How I Won the Yellow Jumper Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Cast

  List of Illustrations

  Prologue

  Lewisham Hospital: Part One, August 2003

  A Simple Mistake

  Being on Air

  The Yellow Book

  Introducing Armstrong

  En Route

  France. And the French

  The Go-To Men

  Glenn

  The Lingo

  Floyd Landis

  Lewisham Hospital: Part Two, August 2003

  Cavendish – Beginnings

  Mange Tout

  The Tour Eats Itself

  The Mountains

  Wiggins and the Tax-Haven Tour

  Rest Days

  Concluding Armstrong

  Blokes on Bikes

  Above Us Only Sky

  Cavendish – The Finish Lines

  Oh, the Toilette

  Contador – An Epilogue

  Lewisham Hospital: Part Three, August 2003

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  How I Won the Yellow Jumper

  Dispatches from the Tour de France

  Now includes the 2011 Tour

  Ned Boulting

  To Mum and Dad

  THE CAST

  Since the Tour is as complex as a Tolstoy novel, it might help for me to effect a few introductions. Many of the characters in this book are well known. Others, less so. But all are vital to my story.

  LANCE ARMSTRONG

  Lance – or Larry, as we have dubbed him – is the alpha and omega of the years I have covered on the Tour. Articulate, imperious, stubborn and subtle, he was the reason I became transfixed. Oh, and he won it seven times.

  CHRIS BOARDMAN

  In his time, Chris Boardman won Olympic medals, yellow jerseys and world records. Track or road, it mattered little. These days he spends his Julys working for ITV. He sweeps up with the same proficiency he used to ride a bike.

  MARK CAVENDISH

  Cavendish is the rider I have interviewed more than any other. Principally because his fifteen stage wins to date have coincided with my tenure as ITV's Tour de France reporter. For that reason alone, I feel a little possessive towards him. He may not share that feeling.

  STEVE DOHERTY

  Steve has produced or directed almost every Tour for British TV coverage since 1903. Here he is, circa 2009, struggling with the concept of a computer. A punctilious man with an understated passion for the sport and an ability to multitask under pressure while wearing perfectly creased shirts.

  GARY IMLACH

  Gary has covered every Tour de France for the last twenty years. He has presented the ITV coverage since 2002. He is universally accepted as one of sport's most admired and respected broadcasters. He does, however, eat tinned mackerel. And I have to share his lip-microphone sometimes.

  PHIL LIGGETT

  The Grand Man of the Microphone of the Telly of the Tour. Phil's voice has rung through decades of bike races all over the world, but when July comes, it rings loudest. Silver-haired, silver-tongued, shaven-legged: that's what he is.

  LIAM MACLEOD

  Liam is a fine cameraman and a splendid fellow. His work has brought to life everything I have done over the last four years of the Tour. An ardent Rangers fan with an Irish-sounding name, his confusion was only increased by his introduction to cycling. Like me, though, he's got the bug.

  DAVID MILLAR

  David Millar has been my Tour guide. His roller-coaster career has heaped triumph upon failure, rebirth upon disgrace. Lately he has taught me not to believe all that you see. But, equally, that without belief, we might as well all go home.

  MATT RENDELL

  Matt is one of cycling's great thinkers. Look at him, scratching his chin and musing. Among other books, he has written The Death of Marco Pantani, the definitive work on il Pirata's tragic life. On my first Tour, he nursed me through my initiation. Without his knowledge and passion, I would have given up long ago. He is also able to speak almost every language on earth, which in my eyes makes him extremely clever.

  PAUL SHERWEN

  The other half of the Phil-and-Paul double act. Chipper, chirpy, cheeky and any number of other adjectives beginning with 'ch', Paul's unfailing good humour and faith in cycling makes him a force of nature. As is his ability to talk for hours at a time. Incidentally, he owns a substantial chunk of Africa.

  JOHN TINETTI

  On my early Tours, I worked with John out on the road. He is a poker-faced, tough Australian, who has surprisingly strong opinions about cycling. He just tends to keep them to himself. He can also run fast. Backwards. With a camera. Filming.

  BRADLEY WIGGINS

  Wiggins. Long, tall and with an ever-changing barnet. No one expected him to finish fourth in 2009, but he did. In the course of three weeks he made British cycling re-evaluate its ambitions. His achievements have changed the way we think about ourselves as a nation of riders.

  BEN WOODGATE (WOODY)

  Woody is one of television's top sound recordists. Rich in charm, long on talent and bereft of most forms of seriousness, he strolls through July with a set of headphones clamped to his ears, pretending that he cares about cycling. He drives the car a lot, and secretly quite enjoys it.

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  1 A Lance Armstrong interview played back through a TV monitor in 2009.

  2 Chris Boardman sweeping the grime from the TV truck at the end of a day.

  3 Mark Cavendish, in green, poses with teammates. Liam MacLeod is filming them.

  4 Steve Doherty at his control desk in the TV truck.

  5 Gary Imlach enjoying a rare joke from Chris Boardman on the set.

  6 Phil Liggett looking smart for an American TV network.

  7 Liam MacLeod in Monaco in 2009.

  8 David Millar after the individual time trial in Paulliac in 2009.

  9 Matt Rendell posing for the cameras. Chris Boardman took this.

  10 Paul Sherwen in commentary mode.

  11 John Tinetti waits with me for the end of the team time trial in Arras 2004.

  12 Bradley Wiggins, riding for Cofidis in 2007, stops for an interview.

  13 Ben Woodgate (Woody) waking up from a mid-afternoon nap.

  14 Fast asleep one afternoon, waiting for the race to come in.

  15 One of the last photos of me before I revealed my ears to the world.

  16 Gary Imlach recording the closing link to the highlights show.

  17 Gary receives his medal for twenty years service from Christian Prudhomme.

  18 Chris Boardman dons a bin bag on the Tourmalet in 2010.

  19 Chris Boardman pretending to lift a truck.

  20 Phil Liggett inexplicably snuggles up next to a statue.

  21 Phil Liggett, stripped to the waist, but still talking.

  22 Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and me in a fit of nationalistic fervour, in Paris 2009.

  23 Watching the closing stages on the set with Chris Boardman and Gary Imlach.

  24 On top of the Col d'Aubisque.

  25 Green, white and yellow. The Aussie national colours, worn by Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke and Brad McGee in 2003.

  26 Lance Armstrong at the start line.

  27 Ben Woodgate sheepishly posing with 'Shirley' Crow.

  28 The front page of L'Equipe , 12 July 2003.

  29 Lance Armstrong, when I confronted him about his feud with Filippo Simeoni. Smiling.

  30 The same interview with Lance Armstrong. A few seconds later, the smile had gone.

  31 A traffic jam on the Hautacam.

  32 A typical suitcase, containing dirty clothes in the p
lastic bags. Note the bottle of wine.

  33 A typical Tour shirt, manifestly badly ironed.

  34 Producer James Venner joins Gary Imlach in bin bag chic on top of the Tourmalet in 2010.

  35 A typical ironing scene on a sideboard in a hotel.

  36 Liam MacLeod with a coy frown.

  37 Ben Woodgate enjoying a rapid-fire sneezing fit over breakfast.

  38 Checking the oil in the Renault Espace. Feigning expertise.

  39 Mike Tope admiring his handiwork after scratching his car in Paris.

  40 A still from one of Liam MacLeod's many mobile videos of me sleeping.

  41 Liam MacLeod 'fait la tête'. A Tour tradition.

  42 A a90 police fine. This one was for a slightly impatient overtaking manoeuvre.

  43 Unloading the car during a deluge in Barcelona in 2009.

  44 A sunset in the south of France during the 2003 Tour.

  45 A stash of French firecrackers. I bought these in 2010.

  46 The flagship Pierre Cardin shop in Paris. Extraordinary clothes.

  47 Liam MacLeod filming the château in Saint-Fargeau.

  48 Chris Boardman's portrait of the Eiffel Tower.

  49 The ever popular Thomas Voeckler in 2004.

  50 Another Chris Boardman landscape. This time with windmills.

  51 Robbie McEwen talking to French TV.

  52 Glenn Wilkinson off for a day's work on the Tour.

  53 Glenn Wilkinson's comedy false teeth.

  54 Patrice Diallo in 2009.

  55 Glenn Wilkinson celebrating the end of another Tour in Paris.

  56 The interview pen.

  57 Dag Otto Lauritzen with his sponsored car.

  58 Some Norwegian technicians grab an afternoon nap in the shade of a truck.

  59 My Tour accreditation from 2010.

  60 Smiling next to Laurent Fignon in 2010.

  61 Floyd Landis looking over his shoulder (courtesy of Max Morse).

  62 Our truck in Morzine in 2006. How it got in there I have no idea.

  63 Floyd Landis winning in Morzine in 2006.

  64 Paul Sherwen looking crisp in tie and slacks.

  65 Wearing a set of headphones with a huge comedy aerial.

  66 Studying a menu.

  67 The Gothic Hostellerie de la Poste in Tours.

  68 An amusingly translated menu.

  69 Liam MacLeod posing with a fennel, part of Matt Rendell's astonishing assiette de crudités .

  70 The gigantic raw vegetable based starter that Matt Rendell ordered in Aix-en-Provence.

  71 An attempt not to float to the surface in a hot tub.

  72 Enzo and the vuvuzela.

  73 Our 'host family' near Gap. Remy, Norah and Enzo.

  74 Romain preparing lunch.

  75 Philippe caught off his guard by Chris Boardman.

  76 One of a number of French TV catering areas.

  77 The tiny caravan that houses Philippe, Odette and Romain.

  78 The Devil, Didi Senft, in a rare down moment.

  79 Alexandre Vinokourov, besieged by the press, in 2007.

  80 Michael Rasmussen once again faces up to a battering from the media.

  81 Matt Rendell at the Rasmussen press conference, in the middle of the front row.

  82 Liam MacLeod tucking into the Sancerre on that ill-fated rest day in Pau 2007.

  83 Hiding at the back of the Hotel La Pameraie, where the police were raiding Team Astana.

  84 Interviewing Alexandre Vinokourov in 2010 after his stage win.

  85 The top of Mont Ventoux.

  86 On the summit of Mont Ventoux awaiting the 2009 Tour's arrival.

  87 A glimpse of the Alps. I think this one came somewhere near to Sisteron.

  88 Odette washing up, with a fine view from her kitchen window.

  89 Mountains and clouds.

  90 Pointing at mountains.

  91 A sunset over the mountains.

  92 The Provisional General Classification, with Wiggins in third place behind Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong.

  93 Ben Woodgate in Monaco.

  94 Bradley Wiggins talking to me about doping on the 2009 Tour.

  95 Waiting outside a launderette with Matt Rendell on a rest day in Toulouse.

  96 My 2010 accreditation in close-up.

  97 Liam MacLeod hunting down a launderette with his dirty laundry slung over his shoulder.

  98 Posing for an album cover in a launderette.

  99 Liam MacLeod, with his new ukelele, bashing out a David Bowie cover.

  100 Adventurous parking in Verbier in 2009.

  101 Liam MacLeod's filthy polo shirt which provoked alarm in Switzerland.

  102 The beautiful Villa Rose hotel in Bagnères-de-Bigorre.

  103 Ben Woodgate showering in public view in Verbier.

  104 Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel in Paris after the end of the 2010 Tour.

  105 Lance Armstrong on a hairpin on Luz-Ardiden in 2003.

  106 Throwing my bike into a hedge during the 2010 Tour ride in Devon.

  251 Testing the brakes on my first ever bike.

  108 The bike I bought in 2003, when I rediscovered cycling. By the look of me, I needed to.

  109 'Attacking' Peak Hill outside Sidmouth.

  110 Jakob Piil edging out Fabio Sacchi to win Stage 10 of the 2003 Tour (courtesy of Getty Images).

  111 The logo on the side of a Team Sky Jaguar.

  112 Team Sky's fleet: the bus and one of the Jaguars.

  113 Personalised number plates on one of Sky's Jaguars.

  114 Geraint Thomas, wearing his British national champion's jersey, being interviewed on the 2010 Tour.

  115 Mark Cavendish on the 2010 Tour.

  116 Mark Cavendish, caught on a TV monitor.

  117 Mark Cavendish, the centre of attention behind the podium.

  118 The ITV truck parked up next to a toilet in Paris.

  119 A beautifully worded, instructive notice in the Tour toilets.

  120 A chemical toilet placed next to some sculpture in Paris.

  121 A non French-speaking driver appeals for help.

  122 A 'mushroom'.

  123 Alberto Contador takes a long drink before answering questions on the 2010 Tour.

  124 The note given to me by a police officer who had witnessed my accident.

  125 A cheap photo opportunity.

  PROLOGUE

  I’d love to say that cycling has always been my passion. It would be advantageous to claim that I had run away from home in the mid-seventies, stowed away on the Zeebrugge ferry, armed with only a Curly Wurly to sustain me and a Kodak Instamatic to record my adventure, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Joop Zoetemelk riding the Flèche Wallonne. But, to my great regret, that would be a lie.

  Instead I have had to accrue history, to acquire heritage at double-quick pace.

  I was a few days short of my thirty-fourth birthday when I first saw a bike race of any description. It wasn’t any old bike race, mind you. It was the Tour de France. And I was there to report on it for television, which meant that I had to at least look and sound like I knew what I was talking about. That confidence trick wasn’t always successful.

  My first year covering the Tour passed in a haze of angst-ridden confusion and I vowed never to return. Yet, unconsciously, something of the Tour had wormed its way into my DNA. Before I knew what I had done, I agreed to work on the 2004 Tour. Then I ended up covering every Tour between 2005 and 2010, eight Tours in all. I have now spent a total of twenty-four weeks following the peloton round France, gradually growing ever more obsessed with the race.

  After the best part of a decade, I might almost claim to understand it, or at least bits of it, from time to time.

  I am not the only one to have made this progression. The chapters to come are for anyone who has made a similar journey in following this extraordinary sport. They reflect, to some extent, my transition from novice to devotee, taking in both scepticism and wonder. They also invite a mi
nute inspection of the nooks and crannies of life covering the Tour de France. They tell of champions and car parks, yellow jerseys and filthy socks. They celebrate the race, but they celebrate all the other stuff, too.

  That ‘stuff’ is what makes this a unique event: the millions of fans lining the road, the thousands of Tour vehicles, the villains, the virtuous, the hungry and the hopeless. It’s not just about the riders. For the rest of us, it’s the mere act of crashing through France, chasing after an event that won’t stand still: a series of lurches from incident to accident.

  You will notice that, like the Tour itself, this book doesn’t follow a straight line. It has a mind of its own, and tends to jump from superstar to supermarket, from the riders to the roadies, from an appraisal of the career of Lance Armstrong to a meditation on the workings of launderettes. My experiences over the eight Tours that make up the substance of this account are necessarily a little disorderly. The random nature of everyday life grinds away at your journalistic endeavour, and leaves it smoking like the red-hot clutch plate of an overheated Renault Espace, immobile and stranded up a mountain. In fact, there’s a chapter about just that.

  Like those mind-bendingly difficult pixellated designs that were all the rage in the eighties, my hope is that, if you stare at these chapters for long enough, suddenly a fully rounded 3-D picture of the Tour de France will emerge. Fleetingly.

  But what of the race itself?

  The sport of cycling, not for the first time, faces extreme scrutiny. In fact, it exists in a permanent state of tension. A series of doping scandals involving some of its biggest names has taken cycling’s credibility close to the brink. It feels as if the watershed moment, the point of no return, is now both increasingly imminent, and indefinitely delayed.