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

78 страница из 104

As the gap began to fall, the sprinters’ teams could smell blood. Greg LeMond was in the yellow jersey and his team, ADR, had been first to take up the chase, reckoning that even a journeyman like Pelier shouldn’t be allowed so much time. Panasonic, the Dutch team, whose sprinter was Jean-Paul van Poppel, then got involved. ‘When the peloton started chasing I was consistently losing time, my lead was really falling,’ Pelier says. ‘But I had been trying to manage my effort. And when they started chasing, I accelerated. I knew I had to spare myself as much as possible, especially in that wind. I was economical with my effort all the time.

‘But the advantage you have, it’s the peloton who decide it. At 100km from the finish, it was feasible for them to catch me. A rider on his own can lose ten minutes in ten kilometres.’

The wind picked up. Pelier’s face was a picture of agony. ‘If Pelier does hit the wall, they’ll wipe him up very quickly indeed,’ said the TV commentator. He turned and hit crosswinds: treacherous in the peloton, but offering some relief to the lone rider. Then it was back into the teeth of the headwind, as torrential rain began to fall, spattering the lens of the TV camera. Through this distorted picture, the viewer could make out Pelier’s grim expression, which spoke of the torture of labouring for four and a half hours into the wind. ‘Pelier looks to be dying ten deaths,’ said the commentator.