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

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He caught the two escapees who had been freezing out front, dropping them and continuing alone. By now he was riding into a blizzard. His hands were numb, making changing gear and braking difficult. Yet he ploughed on through the snow, a fleet of vehicles gathering behind – windscreen wipers swishing – and making fresh tracks in the snow, as Hinault was doing just ahead of them. The observers in their warm vehicles must have wondered, with voyeuristic curiosity, how long he could endure; when he would bow to the inevitable. But there was no question of Hinault quitting. If anything might have persuaded him to carry on, it was the thought that people were following him, awaiting his capitulation. Similarly, he seemed to derive strength from the riders who abandoned and were back in their warm hotel on the finishing straight; as though, merely by carrying on, he was making his point.

By the time he reached Liège, Hinault was ten minutes ahead of the next rider, Hennie Kuiper. But victory came at a cost to Hinault: his frostbitten hands never fully recovered. To this day, when it is cold, he suffers discomfort in two fingers. But what made Hinault’s Liège–Bastogne–Liège even more remarkable was this salient fact: despite being from France’s coldest outpost, Brittany, he hated the cold.