We Were Young and Carefree (19 page)

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Authors: Laurent Fignon

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I was informed that the rehabilitation process would be a long one, at least three months, during which I would have to gradually increase the workload. On the days after the operation I had to lock the door of my hospital room. One day someone disguised as a nurse came close to gaining entry. I didn’t understand how anyone could want to violate someone’s privacy to that extent.
I was in plaster, but I was still optimistic. I refused to panic about what would happen in the future. There were journalists who suggested to me: ‘What will happen if you don’t get back to your best?’ I just laughed at that. I was convinced I could heal. More to the point, Bernard Hinault had shown the previous year that a great champion was capable of returning to the very top after major surgery.
Why get worked up? I was only twenty-four years old. At my age, anything still seemed possible. I took advantage of the long hours when I had to rest by broadening my horizons through reading. Not long before the start of the 1985 Tour – which I watched from a safe distance – I finished
l’Amant
, by Marguerite Duras.
At this time I often mulled over one of Jacques Anquetil’s more surprising sayings. ‘If you just win, you put your name in the record books. But convincing victories win over people’s minds.’ And my internal world had no boundaries.
CHAPTER 19
RENAULT LEAVES THE ROAD
As the saying goes, bad luck comes in threes. At the end of June I had just begun walking again, happy to get outdoors and fill my lungs with air, when Cyrille Guimard told me something that seemed impossible. It was the worst possible news and it left me adrift in a sea of confusion. The directors of Renault had informed him that
la Régie
would cease all sports sponsorship at the end of 1985. No more cycling team. No more Formula One. It was a national trauma.
Their withdrawal was not made public until 25 July, four days before the end of the Tour de France. It put an end to one the finest ventures cycling has ever seen. For Guimard, a time of panic ensued as he struggled to save the team. He had no sponsor and the future was dubious because there was only limited time to find another backer. Fortunately, the bulk of the riders kept faith with us as we sought a sponsor and they decided to wait until September before accepting contracts with other teams. During the holiday period, however, there were few other companies who could be contacted as possible replacements for Renault. Sometimes it was a wild goose chase as businesses tried to take advantage of us to get their name in the papers for nothing. We went nowhere, and as the days progressed the tension grew and ended up having an effect on the team’s morale. My best mate Julot had been going from one crazy episode to another and was on the point of splitting with Guimard. The breakdown was to be irreparable.
Guimard didn’t manage the situation as well as he might. He was worried and tended to lose his cool. Until Renault had told him what was happening he had always had a secure existence. Suddenly, overnight, he had to fend for himself. We had to find a way out, fast. So we both put a lot of time into the hunt, going to one meeting after another trying to talk a variety of businesses into putting up the money.
As you can imagine, the quality of the team and the reputation of the staff made an impression on some possible backers. Early on, the boss of the RMO employment agency, Mare Braillon, made Guinmard an offer. But from the word go I could see that it was shaky. We needed 15 million francs a year; they only put 10 million on the table, plus a few million in ‘appearance fees’. It wasn’t very clear-cut. Guimard was cornered and wanted to accept. He was afraid we wouldn’t get anything better.
During this whole process, Guimard brought me into the negotiations. Together with him I was what amounted to the ‘shop window’ of the company. I had a name and a reputation that I wanted to keep and which I felt had worth. As a double winner of the Tour de France I didn’t believe for a second in what Marc Braillon was offering. It was a fool’s bargain. And in any case it wasn’t anywhere near what our reputation merited. I didn’t buy in. And I ended up telling Guimard: ‘You see, we will get 10 million and nothing else, which won’t do. I don’t agree with it. We have to turn him down and go on looking.’
And so I began to think of an alternative way of running things. After a few days I said to myself: ‘What if we owned the team?’ I can remember as if it were yesterday. Guimard didn’t understand what I was suggesting. My idea was simple. We would set up a company to sell what amounted to the advertising space that was represented by the team’s jersey. We would sell it at the price that we decided upon, which would not be based strictly on the expense of running a team. My idea had two angles to it. Our company had to be where the money was paid and at the same time we would be the only ones who had a say in running the cycling team. The sponsor was there only to buy the advertising space. Guimard quickly grasped the cleverness of the idea, but didn’t believe in it. He kept saying: ‘You’re crazy. No one will buy into it.’
Traditionally, to set up a professional cycling team in France, a business founded under the law of 1901 is necessary. The team belongs to the sponsor who nominates a chief executive from within the company. The sponsor has complete power over the team which is dependent upon the goodwill of the company putting up the cash. The formula that we were trying to dream up meant that the sponsoring company would have a contract with a marketing company whose role was to set up a professional cycling team.
Guimard had no option but to give in. So we created the France-Compétition sporting club and a company called Maxi-Sports Promotion, both of which were jointly owned and run by Guimard and me. We officially became the bosses of the team and were responsible for contracting the riders. Thanks to this redistribution of power, we achieved complete independence: all we now had to do was find a sponsor who would meet our requirements. And if the sponsor were to pull out at the end of their contract, we would then have to find another to replace them. In 1986 it was revolutionary. Soon all professional cycling teams would copy this structure. It was the ‘Guimard-Fignon’ system. I can quite reasonably claim to have paternity rights over this one.
Cyrille had also understood the financial implications. If a sponsor paid 15 million francs and Maxi-Sports Promotion spent less on the cycling team but still managed to stick to the terms it had agreed with the backer, the difference would make up the company’s profit.
That was simultaneously the virtue and vice of the system. Soon Guimard would be counting the coppers and that would end up sullying our shining, noble idea for standing on our own two feet. But neither he nor I was ever short of cash; the opposite was true. We even used one of my sleeping companies and took advantage of the tax benefit that came to newly founded companies: a three years’ tax holiday. We were making money without spending any. We had found the goose that laid the golden eggs.
An astonishingly good opportunity then came up with the Système U supermarket company, which had been competing for several weeks with Cetelem to get involved with us. Système U were the dream sponsor; the way we suited each other was rare, something to be treasured, a spirit embodied by its chief executive Jean-Claude Jaunait. Not only was he happy to sign a contract for 45 million franes over three years but he accepted – and actually wanted – the new way of working that we were suggesting. Jaunait was a real cycling fan who had tried running a team in 1984 that had ended up as a mixed blessing. He explained:
Our setback in 1984 taught us two lessons. The first one was that you had to come in at the highest possible level or you would go under the radar. The second one was that we didn’t want to get involved with the technical side of the team. The new system is ideal for these reasons. We are putting money into the best French team and the sponsor – whose place in my eyes is alongside the team in a support role – will not have to deal with problems that he won’t be able to solve. Guimard has full powers and all the independence he could want. He will be in charge and he has my total confidence.
That is what you call buying in. Without Jaunait perhaps we would never have had the chance to show the cycling world that such a system was viable and efficient. As soon as the contract had been signed Cyrille and I began receiving our monthly salaries: between 100,000 and 200,000 francs depending on what we needed. Maxi-Sports was making money and everyone was happy.
At Jaunait’s request, I personally worked on the design of the jersey using the same colours as the Renault kit, with the logo resembling a wheatsheaf pointing upwards. My idea was to make the rider look a bit more slender and maybe more muscular. It worked: the logo was clearly visible with the famous ‘U’ in red. Looking down from a television helicopter, it was all you could see.
When we officially presented the team in November 1985, all keyed up in our new jerseys, we all felt that this was a new beginning. It felt as if there was a creative soul behind the venture. We now had incredible peace of mind. But someone was missing from my happy state. Pascal Jules was no longer riding at my side. In spite of my repeated attempts to reconcile him with Guimard, I failed: Guimard no longer wanted even to talk about him.
It was a setback for me as well. By signing with a Spanish team, Julot would wreck his career, and he would soon go completely off the rails.
I had to relearn how it all felt. I had to get back in touch with the little signs that were coming from my body, which had been left to itself for too long. I had to grit my teeth and then struggle to get where I wanted. And if I made it, the price was high.
A few weeks after my operation, about the time of the French national championship at the end of June, I got back on the bike. My problem was not how I would go back to being a champion but just becoming a simple cyclist again. I had to learn how to turn the legs again, stay upright and last through the kilometres. It was a seemingly impossible task.
I don’t have many memories of the 1985 Tour. I did follow one stage, from Autrans to Saint-Étienne. That July, Bernard Hinault joined cycling’s most legendary names. He had come second in 1984, won in 1985: what more could you say? His life force was still there, virtually intact. He was a great competitor: powerful, unstinting, aggressive. In those two brief years, 1984 and 1985, cycling would experience, without knowing it, a high point, a zenith of beauty. It was the pinnacle on a building that was about to crumble; the last great gasp of a golden age that would not return.
When I got home from the Tour, I began training again. Or a sort of training. My first real ride was a nightmare. Twenty kilometres, no more. It was hell. It felt as if I was riding the bike for the first time. My legs didn’t work. I had no muscles. I was just a dismembered carcass sitting on a machine that wouldn’t move forwards.
After having my shower I touched the place where they had operated. Where the scar was, I felt a kind of waterfilled ball. When I put my finger on it, the muscle did nothing. I thought that it was all over for me. I couldn’t put any weight on the leg, not even to walk or do the movements you make in everyday life. Everything was difficult. And the slightest effort tired me out; I was so exhausted. But I had to get on with it, find the courage to deal with the pain. This is the desperate moment when you find out what lies underneath, where you have to look deep inside to find reasons to keep believing, to discover some purpose in the pain. You have to get through it, no matter the cost. You almost want to go under, but to stay in the game you have to survive.
I went to look for the sun in Nîmes to gather my strength and have a change. I took my bike. With the wind that blows around there, I could hardly move. Cycle tourists – the ones who didn’t work out who I was – just sped past without noticing I was there. But little by little the kilometres built up. I just took each day as it came without asking too many questions. Was I afraid of what the future might hold? I don’t know, I don’t think so. I remember going to do exercises with Armand Mégret, the team doctor. I spent a lot of time doing rehabilitation work. As my ankle had gone a long time without taking any weight, making it flex again in a normal way was a long, long process. To begin with I was made to do walking exercises in a swimming pool and do floor exercises. Should I now admit something? Well, I never regained the flexibility I had before. Never. I was never able to bend my ankle normally. It was always a few degrees short. There is no need to point out that it would have consequences for the rest of my career.
I have to confess to something else. While I was convalescing I came down with a staphylococcal infection at precisely the same point where the blow from the pedal had left a permanent mark. During the early weeks of pain I had had a large number of injections which had ended up damaging the skin. It was so bad that when Saillant did the operation the scar tissue took a long time to form. For a good while, when the wound was cleaned out, you could see the bare tendon inside. It was asking for infection.
And this too is something that no one ever knew at the time: Professor Saillant had to operate again to clean out the wound. This second surgery gave me my morale back, in fact. Saillant said to me at the time: ‘Now, it’s down to you.’ And that instilled confidence in me, making me believe that if I could regain control of my body everything would be fine. One day, out training, feeling that my body was responding well, I said to myself, ‘There you are, you are the man you were.’ I spoke too soon. In terms of muscle mass my legs looked just like they had been in the past. There was no problem. But when it came to power, I realised very rapidly that I had lost a good part of the strength that I had had. I felt it less when I was in my best form, but the rest of the time it was blindingly obvious; my left leg was not strong enough. Now we would say the watts weren’t there. Right up to the end of my career it remained a handicap which I never really discussed publicly: getting the former muscle power back was an unattainable dream.

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