Good times follow the bad

 

The Tour de France Grand Depart from the Basque Country this weekend paid homage to that region’s love of cycle racing, which is on a par to that of bike mad Flanders.

But it also brings vividly to mind past political conflict and violence which have led to bomb attacks on the Tour.

The Basque Country straddles the western Pyrenees of Spain and France and jealousy defends its autonomy.  The violence in recent times came to head between 1959 and 2011 as The Basque National Liberation Movement demanded recognition and separate national identity to Spain.

And the Tour became a target as means of attracting publicity to their cause.

I recall a taste of this myself. I’m sure this was the 1987 Tour when on the eve of the Bayonne to Pau stage a cache of arms was discovered in a house on the route of the next day’s stage, leading to fears of an attack on the race.

The odd thing is I learned first about this from my wife when I phoned her while awaiting the stage results to drop. It was on the news.

Minutes later the press room was called to order for a major announcement. And we stood there in silence, wondering what the implications might be.

Extra security would be provided and I’m not sure if that extended to the armed services or not.

Nevertheless, they were anxious moments.

In previous yeas race vehicles had been bombed overnight – there were no casualties. One of the vehicles was a press car belonging to Britain’s TV commentator Phil Liggett.

On the 87 tour I was sharing a car with Lig and Geoffrey Nicholson and I recall on the morning of the stage crouching down to look underneath the vehicle, for some device or other!

And though we made light of the whole thing, we remained nervous and decided to stay in close contact with other advance vehicles, in case in a solitary vehicle might attract attention.

The day passed without incident, thankfully. And we happily concentrated on the day’s main story.

For the record the stage was won by Holland’s Eric Breukink. Yellow jersey was Charly Mottet.

Stephen Roche famously won the final overall that year.

The Tour is no stranger to protest, usually of the more peaceful and, on occasion, amusing kind.

Blockages by striking workers over job losses and trade disputes were common.

There was the articulated truck driven across the course to block the road for the TTT at Denain in Northern France, forcing the cancellation of the stage when over half the teams were still to complete the course.

 

I saw this first hand because my car was hard on the heels of the team which was suddenly obliged to brake hard by the police escort, who presumably at that moment were told of the truck being driven onto the course just ahead of us.

Very soon Tour officials descended on the scene. There was nothing to be done. The race had been completed disrupted and the only course of action was to cancel.

I recall French farmers in the Alps protesting that price of British lamb was undercutting their own! They underlined their cause in style, by spreading a carpet of sheep droppings along the road for us to drive over.

They targeted the convoy, allowing the riders through with a cheer.

I once heard a story – from a fellow scribe - about how the mayor of a local town drove onto the course ahead of the race, intent on playing lead car.  Tour boss Felix Levitan radioed his police chief and soon the mayor’s limo was surrounded by motards. He thought this was marvellous. Until the motards deftly led him off course and up a side road.

And there was the nice story of the young moped rider who helped the Tour to avoid a blockage of farmers in Belgium.  The race had got wind this before the start and the moped rider approached the race organisation and said he knew a route to avoid the farmers. They consulted the map and agreed, and off went the lad with the world’s greatest race and entourage following meekly behind for several kilometres.  The farmers must have wondered why it had gone so quiet.