We Were Young and Carefree by Laurent Fignon Read Free Book Online Page A

solo stage win through the Pyrenees between Luchon and Mourenx. The guy was yelling into the microphone, shouting about a ‘phenomenal Belgian’, and the sound of his voice made a huge impression, even if as a small boy aged only nine I wondered how anyone could be so worked up about a sporting achievement which wouldn’t actually change the world. I was young and didn’t understand how over the top people can be. Six days later Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon – which was a whole different level of achievement.
    My second memory takes me back to the start of the 1970s, but I’d struggle to say the exact date. We were in the Vendée and the Tour was going through. It’s painful to confess it today, but I don’t remember any of the riders. I’m almost ashamed to think it now.
    It was not until I took out a racing licence and won my first races as a schoolboy that I began to read the cycling press. But it got under my skin at once. I was a self-contained boy, already a great reader; it was my other way of escaping. I’ve always read a lot and that love has never left me. I became completely obsessed, in record time. I ended up devouring everything that I caught sight of; it all fascinated me. L’Equipe every morning, Miroir du Cyclisme, Vélo magazine, all the glossies. I didn’t just make up for lost time, in a few months I was transformed into a (small-time) specialist in the sport. Bit by bit the great cycling jigsaw puzzle pieced itself together in my mind and I came to understand that this sport was one of the oldest, one of the most coveted, one of the most respected and one of the most popular. I learned that the Tour de France was related to the history of France itself in the twentieth century. The stories of the nation and its bike race were interwoven. Sport could be rather more than just a result published in L’Equipe .
    Meanwhile, I had wended my way through school without ever being very serious. I ended up in the D stream. I hardly learned a thing. With all the over the top demands cycling made, the sport had turned my mind upside down. But at the same time, I wasn’t at all thoughtful about cycling. At the age of eighteen turning professional wasn’t an objective and I didn’t even think about it. I trained, I raced, I won races, I liked it and that was all. I was completely detached from any notion of a future in that area. That was probably just as well.
    So I took my baccalauréat with the assumption that I was going to fail. In the final weeks I revised without really doing any revision and then I had the biggest stroke of luck in my life. Every topic was something that I knew about. In geography – the economy of Japan. I knew it to my fingertips and there was good reason, we’d done it in a mock exam. In physics, it was electricity: the only subject I had covered.
    As for Spanish, I had to take the oral exam last. The problem was that in the evening I had a race for the Saint Jean club. I overcame my shyness and went to see the examiners to explain how ‘dreadful’ it would be for my club if I couldn’t go to a race I had trained hard for, that personally it would be a ‘nasty setback’ for my burgeoning career and that it would cause me to be ‘dropped’ by the trainers. The teacher bought all my arguments and decided to put me through first. There was just one problem: I had no knowledge of the set text. Panic stations. But seeing how upset I was, the teacher was charitable and questioned me about Spanish and French cycling. I escaped, and got a pass in that one too.
    The whole bac was like that: one fluke after another. With a pass in my pocket, summer beckoned. I could go off on my bike with a clear conscience.
    The only snag was that my parents kept putting pressure on me. They had their minds on my future. ‘Your studies, your studies,’ came the clarion call. With a D-grade in my bac , I couldn’t do what I wanted. I needed a higher qualification, a DEUG (Diplôme