Battle Scars Page 8

  Anne-Marie never asked me to give up cycling. I asked her the question quite a few times, especially after a few big crashes when I managed to put myself in some pretty bad situations. Is enough enough? Should I just stop? But each time she said, ‘It’s up to you, you’re the one suffering on the bike, you’re the one who has to leave your family.’ I even asked my son Seth a few times whether I should quit. It happened as recently as the end of 2012 when my uncle Syd Jacobs passed away. I was 39 years old, my kids were in a foreign country, it was the end of a long, long year, I’d come back from another big crash and two weeks in hospital with broken bones, and I’d never felt so isolated from my family in my whole life. I came home and said, ‘Seth, do you want Daddy to race anymore?’ And if he’d said, ‘Yes Daddy, can you please stop racing,’ I would have packed up. But each time I asked Seth he said, ‘No way, then I couldn’t go on the team bus and who would I watch in the races?’

  Anne-Marie says spending half her life overseas away from her immediate family had its moments, but the positive experiences far outweighed the difficult times. ‘The experience of being around cycling in the early years was incredible. I had a lot to learn about bike-racing and going to my first Tour de France and first Olympics was so eye-opening and so memorable,’ she says.

  ‘Cycling would consume a lot of our private life but mostly in a good way. I chose to be a part of this lifestyle and become Stuart’s number-one support, knowing the challenges that come with it. Everything we planned throughout the year was based around him and his job but that’s not a problem, that’s how it has been from the start and I now share the same passion for cycling that he does.

  ‘Stu has so much time for all the people he meets and this can sometimes jeopardise the time I have with him but it’s one of the many qualities that shape the incredible person he is. Yes, there were times when it was hard and lonely but I have been lucky to have such a great support network among my friends both in Australia and abroad. My family has been a huge support and they too have developed a love for cycling, sharing the excitement of Stu’s career.’

  Stuart’s sister Lesley says one of the most challenging things about Stuart’s career was that for the most par t, his immediate family could only watch it unfold from afar. ‘We couldn’t afford to follow him around every year, so we had to watch whatever media coverage we could.’

  It wasn’t until a trip to Europe in 2001 that Lesley realised the big brother who used to boss her around, and with whom she would spend endless hours in summer watching cricket on television, had become a big deal in world cycling.

  ‘When I went on a holiday to Europe I saw him at the start line of the Tour of Flanders and yelled out, “Stu, Stu!” and ran across and gave him a big hug. Then, as I turned around, I realised there were people everywhere, two and three deep in a circle around him. It was such an eye-opening moment when I realised just how big he is over there and also how big the sport of cycling is.’

  The 2012 season was the first time I took Seth for a proper ride and he loved it. He’s obsessed with cycling, which I’m trying to steer him away from and into soccer. I’ll wake up in the morning and he’s out riding in the street, practising victory salutes in the rain. But I don’t want him to be obsessed with cycling because I loved so many sports as a kid. I’m afraid he’ll pick cycling and that’ll be it; I want him to get out there and try everything as well.

  During my career I was aware there were guys who wouldn’t fight for a spot on the wheel in the final of a sprint because they had a young family at home—and that’s exactly what happened to me. One of the reasons I started shying away from bunch sprinting was because it’s mad dangerous, and as soon as you have a kid you start seeing poles and parked cars and cliffs that go hundreds of metres to the bottom. Having a family makes you look at things from a different perspective.

  However, that fear didn’t go through my mind when I was descending a climb because I tried to block it out. I love descending, I know Jensie thinks I’m mad but I am in full control and there’s a real art to downhill racing. I love plummeting down a mountain when you’ve got the whole road to yourself; it’s like downhill skiing, and if you watch the best guys like Thor Hushovd and Fabian Cancellara, they attack the corners like a slalom.

  I’ve been lucky enough to have three beautiful, healthy kids. Seth was born in 2003, Keira in 2007 and Tayla in 2009. When I had my big crash in the 2007 Tour de France, Anne-Marie was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with Keira and drove six hours from Monaco to see me in intensive care. I only just made it out of hospital in time to see Keira born, then missed Tayla’s birth on 6 September because I was at the Vuelta a España preparing for the world championships. That was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do, and I’ll never forget getting the phone call with the news in the middle of the night, which was the end of sleep for me. I went to breakfast with the biggest grin on my face but at the same time I was pretty down because I wanted to be there so badly. It got harder and harder as the days went on, and after two-and-a-half weeks I cracked and said, ‘Look, I’ve just got to go home because I can’t concentrate on riding.’

  Being a dad is incredible and the first time you hold your kid in your arms is unbelievable, it’s beyond magical. When Seth was born I was running around hugging strangers in the hospital, I was that proud—in fact, I was so excited I went to a Powderfinger concert to celebrate! I’d better explain how that happened.

  Powderfinger is one of my favourite bands, and in 2001 I went to their concert in Cologne, Germany, with Corey Sweet and Luke Roberts. It was a pretty intimate show, we met the guys and got to take beers up to them on stage. From that night I kept in touch with them, mainly bass guitarist John Collins, who is better known as JC.

  I happened to be in Adelaide when they came to perform. I organised to play golf with them at Grange during the day then go to their concert that night, although the timing wasn’t great because Anne-Marie was heavily pregnant with Seth.

  Sure enough, at 1 am Anne-Marie woke up with contractions and as we drove into Burnside Hospital, despite being that excited about the birth of my first child, I was nevertheless thinking, ‘I’m going to have to miss golf with the boys!’—it’s funny how the male mind works. Seth’s birth was amazing and I stayed at the hospital with Anne-Marie until 8 pm when she started getting pretty tired. As I was driving home I stopped and bought a bottle of champagne and a cigar—even though I hate smoking. I wanted to celebrate becoming a father in style. I got a heap of messages from my mates asking whether I was still going to the Powderfinger concert but I said I was just happy to go home and reflect on such an awesome day.

  Yet sitting in my courtyard in Unley, still on my own, the boys eventually cracked me. In the end it was a message from JC who said it was unfortunate I couldn’t be there but he understood. Stuff it, I thought, Anne-Marie was asleep anyway and I was home on my own, so at the last minute I decided to go to the concert, letting all the boys know I was on my way.

  I’m pretty happy I went because Powderfinger dedicated a song to Anne-Marie and to Seth—‘My Happiness’ which still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.

  I remember Seth going to his first Tour de France, and when I won the Olympics in 2004 Anne-Marie and Seth made a special trip to Athens for the race. Knowing my wife and baby boy were in the velodrome, I definitely rode above and beyond myself that night. They were there when I won Paris–Roubaix; I knew they were standing at the finish in the velodrome and I wanted to make them proud. Riding in you would have seen me rubbing my belly because Anne-Marie was pregnant with Keira but I think I did about fifteen different victory salutes all rolled into one. Even having the kids at the Tour Down Under was awesome. Looking over, seeing them in your team’s jersey screaming, ‘Go Daddy!’ was an amazing feeling. All three of them were at the London Olympics in 2012 with their faces painted in the Australian colours and I was so proud.

  Stuart’s career has had a big impact on Seth,
who joined a cycling club in Luxembourg, where the family had moved. There’s a photo of Seth, aged eight months, chewing on Stuart’s gold medal from the 2004 Olympics, and his love for the sport has grown ever since.

  ‘I’ve got a Scott bike, yellow, black and white, and I’ve got the GreenEDGE top,’ nine-year-old Seth says. ‘And the Australian one from the 2012 Olympics pretty much fits me. I’ve done a 30 km ride with Dad. We rode into town which was 15 km and that meant another 15 km back. I do cricket and tennis but cycling is my favourite sport.’

  When he’s not riding his bike with Stuart, Seth says their favourite activity is playing chess. And what was his advice for his dad before he would leave for a race?

  ‘I just tell him I’ll miss him a lot,’ Seth says.

  As much as Seth loved watching his dad race, Stuart’s father Brian was just as passionate about his son’s career. The three generations shared a special moment in March 2013 when they took the Orica-GreenEDGE team car on a reconnaissance mission over the cobblestones in the days leading up to the Tour of Flanders.

  Brian says Stuart’s career took him to the inner sanctum of world cycling and delivered some privileged experiences. He remembers shedding a tear when Stuart told him he would be flown to Europe to watch the 1999 Tour de France thanks to a sponsorship deal. ‘An all-expenses-paid trip for two people to the Tour de France was like striking the lottery,’ Brian recalls.

  In later years they would watch the Tour—as well as all the Classics—unfold from the comfort of their loungeroom, even if it meant sitting up until 2am.

  ‘That caravan,’ Brian says, pointing to the green-and-white-striped caravan in his backyard at Ingle Farm, ‘I bought it so I could tour around Australia in my mid-fifties when I retired. But it hasn’t been off the bloody blocks!’

  What happened?

  ‘Stuey’s career happened! I’ve seen 99.9 per cent of France and hardly any of Australia,’ Brian says.

  Stuart celebrates winning the 2003 national championship with father Brian and wife Anne-Marie. (© Graham Watson)

  The 2001 season remains one of the biggest and most successful years of my career but it was also an emotional rollercoaster.

  The year couldn’t have started any better when I won my second Tour Down Under. I arrived in Adelaide still pretty frustrated about finishing second in the race the year before by just twelve seconds, and I was determined to make amends. My preparation was perfect and knowing the race was likely to be decided by time bonuses, I attacked at every opportunity on the road.

  The key to winning the Tour Down Under in those days was consistency—finishing at the front every day—and I started with two second placings before taking the race lead on Stage 3 from McLaren Vale to Victor Harbor. The lead changed a couple more times throughout the week but I was consistent enough to win my second TDU title by two seconds without actually winning a stage. The 1999 TDU victory was a bit of a surprise but the following year, guys were coming to Australia better trained and better prepared. So winning in 2001 was pretty cool because the stakes had been raised.

  Throughout the European spring I was focused on trying to win the green jersey at the Tour de France. In previous years I seemed to stumble across it because I’d been so aggressive, but it had now become my single big ambition for the year. Things got a bit interesting, however, when my teammate Thor Hushovd won the Tour of Sweden, a lead-up race to the Tour de France, and I finished second. The night before the Tour de France prologue in Dunkirk, Roger Legeay called Thor and me into his hotel room for a meeting. It seemed a bit strange because normally we’d meet as an entire team, but this night he looked at me and said, ‘Stuey, what is your ambition for the race?’ I replied, ‘What do you mean, I want to try to win the green jersey.’ Then he looked at Thor who said, ‘Well, I want to have a go at the green jersey.’ I was stunned, because although Thor’s sprints were coming along well, I didn’t expect this. So I said, ‘Mate, it’s hard enough trying to win the green jersey with your whole team helping you, let alone having one of your teammates wanting to have a go as well.’ It was a really tricky situation because I’m great friends with Thor but I just didn’t see it coming. Okay, I hadn’t won the green jersey before but I’d finished second a couple of times. So Roger said to us, ‘Well, whoever gets the best position in the prologue, the team works for them.’

  So my hopes of winning the green jersey rested on the next day’s 8.2 km prologue. It was as if a switch went off in my head because I was like, ‘Right, I’m going to show you.’ And I did because I had a cracker of a prologue. Christophe Moreau won the day but it was the best prologue of my life as I finished eighth, 13 seconds behind him, while Thor also had a great ride and was nineteenth at 17 seconds. I was only four years older than Thor but it was like the old bloke having to stamp his authority over the youngster. I couldn’t have my teammates coming into a sprint of the Tour de France wondering which one of us they were meant to be working for and, to Thor’s credit, he was happy with that once it was settled in the prologue.

  From that day, I had one of the most amazing Tours. The rollercoaster ride truly began on Stage 2 from Saint-Omer to Antwerp. I was in a breakaway with about fifteen riders and looked like taking the yellow jersey if we survived, but coming to the finish it all went to shit. It felt like the whole breakaway was against me; whether or not that was true I’ll never know, but the feeling I got was very negative. Marc Wauters was the only guy in the break who I couldn’t afford to let win the stage because he was my only threat for the overall lead. But as so often happens in cycling, it all went pear-shaped. Wauters escaped in the final few hundred metres and won the stage while I finished a frustrating fifth with the same time but Wauters was in yellow. To make matters worse, the winner of the stage was to get a $25,000 diamond and be congratulated by the King of Belgium.

  I went back to the team bus and when Roger came to see me I was gutted, I was absolutely distraught, because I did everything close to perfect but it wasn’t enough. I basically broke down and thought, ‘That’s it, there goes the yellow jersey,’ because Wauters was a good enough climber to hold on for the next few days—or so I thought. Roger being Roger, he hung out with me for a while but I was still pretty devastated at the dinner table because I felt I’d let the boys down after they’d worked so hard to put me in the best position.

  With my focus on targeting the green jersey, I did fairly minimal training in the mountains and heaps of motor-pacing and sessions on the home-trainer smashing myself in the sprints. But I’ve never been a pure sprinter, which I said from day one. I never had the power of Mark Cavendish or Mario Cipollini, and I didn’t have the speed of Robbie McEwen.

  Robbie is one of the fastest, most powerful accelerators the planet has ever seen. Guys like Cipollini need five or six guys in front of them for the last 4 to 5 km but Robbie would be on his own, battling it out then pop out of nowhere and blitz everyone; I never had anything like that. My strength in sprinting was to position myself where I wanted because I was strong enough to do repetitive efforts before the actual sprint. If I was badly placed I could do one sprint and be back in position.

  I’d deliberately pick on guys who I knew were married and had a young family because they weren’t prepared to fight. You’d ride up and basically lean on them with a bit of an elbow to push them off the wheel. You’re not out to crash anyone, but I’d see Jan Svorada, for example, sitting behind Erik Zabel and I knew Svorada had a kid and was happily married, so that was his weakness. I knew he wouldn’t fight for the wheel so I’d go next to him, lean on him and get him out of the way. I learnt a lot about how to handle a bike from my track racing and it was all fair, it was part of the race, and I have been on the receiving end of plenty. Zabel, however, was a real fighter and I worked that out early on. I’d give him a bit of a push and he’d smack me back; we had some real ding-dong battles and he would never let the wheel go.

  My other strength was that I could still sprint at the same speed
after 300 km as I could after 30 km. The longer the race, the better as far as I was concerned. I could maintain my speed through the hundreds of thousands of kilometres of endurance track training I did when I was younger, whereas for a lot of the pure sprinters, their top speed comes down after 200 or 220 km. I never won a bunch sprint in the Tour, I had about twenty second places, but my forte was being consistently up there and still hanging in there on the medium mountains, which is how I could fight for the green jersey.

  Once the disappointment of missing the yellow jersey by twelve seconds had subsided in the 2001 Tour, I focused on Stage 3 from Antwerp to Seraing as a new opportunity. When the climbs started coming in towards the end of the stage, I was still angry at myself for what had happened the day before, but then I heard over the team radio that Wauters in the yellow jersey was being dropped. My ears suddenly pricked up. If that was correct, all I had to do was hang in there with the front group and I’d be in yellow that night. There were only sixty guys in the front as a wave of emotion came over me and I found another gear. Roger was on the radio saying, ‘Hang in there, hang in there.’ Obviously I was right in contention for the green jersey, which was meant to be my priority, but you try worrying about green when there’s yellow on the line!

  Zabel won the stage and I crossed the line with the front group, an emotional wreck. The day before I’d seen my yellow jersey dreams go down the drain, but here I was the following day, about to step on the podium and pull it on; it was a massive moment. I didn’t give a crap about the stage or not being up there for the sprint. I’d been in an impossible situation but I’d managed to come out of it and get the yellow jersey.