How Cav Won the Green Jersey by Ned Boulting Read Free Book Online Page A

had changed beyond recognition. Not that he looked different, of course. He still threw his bike all over the road and gurned. But the speed, the ease with which he now rode. He comfortably matched the accelerations of the Schleck brothers and, far from losing time, actually looked as if he might have enough in reserve to launch his own counter-attacks. It was preposterous, thrilling, almost absurd. Voeckler was a man transformed. He hurdled the Pyrenees and then set his sights higher still.
    Time after time over the coming days, before he eventually relinquished his status on the cacophonous slopes of Alpe d’Huez just two stages from Paris, I had the good fortune of interviewing Voeckler as his summer’s story fattened into something mythical. He passed through the full range of sentiments: self-belief, humility, delight and foreboding. From aspiration to realism. But all with great patience and his trademark smile. He didn’t need to win new friends, of course; he already had them in abundance. But he won them anyway.
    ‘Thomas, you’ve been climbing with the very best, and you’ve not looked uncomfortable. In fact, today, you looked like you might be able to attack them.’ I was speaking to him after he had climbed to Plateau de Beille. It was his fifth day in the leader’s jersey and by an extraordinary coincidence, the same summit on which he had so improbably defended the maillot jaune in 2004. ‘You’re not just there by mistake, surely you must start to believe that you are a real GC contender.’
    He looked at me with his head cocked to one side, and a smile spreading widely. ‘Listen, I have a scoop for you. I am not going to win the Tour de France.’
    ‘You sure about that?’
    ‘The Alps will be very hard. The Galibier is a different climb. But I will try to defend it for as long as I can.’
    And with that he was chaperoned from my sight, to face the next forest of microphones. His daily bread.

    Five days, six, seven.
    The Tour spanned the Camargue and then reached the Alps, dropping in on Gap for the millionth time. For Voeckler, who had survived the first two summit finishes with all of his unlikely lead intact, it was not without incident, of course. The race was too lively for that. Alberto Contador, who had fallen uncomfortably far out of the reckoning, kept trying to animate things. So too did Evans, who was attempting at every opportunity to put the Schleck brothers into difficulty (which mostly involved asking them to race their bicycles downhill in the rain). So the yellow jersey had taken some defending.
    Weariness appeared to be taking hold of our plucky French hero. On the run in to Pinerolo, after two difficult and increasingly mountainous stages, Voeckler lost time with comic panache. It was one of those racing incidents that happen so unexpectedly that no camera captures them. All we get to see is the aftermath. And so it was when the helicopter suddenly cut to Voeckler riding around in circles on what appeared to be a disused petrol forecourt. He looked giddy. He looked knackered. Afterwards, he let us know that tomorrow he was finished. We nodded sagely. Tomorrow was the ascent of the Galibier. He was toast. Bernard Hinault, the last French winner of the Tour de France agreed when I spoke to him. ‘
Il est toast…un croque monsieur
.’ Something along those lines.
    This is what we believed. I walked three miles on my own up the Galibier to see his toasting with my own eyes. As if the mountain itself wasn’t intimidating enough, the crest of the famous ridge where the finish line stood was wrapped in frozen cloud. Periodically, the gloom would lift, vertiginously. Either side of the Galibier pass, dizzying descents would burst rudely into sight, only to disappear a moment later. It was bloody cold. Clutches of tourists huddled together with Tour staff for comfort; unlikely allies against the chill.

    The story of Stage 18 is well rehearsed. Andy Schleck’s swashbuckling attack,