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

35 страница из 104

It suggests some primal instinct. ‘The Badger was a boxer,’ says another of his former directors, Cyrille Guimard. ‘He needed to be permanently squared up to someone, in opposition to someone. He needed combat.’

* * *

Almost every race that he started in 1980 seemed to add another chapter to the Hinault legend. There was Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the late spring classic in the Ardennes, with its succession of short but steep climbs. This year was harder than ever, on account of the weather. It snowed almost from the start. After 70km of the 260km race, 110 of the 170 starters had abandoned. Even Hinault considered abandoning. But with 80km remaining, he did the opposite: he attacked. He could barely see through the thickening snow; he raised a hand to his face to protect his eyes, to be able to decipher the road.

‘My teeth were chattering and I had no protection against the cold, which was getting right inside me,’ he said later. ‘I decided that the only thing to do was ride as hard as I could to keep myself warm. I didn’t look at anything. I saw nothing. I thought only of myself.’