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

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‘Damn, I regret this fall,’ Nelissen said, ‘because I’m sure I would have won the stage.’

It was almost overlooked, but Abdoujaparov, for once, was blameless: he sailed past the wreckage to win the stage. That was what seemed to irritate Nelissen most. ‘Everybody says that I couldn’t get past Abdou. Come on, guys, Abdou was dying, and I was just getting the 53x11 [gear] up to speed. It was the first time I used this particular gear. I had tested it a few times before, and now I wanted to score big time. You would have seen quite something …

‘They also say that if I hadn’t crashed into that policeman, I would have crashed into the barrier anyway. Everybody who says so doesn’t understand a sprinter. We have an instinct. I can feel obstacles, I can smell a barrier. We just don’t take policemen who take pictures into account.’

Even if Nelissen couldn’t remember what had happened, his body offered a daily reminder. He called them ‘souvenirs’: the scars on his knee, on his fingers and above his right eye. But that winter he was already thinking about his comeback. He attended races, where he was a star attraction. At a criterium in the Netherlands a young fan approached, open-mouthed. ‘Nelissen, is it really you?’ In France a policeman asked if he would pose with him for a photograph. ‘Too bad I don’t speak French,’ said Nelissen. ‘I would have asked him if he could make some speeding tickets go away.’ He posed for the photograph anyway.