Battle Scars Read online

  ‘He’d take all the skills of boot camp to a race. He wasn’t necessarily the guy who was going to win or the guy going for the GC, but he kept the whole team together and everybody had respect.’

  Frank says Stuart’s leadership shone through in his decision-making. ‘He knew when to make a decision. At times he took the right decision and sometimes he was wrong, but a lot of people never learn how to do that. They don’t want to make decisions because they’re scared to be wrong. But he made the decision, he took responsibility and we stuck to that plan, right or wrong.’

  Fabian Cancellara says Stuart had a calculated plan for every race they started during their time as teammates. ‘He came to CSC to be a captain or a leader and he was such an awesome person,’ Cancellara says. ‘He could see the race, feel the race, talk about the race and change the race. We went to every race with an ideal scenario and you could trust him. For many things he had solutions—somehow it was like he had keys in his pocket.’

  It was a role Stuart would continue for the rest of his career, and never was it more important than in the first season for Australian team Orica-GreenEDGE on cycling’s WorldTour in 2012.

  ‘We reminded him of his age every now and then but on the bike he’s the eyes, ears and the brains of a lot of big races we do,’ Australian sprinter Matt Goss says. ‘And it takes a lot of pressure off everyone else’s shoulders. He definitely makes our life a lot easier by knowing how to deal with different situations because he’s been there and done it.’

  Goss credits Stuart with helping him land his first ProTour contract with CSC in 2007 after he beat his older compatriot in a criterium a year earlier. He says Stuart has been a mentor to him ever since. ‘As a twenty-year-old, I needed somebody to look up to and hang around and Stuey’s a good guy for that. Maybe he’s the reason I turned into the kind of rider I am—more a sprint and undulating race rider, similar to him,’ Goss says.

  Even when they were on separate teams in 2011, Goss says Stuart still looked out for him and, in a small way, he helped him become the first Australian to win Milan–San Remo.

  ‘I was coming into the corner of a descent going way too fast and screamed out for him not to turn. I saw him glance back; he could have ended my race right there. I would have t-boned straight into him and we both would have been dragging our arses off the tarmac. But he let me through the gap and didn’t put me on the asphalt. When we came across the line, even though we were on different teams, he was one of the first people to shake my hand and congratulate me. I thanked him for not dropping me on that descent.’

  I couldn’t really say I’m closer with either of the Schleck brothers but I’ve spent more time with Andy due to our race programs matching up. They’re very different guys. Frank is the thinker, he analyses everything and takes things personally whereas Andy is much more blaseì and naturally gifted; he doesn’t get stressed. He’s like a kid in a candy shop, he wants to ride his bike and have fun and that’s why it was so much fun conjuring up a plan to win that epic stage on top of the Col du Galibier in 2011.

  I had looked at the race book before the Tour and identified its defining stages. Some days the mountains were too far from the finish line which meant a long descent would allow the chasing group to bridge the gap. But Stage 18 was 200.5 km from Pinerolo to Galibier Serre-Chevalier and finished on top of a Category 1 climb—the perfect opportunity for Andy to make up some time on his rivals. He trailed Cadel Evans by 1 minute 18 seconds and Cadel was hanging with him on the climbs. We all knew Cadel was a better time-trialler, so if Andy was to win this race, we had to make it happen.

  We were sitting at the back of the bus a few days before when I suggested he make a full-gas attack early when no one was expecting it. We’d try to put a couple of riders in the break and Andy would attack the bunch up an earlier climb and ride across to the leaders, then hopefully keep going all the way to the finish.

  I knew it was a pretty out-there plan and that it’d be amazing if it came off, but we had to do something. Usually on a mountainous stage, we’ll try to put a rider in the break while the rest of us would get on the front of the peloton to monitor the big-hitters on the first climb, then slowly accelerate up the second climb to put more pressure on. This usually eliminates a lot of guys in the field. You get control of the peloton and then you wind it up faster and faster before leaving it to your leader to launch on the final climb to the finish. But this day we decided our big attack would come on the second climb, the Col d’Izoard, which caught a lot of guys off-guard.

  Jens Voigt recalls the moment Stuart gathered the team together in the bus a few days before Stage 18 and proposed his outrageous plan.

  ‘Andy had lost some time on a 5 km rainy descent which put him two minutes back,’ Voigt says. ‘So Stuey said, “Okay, here’s the plan. We hide and recover and in three days we put two riders in the break, we all go flat fuck into the early climb, Andy jumps, catches the two guys in the front and we go.”

  ‘Two days before the stage the team started saying, “Oh, I don’t know, that’s a hard plan, maybe we should watch what the others do?”

  ‘Stuey said, “Look, I’ve had enough of this, this is the plan, we go balls to the wall and take it all in glory or we go down fighting.”

  ‘That’s what he’s good for and people listen to him. When he does make a serious face, people actually listen to him.’

  Andy says he initially hesitated about the plan but trusted Stuart’s judgement. ‘In the beginning maybe it was a stupid plan but in the end it worked out. And Stuey was the last man standing for me that day, it was a perfect day.’

  I reckon because I helped hatch the plan, I climbed as well as I have in my life that day. I was the last rider left on the team in front of Andy when he attacked, which was unheard of. I was on a mission, I was anxious for the plan to come off and I wanted to see what damage Andy could do. Eventually, only Jens was in front of me and Andy behind me; then finally just the two of us. I launched him into his attack and he went on to win one of the greatest stages in Tour de France history.

  It was awesome to see my battle plan come off. Afterwards some people questioned why Andy would go so deep that day; they reckoned he should have just hung in there and tried to do a better time-trial. But in reality, he was always going to be beaten in a time-trial, so it was a fantastic outcome.

  Cadel rode his way to the yellow jersey in the time-trial, which was an incredible moment. I’ve watched Cadel’s entire career and he’s always been a really intriguing character. Mountain-bikers tend to have a different personality because it’s all about themselves; I imagine when they come into road cycling it’s quite a big change. It probably took him a little while to find his feet in that environment but he’s always had a massive engine and is a huge talent. Fifteen years ago I’m sure I would have said if any Australian rider was going to win the Tour de France it would be Cadel. By the time he did win the Tour in 2011, everyone had almost forgotten about his near win in the Giro d’Italia in 2002 when he was fourteenth and wore the pink jersey, so it should have been no surprise. He always had the potential to win the Tour; he just needed the right team.

  Despite both of us being road cyclists, it took a few years before Cadel and I crossed paths; we were on different teams and following different race programs. But when we did eventually meet, we got along fine and always have.

  I was team leader the day he won the world championship in 2009. The beauty of the Australian team is that unlike some countries, once you’re selected for the national team, you leave any competition or rivalry at the door. Everyone’s on the same page. I had to make some big calls the day Cadel won the rainbow jersey, and when he crossed the line first we were jumping around the bus like crazy because we realised we’d just witnessed a historical moment. Similarly, when Cadel won the Tour de France in 2011, I was one of the happiest guys in the peloton. During the race the media kept asking me, ‘What’s it like trying to hinder an Australian from winning
the Tour de France?’ I hated this question because of course I wanted to see an Australian win the yellow jersey, but I’m a professional bike-rider and had a job to do for my own leaders, the Schleck brothers. When we got to Paris on 24 July, I was one of the first people to congratulate him.

  My decision to join the Schlecks’ team at Leopard a year earlier was incredibly difficult. Without doubt, CSC-Saxo Bank had been the best team I’d ever been a part of. Bjarne is not perfect, but who is? He got the best out of every bike-rider who came through his team so leaving was hard, but the end came quite quickly given what happened during the 2010 Vuelta à España. When Fabian saw me leave he got itchy feet and wanted to join the party as well, so I felt for Bjarne because he’d had something special but it was gone in an instant. Leopard was the Schlecks’ own Luxembourg team, and one of the main reasons I joined was because I still believed I could help them win the Tour de France.

  I only had one season with Leopard, but we experienced some incredible highs—such as Andy’s stage win at the Tour—but also one of the darkest times of not just our cycling careers, but our lives.

  I didn’t know Wouter Weylandt very well until we became teammates in 2011 but we quickly became friends because he was a really likable guy. He fitted in perfectly with the team—even though he was the only Belgian bloke I knew who didn’t like beer. We did the Belgian Classics in spring and afterwards I told him I was taking my family to Dubai for a holiday. Wouter had only recently found out he would be riding the Giro d’Italia, but he said, ‘Stuey, do you reckon I could sneak over to Dubai for a few days with my wife and have a holiday?’ He was really worried the team would find out he was taking a break before the Giro but I told him, ‘Yeah, why not? Go and recharge the batteries, I won’t tell anyone, just go and enjoy some time with your wife.’ I ran into them when we were in Dubai and we were meant to catch up for a drink but for some reason it didn’t happen so I just sent him a text message wishing him luck for the Giro. That was the last time I spoke to him.

  9 May 2011 is a day I will never forget. I had just got home from training when I went online and read that Wouter had been killed in a crash on the descent of the Passo del Bocco during Stage 3 of the Giro. I was absolutely devastated and broke down in tears. Not only had we lost a teammate and a friend, but I knew Wouter had a pregnant wife at home. Cycling is a dangerous job and Wouter’s passing really hit home because I’d been so close on so many occasions. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fear the worst while I was racing. Even when I was out training, my life was in other people’s hands and there were so many close shaves and near misses. So to see someone leave the world doing what they love was bloody scary.

  It really knocked everyone on the team, but it never entered my mind to give cycling away. I suppose deep down I also knew that Wouter wouldn’t have wanted me to make such a decision. But coming home that day I hugged my kids a bit longer and told them I loved them. Such moments pull you closer, and remind you never to take anything for granted. I remember suffering in a bike race not long after Wouter’s death and saying to myself, ‘This isn’t suffering.’ A death puts everything into perspective and I still thought about him whenever I was on a bad day.

  Stuart (left) with Carlos Sastre in the yellow jersey riding onto the Champs Elysees in the 2008 Tour de France. (© Graham Watson)

  There had been so many whispers and rumours about attempts to set up an Australian team in the past that I was beginning to think it almost certainly wouldn’t happen in my time on the bike. But when Australian businessman, longtime cycling supporter and friend Gerry Ryan called me at home in Monaco two days after the 2011 Tour de France, I knew he was serious.

  Just twelve months earlier in 2010 I had been part of quite a serious bid to build Australia’s first professional team. I’d been approached by a group of people with a strong business plan who were talking to a major international company. My job was to pick a hypothetical roster, should it go ahead. But at the end of the day you’ve got to have the money in the bank, and in this instance, the sponsor didn’t come through so it was back to the drawing board. I had made (longtime cycling coach and administrator) Shayne Bannan aware of it, and I think that got the wheels turning in his mind, and was probably what ignited the fire in Gerry to make it happen a year later.

  Shayne eventually approached me in early 2011 to say there was something on the horizon. While he understood that I was committed to Leopard, he wanted to give me plenty of notice. It was a tricky situation because I was in the best team in the world in terms of rankings. We were winning big races and I was super-happy. But the option of an Australian team was constantly in the back of my mind, and when my phone rang on the Tuesday after the 2011 Tour de France and a voice said, ‘Hi Stuey, it’s Gerry Ryan,’ everything suddenly became very real.

  I’ve known Gerry for more than twenty years and the relationship has grown stronger over time. One of my earliest memories of meeting him was when he invited Anne-Marie and me to Flemington to watch the Melbourne Cup in the early 2000s. He came up to me early in the day and said, ‘Stuart, I’ve heard you’ve got this junior development team in Adelaide,’—which I did, designed to act as a feeder team to the South Australian Sports Institute so kids who started cycling wouldn’t get sidetracked by footy, soccer or cricket. Gerry said, ‘I’d like to give you some money for this.’ When I told him what our major sponsor was putting in, he said, ‘Well, I’d like to match that.’ I was blown away. It involved quite a substantial amount of money, we weren’t talking about a few grand here or there. I still couldn’t believe it, so later in the day I went up to him and said, ‘Are you serious?’ Gerry looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Stuey, I told you I’ll give you the money. I’m giving you the money.’

  So when he rang me in July 2011 to tell me he was going to fund what he hoped would be Australia’s first WorldTour cycling team, I knew it was on. This wasn’t a rumour anymore; it was Gerry Ryan. He said he wanted me to know that he’d love to have me on board but there was absolutely zero pressure because he understood my current situation. I told him I really appreciated the call but that I was happy at Leopard and would probably stay there because although I hadn’t resigned, I had spoken with the team owner at the time-trial of the Tour de France and we’d organised a meeting to get the deal done.

  But after that call from Gerry, Shayne rang me a couple more times and I kept toying with the idea. I just couldn’t get past the thought of an Australian team in the WorldTour and not being part of it. My biggest fear was picturing the teams’ presentation at the start of the Tour Down Under in Adelaide where ‘Australia’s first ProTour team’ would be announced—without me.

  The thing that eventually clinched my decision was Matt White. Whitey had been appointed a director with the team and said he really wanted my experience for these young Australian guys they were taking on. The more I thought about my future and where I wanted to head, the more I thought about that day with Gerry at the Melbourne Cup and how much he’d given to the sport. Gerry has been an enormous support for me through the good times and the bad, and without him cycling would be nowhere near as successful and popular in Australia as it is today. Furthermore, I’d known Shayne since I was sixteen and Whitey was one of my best friends. Yes, it was a risk because it was a step into the unknown, but it would have felt so wrong if I wasn’t there. In August I’d moved my family from Monaco to Luxembourg where we bought a home, partly because I imagined I’d be riding for Leopard for the rest of my career, then become a sporting director or manager with the Schlecks’ team. So the last thing anyone expected when I moved to Luxembourg was that I would leave the team within a week of arriving. We were still unpacking boxes at home when Shayne rang and said, ‘Sorry to push you here, but I need a decision by 2 pm on Saturday.’

  Shayne Bannan says he knew he had to sign Stuart but was conscious of putting him under too much pressure.

  ‘There’s a lot of history between Stuart and Australian
cycling. He’s one of the icons of the sport and because he’s such a great leader, he was right up there in the first three or four riders we needed to have on the team [Orica-GreenEDGE]. He’s been involved in GC winning teams, green jerseys, team pursuit world championships; across the spectrum of cycling he is arguably one of the most experienced guys the sport has seen … if I think of one word to describe him, it’s tenacity. Under any circumstances or conditions, he just comes out with that same never-say-die attitude.’

  Gerry Ryan remembers watching Stuart compete in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and over the years they became close friends. Ryan says he knew of Stuart’s reputation as a tough man on the bike but saw it for himself at the Tour of Ireland in the mid-2000s. ‘It was pissing rain and windy when he went out the front. The other riders were saying it was the worst day they had ridden in. But the boy—he didn’t let it worry him,’ Ryan recalls.

  ‘I had the Jayco-AIS team there—juniors like Jack Bobridge and Cam Meyer who looked up to him. Stuey’s toughness that day will always stay in my memory.

  ‘We saw it as a priority to get him for GreenEDGE; we needed someone with his leadership qualities and mental toughness to mentor the younger blokes. As an individual he’s approachable and very humble … that’s what I’ve always liked about him—his humility. He takes cycling seriously but himself not.’

  It was 6 August—mine and daughter Keira’s birthday—so we had the Schleck brothers and their parents over for a barbecue to celebrate. Little did they know, but that morning I’d decided to take the plunge and go with GreenEDGE. I told Anne-Marie but I needed to tell the boys before I made the phone call to Shayne because out of loyalty to them, I felt they should know first.

  The Schlecks arrived for the barbecue. I gave them a beer and asked them to come upstairs, then told them I was going to leave the team. Their jaws nearly dropped out of their heads but when I explained there was a start-up Australian team that I really wanted to be part of, their response was the opposite to what I’d been expecting. ‘That’s awesome,’ they said. They’d just been through a similar thing by starting their own Luxembourg team so they could appreciate the opportunity I’d been given. They each gave me a big hug and a handshake and it meant so much to see how happy they were for me.