyone will say I'm crazy!' I put a jersey on over it because I didn't want to go down to the start line in a skinsuit with no pockets or anything in it. On the Aubisque, I took my jersey off and threw it on the ground.

"At the foot of the Col du Soulor, the Colombian Lucho [Luis] Herrera had already got away. There was a fairly good gap, so the pressure was really, really on. I'd missed out on the rewards the day before, but here was another mountain stage that I could do well on, so I took off and caught Herrera. I was surprised first of all to catch him, and then I began to think, 'Has Hinault done a deal with Herrera?' Everything goes through your mind because it wasn't normal, catching Herrera. 'Is this normal?' So I attacked him straight away and held on to win the stage while Hinault was fighting it out with LeMond and Sean Kelly behind me. But it was another opportunity to put time into Hinault and LeMond, primarily because the pressure was on. There were two races there: it was the race and the race within.

"When it happened to me [Roche's battle with Roberto Visentini at the 1987 Giro d'Italia], my attitude was: do what you want, say what you want, but I ain't going home. That was my barrier; it helped me sleep at night. It didn't matter what they said, as there was no way I was going home. I'm here to win, I thought, and if I don't win, it's not because I haven't tried. It's not because you've spat at me or said something to me, it's other factors. "My battle lasted twelve days. It had a draining effect, but I coped with it because I blocked everything out. It's very hard for the staff-the masseurs, the mechanics, the managers of the team-to keep the balance. The most difficult part for me, apart from the crowd, was the team itself. The team was unanimously for Visentini, and [I had] just one teammate riding for me [the Belgian Eddy Schepers]. It wasn't the same thing with La Vie Claire, or it wasn't visible from the outside at any rate, but I'm sure it was similar with Hinault being French and having all his French domestiques around him. I'm sure there was a lot of tension within the team as well.

"Tapie brought things to a different level: 

the motorhomes, the VIPS, the champagne at the finishing line. 

He brought a higher profile to the sport, 

and things have benefited greatly since that era."

"Greg was a different rider when he came back after his hunting accident. He was much more choosy in which races he rode, and prepared more for specific races. Which got him abuse in the press as well. After he won the Tour in '86, I think that's all he wanted to do-to focus on the Tour. It was always something people had difficulty coming to terms with. They said he showed a lack of respect for races, coming along and 'just' riding around. Before his injury, he rode a similar program to myself-120 days a year-and there was a different style of rider. After he had the accident and came back in '88, '89, '90, he was more cautious and mostly focused on the Tour. Which was disappointing to some because of the rider he was... It caused a lot of speculation as to his commitment. Hamburgers and Coca-Cola! All the remarks going round [suggested that he was eating] too much shit food and didn't care about the Dauphiné or the Romandie. It was all about the Tour. "Injuries definitely played a big part for all of us in those days. It's difficult to say where things would have gone in my career, or Greg's, without them. People might ask, would I have won the '87 Tour if Greg had been there and Hinault hadn't retired? In '85, it was Hinault, Greg, and myself. In '86, Greg wins, but in '87 they're gone and I'm there. Would he have won if he hadn't had his accident, they might ask. I'd say no, obviously, but every event has its own little drama of ups and downs. But then if Greg hadn't had his accident, would he have won six Tours? We'll never know.

"In '85, when I won on the Aubisque, I was coming down off the finishing line and Bernard Tapie had his motorhome there. As I walked past he pulled me inside. Greg and Hinault were there, and Tapie offered me a glass of champagne. 'Don't you come round and fuck us up now!' he said to me. Then everything started moving off the climb and I had to stay in this van. All the media speculation the next day was wondering, what did Tapie say to Roche? Is he signing him for next year?'

"I'd had a few run-ins with Hinault as well, but it never got as verbal as it did between him and Greg. But Greg was on his team, so Greg got an awful lot of attention from Tapie, which Hinault was jealous about too. I know Greg got abuse from Hinault maybe more than the other English-speaking riders because his contract was highlighted a lot in the papers-Tapie giving him a million dollars for three years, or whatever it was, and Hinault wasn't getting that. The national hero, who had won the Tour four times already... Here was this young kid with blond hair and braces.

"Tapie brought things to a different level: the motorhomes, the VIPS, the champagne at the finishing line. He brought a higher profile to the sport, and cycling has benefited greatly since that era. Tapie saw an opportunity... He's a real people- person, and he saw a business opportunity in signing LeMond. Tapie was [paying] a million dollars rather than the twenty or thirty grand you'd expect at the time. That was amazing-a lot of money-but he saw the opportunity with La Vie Claire and wanted to use Greg LeMond as his marketing tool.

"When you know the danger is coming from the outside, you can manage it. But when the danger is coming from inside your own team-and it's by no means a small danger having the likes of Hinault or Visentini up against you-they're icons in their countries and as good as you on the day. You have to be very careful in everything you do. You're being overcautious on what you're eating, drinking, bike, tires, your choice of gearing ... You hadn't a big choice of gears, but you had to have the right gears. You don't want to lose it all over a small detail. You can't leave any stone unturned; you have to get into everything. You're more into the way of thinking, what losing time means here or what gaining time means there...

"It does make you be on your best behavior, because it can all go wrong, very easily."