Читать книгу Etape. The untold stories of the Tour de France’s defining stages онлайн

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There was, from the beginning, more to Hinault than physical ability. Sean Kelly, the Irishman who emerged in the late 1970s as one of the best sprinters and one-day riders, is not given to exaggeration or hyperbole. Ask him about Hinault, however, and his admiration, even awe, becomes apparent. ‘He was the boss,’ says Kelly. ‘The patron, as they say. In the Tour de France especially he was very much the patron. When you had two mountain stages then a flat stage, he’d go to the front and say, “OK, today we’re going to ride slowly for the first 100km. Nobody attacks.”

‘If somebody did attack they would get a fucking bollocking,’ Kelly continues. ‘I’ve seen it myself: Hinault go after somebody and say, “If you do that again, you won’t ever win another race.”’

Graham Jones, who raced with Hinault, said that, in the main, he asserted himself ‘physically on the bike rather than verbally. He would occasionally shout a bit, but usually it was because he was on a bad day, like anybody. But I remember once at the Tour de Romandie, he was getting a bit annoyed early on and he went to the front for 20km and strung it all out and then he sat up and said, “Have you had enough?” That certainly quietened everyone down for a while.