Battle Scars Read online

  When I crossed the finish line I collapsed on my bike and got pretty emotional. I was so relieved and so proud to be standing on the podium and pulling on the jersey. It was a very different situation to 1998; it was like a different sport. The 2001 Tour de France was a dream, confirming for me that if you strive for something, if you sacrifice and put in the hard yards, anything is possible.

  Cruelly, with the benefit of hindsight, I know that I should have contested the sprint that day. That year I lost the green jersey in Paris on the last day of the Tour by just eight points. I only had to do half a sprint that day and finish tenth or fifteenth, not thirtieth, and I could have won the green jersey. Losing green to Zabel is one of the biggest disappointments of my career. But at the same time I did wear the yellow jersey and I’m not sure I’d trade that for anything either.

  I was still pinching myself as I started Stage 4 from Hay to Verdun in yellow, with a 17-second lead over Christophe Moreau. A break went up the road but it was contained and I eventually finished in the front group to protect my lead in what was a surprisingly stress-free day as the leader of the biggest race in the world.

  I wasn’t so sure, however, that I’d still have the jersey the next day as Stage 5 was a 67 km team time-trial that threatened to stretch our Crédit Agricole team to the limit. We’d never won a team time-trial and were up against the supersquads of the Discovery Channel, ONCE, Rabobank—all these teams with time-trial experts. I was pretty certain I was going to lose the jersey.

  We were a team of foreigners in a French team but we were good. There was Jens Voigt, Thor Hushovd, Bobby Julich, Jonathan Vaughters and me, then a bunch of pretty good French bike-riders who were good guys but no superstars or stage winners, just helpers. On paper we definitely weren’t the strongest team in the Tour de France.

  The morning of the team time-trial, it was cold and wet when we went out training. I was suffering because I’d been doing sprints and had gone really deep in the prologue, so I was already fatigued. I even wore the yellow jersey out training because when you’ve got it, you wear it for every minute you can. Just before we rolled off the ramp I started getting into the boys saying, ‘Come on guys, let’s just get it up and going and see what happens,’ because everyone was really nervous and I was probably the most nervous of all. By the time we started it was pouring rain and riders were sitting an inch off the wheel in front of them with water squirting up in their face—I could hardly see and my heart was in my mouth the whole time.

  A team time-trial on the road is a lot like a team pursuit on the track—only with more riders. Each does a turn on the front then swings out of the way and joins the back of the queue. When it’s working, it’s beautiful to watch even though it doesn’t feel like that as a rider.

  From the first kilometre, the lactate kicked in and five days into a Tour de France, it hurt. You’re just concentrating so much on breathing, getting the oxygen in, the lactic acid out, using your lung capacity and relaxing your arms. It was then I looked down and we were sitting on 55 km/h in the pouring rain and I was thinking, ‘We’re going pretty quick here.’ At the first time check we were about twelve seconds in front and I was in shock. But I reckoned we’d blow up soon because it was a 67 km team time-trial and that’s bloody long.

  After 15 km we lost one guy to a puncture. He was the strongest French rider we had, but we didn’t even flinch. Then, soon after, one more French guy couldn’t come to the front anymore so we were basically down to the five of us with one French guy coming through every now and then; nevertheless, we were absolutely motoring along. We had our ear-pieces in and Roger didn’t miss a beat. When you do your turn on the front, you swing off, ease up a bit, the rest of the team comes past and you have to get back on in last position. This can be the hardest part because you’ve got to swing on at the exact moment otherwise you lose the wheel, you’re out of the slipstream and you have to fight like hell to catch up.

  After a few of those efforts you never recover but Roger, to his credit that day, did not miss one rider. He’d call out, ‘Stuey now!’ and without even looking you’d just swing left and would be parked smack bang on the wheel and get to recover as much as possible before it was your turn again.

  As we approached the second time check, I thought, ‘Right, this is the one, it’s come down surely,’ but our lead had increased, it had basically doubled! That was the first time I thought, ‘Holy crap, we could pull this off.’ Roger was screaming in the radio and every time I’d swing off after my turn I’d say, ‘Come on guys, we can do this.’ And every time I started hurting, I’d look down and see the yellow sleeves on my jersey and think, ‘I’m wearing the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, and we’re leading the team time-trial.’ I think the jersey gave everyone that 10 per cent extra that day, it gave us an edge. Whether it’s the pink jersey in the Giro d’Italia or the ochre jersey in the Tour Down Under: you go deeper and harder than what you think you can, and that day the whole team rose to the occasion.

  The last 5 km Roger was screaming at me not to do any more turns because the stage finished up a little climb and he was worried that I’d get dropped and lose the jersey. So the last 5 km I had to sit on, which is not my style, but I remember Thor being on the front for the last couple of kilometres and he was absolutely stomping which meant the world to me.

  Everyone was incredible that day; we won by 31 seconds over ONCE and 54 seconds over Festina. I’ll never, ever forget standing on the podium with all my teammates, wearing yellow. It was definitely one of the proudest moments of my career. It’s one thing to cross the finish line and take the win for yourself, but to do it with your teammates moves it to the next level; to have everyone so committed and working to keep me in the yellow jersey. I’ve never played football but I guess that’s what it might feel like to win a final.

  It was a momentous day for our Crédit Agricole team when Stage 6 began in Commercy. We held the top three places in the general classification with me, Jens and Bobby, thanks to our efforts in the previous day’s team time-trial. I was in the yellow jersey and led by 26 seconds to Jens and by 27 seconds to Bobby. We faced a 211.5 km day to Strasbourg which we anticipated would finish with a bunch sprint so all we had to do was control any dangerous breaks.

  As expected, a break eventually got away but never posed a threat to my overall lead as my teammates worked hard on the front of the peloton to bring the race back together. I contested the sprint but because I was wearing the yellow jersey I was only semi-committed; the last thing I wanted to do was crash. So I’d fight a bit for position but I was more worried about keeping the bike upright than anything so I shadowed Zabel in the final as he finished one spot ahead of me in fourth place. Once again, if I knew what would happen in Paris on the final day, I might have gone a bit harder. But hindsight is a wonderful thing!

  The next day was a bit more interesting with Stage 7 from Strasbourg to Colmar presenting a few testing climbs. It wasn’t classified as a mountains day but it was a really hard, nasty day. Jens, being the attacking animal that he is, jumped into the first break of the day to take the heat off our team having to work again because I wasn’t confident about staying on the front of the bunch all day. We went up the front to make it look like we were going to protect the jersey, but then let the break go and eventually it stayed away. That night I handed the yellow jersey to Jens as he turned a 26-second deficit into a 2:34 lead while I’d suddenly slipped to third place, 4:03 behind. I remember racing along, aware that I was going to lose the jersey which was disappointing, but also knowing that Jens was going to get it. And if anyone in the world deserved the yellow jersey, Jens did, so the disappointment didn’t last long. He is the biggest workhorse and probably the best teammate I’ve ever had in my career, he’s just an animal, he’s all about the team.

  The following stage was one of the most bizarre days in Tour de France history. It was pouring rain and freezing cold as we started Stage 8 in Colmar. Our tactic was to defend the jers
ey, but if I was up the road in a breakaway the team wasn’t going to chase. One of the Rabobank guys came up to me on the start line and said, ‘I bet you’re going to be wearing yellow again tonight.’ To be honest, it hadn’t crossed my mind because I was four minutes behind, so I looked at him and said, ‘Yeah whatever,’ as we rolled off in the pissing-down rain.

  Next thing I know, I’m in a breakaway with thirteen others and the lead started climbing—one minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes. I was the best-placed rider in the break on general classification so I knew that my team wouldn’t be chasing and it seemed all the other teams were thinking the same thing—the weather was so crap and the breakaway was so big. In the end we finished 36 minutes ahead of the bunch and put the entire peloton out of the time limit. If they’d stuck to the rules, the next day there would have only been fourteen of us starting the Tour de France. But the commissaires changed the ruling. The cut-off on a flat stage is normally 20 per cent of the winner’s time but they said due to the shocking conditions they’d re-assess the classification. It was so cold that as we came to the finish, guys were attacking and I couldn’t even change my gears. My hands were frozen and I couldn’t put my brakes on, I had to put my wrist around my brake lever and pull my arm back to slow down. So I was stuck in the one gear as Erik Dekker won the stage and I finished a couple of minutes back—but it was good enough for me to regain the yellow jersey. Even better, I had the green jersey as well after collecting enough points up the road to take it from Zabel.

  Yellow obviously trumps green so that’s the jersey I wore the following day because I led the race by four minutes, but to me the big bonus was my lead in the points classification. Yellow was awesome but those points in the green jersey became really valuable as I now led by thirteen points.

  While Zabel was so calculating and precise with where he’d get points every day, I’d just rock up and be in a breakaway on a mountain day, which he hated. One day he called me a mad dog, but in a good way. He said, ‘I never know what you’re going to do.’ In later years, I decided to have a lot of fun with him because I’d attack in the most random places. I’d realise he was following me, sitting on my wheel from the start line, so I’d make out that I had to stop for a toilet break, pull off the road, take my foot out of the pedal then click back in and ride off. My other trick was to go on the other side of the bunch and I’d see him arching his neck looking around trying to find me. I was just trying to get into his head and mess with him because he was quicker than me, and we both knew it. So I had to think of other ways to beat him.

  The mind games were still going as we approached the final stage of the Tour in Paris. I held the green jersey by just two points over Zabel and I remember saying, ‘Oh come on Erik, please let me win, man, you’ve won five or six—and it’s my birthday.’ So he said, ‘Really, it’s your birthday?’ And I couldn’t keep a straight face. ‘No, shit no, but come on.’ Even if I went along with the joke I still don’t think he would have let me win.

  Although we were fierce opponents, we still had plenty of fun together. Zabel was probably the most controlled, level-headed sprinter I’ve ever seen. He never did any stupid moves—obviously he’d fight you for the wheel and if he had a good position he wouldn’t let it go—but he never caused an accident or threw a hook at you in the sprint. He won four Milan–San Remos, so he had an incredible career. I just happened to be competing against the best green jersey sprinter the Tour de France has ever seen.

  From the moment I took the green jersey on Stage 8 the battle with Zabel was intense. Every bonus sprint was like racing for a stage win and we followed each other like you would not believe. I wouldn’t let him out of my sight and if I tried any sneaky little tricks like attacking on a mountain day, he’d be right behind me. I’d think, ‘Beautiful, let’s go Erik,’ because I knew that it would wear him out. I would attack randomly, try to get into breaks and make him work as well because that was my only way of trying to beat him.

  Our battle continued for the next twelve days and I managed to keep my nose in front while the race for the yellow jersey was happening miles ahead of us in the mountains. On Stage 16 from Castelsarrasin to Sarran, Zabel was eighth and I was ninth. On Stage 17 from Brive-la-Gaillarde to Montlucon, he was sixth and I was seventh, and by Stage 19 it all came to a head.

  We faced 149.5 km from Orléans to Evry on the penultimate stage before our sprint into Paris. On the team bus before the stage we spoke about what would happen if I had a mishap in the last couple of kilometres because the green jersey could be gone in the blink of an eye. So I said, ‘Which of you is 177 cm tall? One of you guys has got to be close to that.’ One of them said, ‘I’m 180 cm,’ so my instructions to him were to follow me in the sprint and if I had any dramas in the run to the final, he was to give me a bike.

  As fate would have it, with 3 km to go, my rear derailleur exploded when someone hit it with their front wheel. Thank God my teammate saw what happened because we both came to a skidding stop at 60 km/h. I ripped his bike from under his legs and because the seat was 3 cm too high, I rode to the finish out of the saddle in the sprinting position. I had to put in a massive effort to get back near the front from the team cars, but I still couldn’t sit down so coming to the finish I was that angry that I pulled a crazy sprint. Romans Vainsteins was the world champion and I banged him out of the way with a big head-butt, opened up a gap and Zabel was right there, I had him in my sights. By that point I simply could not go any faster and, despite throwing the kitchen sink at him, he won the stage and I was second. It was probably one of the best sprints I’d ever done, coming from so far back, my best second place ever, and I’d saved the day because I still had the green jersey.

  I remember saying to Zabel after the race, ‘Man, I wish I had my own bike.’ He just looked at me and shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t fathom that I’d had to change my bike with a few kilometres to go. ‘You are bloody unbelievable, what have I got to do to beat you?’ he said.

  I barely slept that night knowing that if I could hang on and somehow beat him in Paris on the final stage, I would win my first ever green jersey. I led by just two points and we had a plan but I was pretty nervous. It basically came down to whoever finished ahead would win—and I hadn’t beaten Zabel in a sprint because he was the best sprinter in the world.

  As we came into Paris it seemed like the whole peloton was relaxed. Lance Armstrong was drinking champagne on his bike but I was experiencing the most stressful moment of my entire career. Not only did I have to win the last sprint, but I had two intermediate sprints on the road, which no one else gave a shit about because they were already in Paris; as far as they were concerned, they were finished.

  With Zabel two points behind me, we decided to send big Jens and another teammate up the road to take the intermediate points away from him. That was my only real hope because I wasn’t going to beat Zabel man-on-man at the finish, I had to be realistic. So Jens attacked 3 km before the intermediate sprint but Telekom was one of the most experienced teams in the world, Zabel had won the green jersey five years in a row and he wasn’t going to be done by some silly little tactic like that. So Telekom took over, brought Jens back and stuffed me around, which was the first time I’d been on the receiving end of some of those tactics.

  Approaching the first intermediate sprint, three Telekom guys led Zabel out and I was right behind him in fifth place. But while I was waiting for him to sprint, he just let the wheel go and two of his teammates in front were away before I even realised what was going on. He played the master trick on me by letting his own teammates ride off, then he sprinted across to them and they’d stop at the last second, letting him win. When I realised what was happening I launched but by then Zabel had won, Vinokourov got second and I was third so still got a point. ‘You dirty bastard,’ I thought, ‘that was a good trick!’ At least now I knew their plan, so it was, ‘Okay pal, the gloves are off.’

  When they tried it on th
e next sprint, Zabel still beat me but I was second so as we rode onto the Champs Elysées I had to finish ahead of him. If I was tenth, he had to be eleventh, and if I won he had to finish second, there were no ifs or buts about it. I thought my best chance was to come past him on the cobbles because it’s quite a difficult sprint on the Champs Elysées. At one stage I thought, ‘Why don’t I dive-bomb underneath him and whack him into the barriers’—I’m not going to lie and say these thoughts weren’t going through my head. So we went hammer and tongs the whole way down the Champs Elysées and I couldn’t get him.

  Zabel didn’t win the stage, Jan Svorada did, but Zabel was second and I was third. Even though in the back of my mind I always knew this was the likely outcome, I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t even want to go back to the team truck so I just rode down the Champs Elysées on my own for a while. I was gutted beyond belief to wear the green jersey for eighteen stages and lose it on the last sprint by a wheel length.

  As I would later learn, Zabel admitted to doping throughout his career. That was a tough one for me to take because of course I’m disappointed I never won the green jersey; but at the same time, there’s nothing I can do about it. People would be within their rights to turn around to me and say, ‘Hang on, you were standing on the podium in 1998 wearing yellow and taking someone else’s spot, knowing you’d used EPO.’ There were other riders who kicked our arses in the Classics, not just in the Tour, while not racing clean, and sure, it’s frustrating. But saying, ‘I should have been third that year’ or whatever, wouldn’t achieve anything.

  The disappointment of losing green aside, we had a big celebration in Paris that night because it was still a magical Tour for all of us. As far as years go, 2001 is right up there with 2004 and Paris–Roubaix in 2007. They’re what I call my ‘Penfolds Grange years’—and as Australian wine-lovers know, you don’t pop the cork on those very often.