Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape
The Remarkable Life of Jacques Anquetil, The First Five-Times Winner of The Tour de France
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Jacques Anquetil was the first five-times winner of the Tour de France, but is the least well known of the five who have won the Tour five times or more. But Anquetil does not deserve this obscurity, something that author Paul Howard sets out to address in this biography. As well as being a writer and a journalist, Paul Howard is a keen cyclist who "shadow rode" the 2003 Tour de France (sometimes setting off as early as 04:00 to ensure that he kept ahead of the publicity caravan). His account of his journey was published as Riding High.
To say that Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape is an astonishing story is an understatement. Anquetil's list of "firsts" is remarkable and in terms of victories, he is the fourth greatest cyclist ever behind Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Fausto Coppi, and is some distance ahead of Lance Armstrong. Anquetil was the first to win five Tours, the first to win the Tour, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana; the first to win the Tour and the Giro in the same year (a feat subsequently achieved only by Merckx, Hinault, Stephen Roche, Miguel Indurain and Marco Pantani). He forsook the 1965 Tour and what he considered to be a "meaningless" sixth victory and instead won the Dauphine Libere and later the same day set-off (and won) the 350-mile Bordeaux-Paris one-day race.
Beginning with Anquetil's ancestry, birth and upbringing in Normandy, Howard tracks his career, his amateur days, early successes and turning professional in the later 1950s. Although he first won the Tour de France in 1957, Anquetil's dominance really started with the 1961 edition. But this was a watershed in more ways than one - such was the apparent ease of his victories that the French public, fuelled by journalists and rivals opposed to what they saw as an inappropriate lifestyle, begin to be alienated.
Between 1961 and 1966, Anquetil won the Tour de France three times, the Giro and the Vuelta once each, Paris-Nice three times, the Dauphine Libere twice and numerous other races including Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Bordeaux-Paris. During this period he also won the Grand Prix des nations three times (to add to his five previous victories in this event) and in 1964 was the BBC's Overseas Sports Personality of the Year. In what has been termed the Tour's "Golden Age", Anquetil's career started as Coppi's was ending and it ended as that of Merckx was getting underway. His contemporaries included Charly Gaul, Louison Bobet, the unfortunate Roger Rivere and, of course, Raymond Poulidor.
Other than his five Tour victories, it is his rivalry with Raymond Poulidor (to whom the French public showed great affection, more often than not at Anquetil's expense) for which Anquetil is probably best known, a rivalry that verged on the obsessive at times. A not so well know fact is that Poulidor with 189 victories had more professional wins than Anquetil with 184, although the majority of Anquetil's were of a higher prestige. But at times, Anquetil revealed a great humility towards his opponent - after beating Poulidor to win the 1964 Tour he said of him
My pride comes from having beaten a great champion in the hardest Tour I've known
In terms of his preparation for the tour, he was unique. He had the ability to race and win after very little sleep and his Tour menu included langoustines and champagne. He admitted, albeit candidly, to drug usage and he offended numerous fans by claiming that his motivation for cycling was purely financial.
But his cycling achievements are just part of Anquetil's extraordinary story. Although he had great enthusiasm for the high life, it is not this for which he has gained notoriety: he seduced and later married the wife of his doctor and when she was unable to bear him the child he desired, he had a child with her daughter, his stepdaughter. For more than a decade he sustained a menage a trios with both his wife and his stepdaughter. He subsequently, it is said in an attempt to inspire jealousy, had a child with his stepson's ex-wife. This child, a son, was christened in May 1987, just a day before he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Less than 6 months later, Jacques Anquetil was dead.
To be honest with you, I wasn't previously particularly well acquainted with Jacques Anquetil's life and career - I know that he was the first rider to win five Tours and that he was the reigning Tour winner when I was born - but this book underlines that fact that he was one of the all-time great cyclists, a legend in fact, and whose story proves that sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
Howard should be congratulated on bringing Anquetil back out of the shadows. If you are interested in the Tour de France, particularly in its golden age, then you should read this book.
About This Entry
‘Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Thu, 14th August 2008 at 21:56:54 BST and filed under book reviews.
