Le Tour shapshot 3:
My previous blog featured Paul Sherwen’s long and lonely
struggle to finish the stage after crashing in the first kilometre.
The fate which befell my other Tour gladiator in that 1985
Tour, the Dutchman Adri Wijnands was of an entirely different order.
When he fell no one expected him to continue. He did, but
with a shoulder so badly torn and bruised he could barely grip the handlebars.
His right eye was half-closed from a head wound.
Each morning, Wijnands would have his wounds dressed by the
team doctor. He would be helped into his Kwantum team jersey, pulled gently
over the gauze wrapped around his head.
He could barely walk. But he could ride!
Wijnands had been expected to win a stage. He had done so
twice before. He was a good sprinter in the single-day classics. He had
finished fourth overall in the Tour of Holland.
But in 1985, he had not shown the same form and by the time
of the Tour, team manager Jan Raas was putting pressure on Wijnands to deliver.
Yet from the start of the Tour in Brittany, across the north
of France to the Belgian border, then into Switzerland and out into France
again, Wijnands could make no impression.
He wasn’t to know that come stage 15, he would prove himself
in an entirely different manner.
It was around midday. The field had covered 100 of the 237
kilometres from St Etienne to Aurillac, a transition stage between the Alps and
Pyrenees.
This was the day after race leader Bernard Hinault’s
spectacular crash in the St Etienne finish in which he broke his nose. If Hinault was a hero for pressing on to land
his fifth Tour victory, Wijnands deserved the title of Superman.
Here’s how it happened.
The radio in our press car crackled into life: “CHUTE… BRUTAL”.
It was on fast downhill corner. The radio announcement then
promptly relayed the kilometre, rider number, followed by his name and team. We
scribbled it all down.
Chute, Kilometre 100. Rider number 120: Wijnands, Kwantum.
He was doing 72kph when his wheels slid from under him on
diesel fuel spilt across a downhill corner.
Wijnands went skidding and tumbling down the road, parting company with
his machine which bounced and crashed to a halt.
The race doctor’s car pulled up beside a crumpled, bloodied
body and the mangled wreck of a bike.
The good news was that Wijnands had not broken any bones.
The bad news was he had torn limbs and ripped flesh. If anyone looked DNF, this
guy did. The ambulance stood by, doors opened wide.
Raas stood and watched as his man was treated for shock, his
shoulder bandaged, grit cleaned from his head wound. Wijnands squinted through
his right eye as it began to close and turn bluish black.
Tough man Raas, who had suffered serious falls himself
during his distinguished career – 13 victories in the classics and 10 Tour
stage victories – told Wijnands he didn’t expect him to continue.
But Wijnands, knowing that Raas was disappointed in him,
shot him a look of defiance with his one good eye. “Give me a new bike. I will
not give up,” he demanded.
The ambulance would not be needed!
Raas shrugged.
Wijnands would yet show his boss what he was made of.
And so began an extraordinary fight back.
He had 137 kilometres of the stage remaining – over two 4th
category climbs, one third category, then a real tough one, the second-category
Col du Peyrol with just less than 50 kilometres to the finish.
The sight of this bloodied soul many minutes behind the rest
shocked spectators. Momentarily struck dumb, they suddenly found voice and
cheered him on.
Eventually, he found himself among a group of dropped
riders, they probably caught him up, rather than he caught them.
News travelled down
the course. On the final day’s climb up
the 12-kilometre-mile drag of the Col du Peyrol, with blood now seeping
through Wijnands dressings and sweat stinging his wounds, everyone at the
roadside new what had happened. As he struggled to hold the wheels of the eight
men at the back of the field, the crowds cried out: “Courage, Wijnands, courage!”
He finished that day at the back of
a large group, placed 133rd on the stage. Wijnands was lifted off his bike and supported by team helpers because he could barely stand.
Each morning thereafter he would be lifted onto the bike.
And after the stage, lifted off it.
He would endure six more stages to reach Paris.
When the race swung into the High Pyrenees two stages later
– entering the Tour’s “Circle of Death” -
Wijnands hauled himself over the Col D’Aspin, followed by the Hors category and
legendary giant, the 2,000 metre high Col du Tourmalet and finally, up the hors
category climb to Luz-Ardiden. He finished 33 minutes behind the leaders.
The next day he faced a split stage Hell: ascending both the Col
du Soulor and Col d’Aubisque in the morning stage, and then retracing back over
both in the afternoon to finish in Pau.
Despite this ordeal, Wijnands wasn’t last on GC – but placed
103rd overall and ahead of 42 others who looked fit and
healthy by comparison.
His spirits rose now, for the big mountains were behind
them.
And so he defied the odds by making it to Paris where he had
slipped a mere three more places to a final 106th overall. When you think about, it was crazy to force
yourself on with injuries like that.
But this was Le Tour and common sense doesn’t come into it.
For Wijnands, getting through was a matter of a pride. In the absence of an expected stage win, this
was a very personal victory.
