(Image credit: Getty Images)
The fragility of French belief in their ability to climb the Mount Parnassus of their own design, to win the Tour de France, has become systemic, endemic, a national trait, almost a patriotic duty. Insecurity has merged with cynicism and ridicule to form a unique response to the home nation's stubborn inability to produce a winning rider.
The French cycling public has turned in on itself, breezily dismissing the battle for the maillot jaune as a peripheral tussle between parvenu nations. What was Bradley Wiggins to them? Or Tadej Pogačar? Late-comers, all! Disrespecting the establishment! The French, sometimes resentful hosts, have withdrawn to the edges of the dancefloor to chat among themselves, while pretending to ignore the shameful cavorting in the middle.
If you're looking hard, you can see these malcontents slumped in fold out garden chairs on every stage, Groupama bunting fluttering above them, and a cardboard cutout of Cyril Barthe propped up by the open door of the caravan. They live in places like Macon, Angers, Rennes and Tarbes, and they follow the Tour with silent observance, because that's what they do, what they've always done. One of them probably knows Bruno Armirail's sister.
I first covered the Tour in 2003, already damn nearly two decades into this legendary drought. The French cycling public was on the rebound from their misguided affair with Laurent Jalabert and had fallen headlong for the dazzling beauty of Richard Virenque, another short-lived passion that would end in tears. They tried to feel the same for Christophe Moreau, but they were kidding themselves. The feelings weren't there, even when he won the Dauphiné in 2007, the last French World Tour GC victor prior to Paul Seixas in the Basque Country this year.
Seixas. Damn, I mentioned his name. I didn't intend for this to be yet another piece about le nouveau prodige. I refuse to add to the column centimetres.
Instead, I want to bid farewell to a place I've known for years, to the France which now stands on the precipice of great change. The next years promise to deliver the French cycling public from their self-imposed hypnosis, ending a half century of slumber. So, this is my great valedictory nod to the valiant cohort of Alexis Vuillermoz and Pierre Rolland, Alexis Gougeard, Tony Gallopin, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet, Yoann Offredo, the forever winless Bryan Coquard. I could go on, but it's wearying, so I won't.
Oh, Brice Feillu!
Of course, great accompanying acteurs have come and gone. Romain Bardet, for instance, whose brilliance was matched forever by his evident and fatal weaknesses. There has been the mighty Julian Alaphilippe, who teased the country to rouse itself as he roared to victory in Pau, in yellow, in a time trial. And in the same race, the sting of Thibaut Pinot's tears, waving adieu to the chimera, the shimmering mirage of a Frenchman in yellow in Paris. But, in between these powerful interludes and for whatever reason, the anaesthetised French cycling public has forever fallen back on their comfortable cushion of muttering about the others and celebrating rather trifling successes.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
There was also Thomas Voeckler, of course. He toyed with their hearts, he did; and not just once in 2004, but all over again, in 2011. Banging his Europcar-helmeted head against the glass ceiling of national belief, Voeckler's twin windmill-tilts at greatness spoke more poetically to the French cycling soul than Cervantes might have managed, had he chosen Voeckler instead of Don Quixote. So how wonderful that it is Voeckler himself, still chiselled and tanned but grown prematurely bald, who is one of the men charged with nurturing the 19-Year-Old-Who-Can't-Be-Named to greatness. Voeckler is, among other things, head coach of the French national federation.
I saw Thomas in Marseille in February this year, on a frozen morning outside the Stade Vélodrome. We were both there for the start of the Tour de la Provence when July, and the Tour, seemed a very distant prospect. I spoke to him about him.
"Of course, he has the talent to be the very best in the world," he said, as we scurried along a pavement to find a patch of sun where we might be warmer. "He really is that good."
At that moment, I remembered interviewing Bernard Hinault (the last French winner of the Tour) when Voeckler was still in yellow a few days from Paris in 2011. Hinault had actually laughed at me, when I asked if Voeckler might just hang on to yellow. Thomas himself had said: "I have a scoop for you! I am not going to win the Tour de France."
Back in Marseille, Thomas finished by saying: "He can win the Tour. But first a Frenchman has to win a World Tour stage race. That has not happened since…"
He paused.
"Christophe Moreau?" I offered.
"Oui. Remember him?"
The Road Book, edited by Ned Boulting, is available at theroadbook.co.uk
