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Inside Cycling with John Wilcockson: Anglos aim at the Tour podium

Published: Oct. 21, 2005

On starting the "Inside Cycling" column earlier this year I said that my first goal would be to give you a basic story of road racing in "English-speaking" countries. Not a complete history, but the stories behind the "firsts" — first road races in the various countries, first riders to compete in major competitions (such as world championships, classics or tours), and then the first to achieve significant results in those events.

Regarding the biggest race of all, the Tour de France, I’ve written about the pioneers from Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States. The first to finish the race, the first to wear the yellow jersey, the first to finish top 10…. It was slow progress for the "Anglos" toward the Tour podium.

Of the two Australian pioneers in 1914, Don Kirkham was the best placed with 17th overall (almost 12 hours behind the winner, Philippe Thys of Belgium). Another Aussie, Hubert Opperman, was the first to crack the top 15 when he took 12th place in 1931 (1:36:43 behind race winner Antonin Magne of France).

Another 31 years would pass before an Anglo would finish in the top 10. The year was 1962 and the rider was Britain’s Tom Simpson, who wore the yellow jersey for a day (a first for the English-speaking contingent), and finished sixth overall (17:08 behind Frenchman Jacques Anquetil). The following year, Shay Elliott became the first Irishman to wear the yellow jersey, but it would be two more decades before a top-five finish was earned.

This was the burgeoning 1980s, when riders from Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the U.S. exploded onto the professional cycling scene. While Jonathan Boyer was the first American to start the Tour, in 1981, his 32nd place overall was overshadowed by the Australian, Phil Anderson, who was also making his Tour debut.

Anderson, riding for the Peugeot-Esso-Michelin team, made a remarkable start to the race. Stage 5 finished atop the Pla d’Adet climb in the Pyrénées. While the top two stage placings were taken by two former Tour winners, Lucien Van Impe of Belgium and Bernard Hinault of France, Anderson came in third and took over the yellow jersey!

The Australian lost the lead in the next day’s time trial to Hinault, and ended that Tour in 10th place, but Anderson would do even better in 1982. Again, he took the yellow jersey — holding it for nine days — and only conceded it to eventual winner Hinault. Anderson finished an excellent fifth, only 12:16 back. The Aussie and his Peugeot team were hoping for even bigger things at the 1983 Tour.

The early pre-race favorite for that Tour was four-time champion Hinault. The Frenchman was on great form that spring, winning the Flèche Wallonne and Vuelta a España (which was then held in April-May). Hinault took the Vuelta with great help from his two young lieutenants, Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon.

The bad weather in Spain, combined with the huge efforts Hinault made to overcome a half-dozen highly motivated Spaniards, caused knee tendinitis to flare up and he didn’t ride the Tour. This opened up the race to a whole slew of contenders, including Anderson and his Peugeot teammates Stephen Roche of Ireland and Pascal Simon of France.

The Renault team entered the Tour without a designated leader. Team boss Cyrille Guimard said LeMond, who won the preceding Dauphiné Libéré, was too young for the Tour, even though he was only 10 months younger than Fignon.

At Pau, after 10 days of racing in that 1983 Tour, Irishman Sean Kelly was in the yellow jersey, with Anderson in third, only 38 seconds back. Anderson looked ready to take over the lead on the next stage, the first in the Pyrénées. The Aussie was ahead of the other potential winners — Roche (1:35 behind Anderson), Simon (at 2:06) and Fignon (at 3:18) — and had beaten all these riders in the previous time trials.

Stage 10 took the race from Pau across the Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde passes to Luchon, a classic 200km mountain trek. With Hinault not in the race, the Tour was wide open, and this was particularly true on this opening mountain stage. No team or rider was in control when the attacks began on the first climb.

Anderson had expected the Peugeot team to ride strongly for him, but when he had a seemingly harmless tumble partway up the Aubisque, no one waited for him. Anderson’s shoe came off when he fell, and it took him a while to unlace it (this was before the days of Velcro fastenings), put it back on, and retie it. By the time he got back on his bike, he found himself in a back group of non-climbers that had no interest in helping the Aussie, even if they could have done.

While Anderson did his best to catch the groups ahead, he spent most of the next five hours in a fruitless pursuit, finally finishing the stage in 25th place, 12:41 behind the day’s winner: his Scottish teammate Robert Millar.

Peugeot wasn’t bothered about Anderson’s plight because besides stage winner Millar, Simon came in third, 1:13 back, and took over the yellow jersey by an enormous 4:22 on the new runner-up, Fignon. Kelly only dropped to fourth, at 6:13, while Anderson was in 10th, at 9:22.

It was ironic that Simon, who had lost the Dauphiné to LeMond after testing positive (see my June 10 "Inside Cycling" column), crashed the next day and sustained a hairline fracture of the shoulder blade. Simon soldiered on for the next five days, defending the jersey, but the pain became too much on stage 17 to L’Alpe d’Huez, where Fignon came in eighth (behind Roche and Millar), but took over the lead.

So Fignon was the unexpected winner of the 1983 Tour, and being French he was the new flavor of the month on his French team, stealing the limelight from his teammates Hinault and LeMond. "I thought I was going to be Hinault’s successor," LeMond recalls. "Hinault left the [Renault] team at the end of ’83 after tendon surgery and falling out with Guimard. When Fignon won the ’83 Tour, I thought it was … we all thought it was kind of a fluke."

We would have to wait until July 1984 to see whether it was a fluke, whether Hinault could make a comeback, and whether LeMond, Roche or Anderson could become the first Anglo to climb on the Tour podium. I’ll bring that story next week.