Alfonse said nothing. It was 36°C (97°F) and he was clearly suffering. An hour later, I noticed a big yellow banana was being stretchered off course. Heatstroke, I believe.
‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’
4
Security, Good and Bad
10 a.m. The Tour de France TV compound, Bergerac, France.
It’s around two hours before we go on air. We have arrived and parked the car in what Sean Kelly describes as ‘A prime bit o’ real estate’. This means we will get away quickly later. I retrieve my bag from the back of the car without disturbing Sean’s underwear, which he has hung up to dry in the day’s heat. People always wonder why our car is usually steamed up. I saunter up to a man who looks like he could have arrived by parachute. He is dressed in near fatigues and wired for sound and armed with several devices of varying degrees of lethality. He is demonstrably well conditioned and looks like his spit may contain nails.
Me: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur, est-ce la zone de presse ici?’
CRS officer: Silence
Me, again: ‘S’il vous plaît monsieur, est qu’il—’
CRS officer: ‘Allez!’
This conversation was now over. It was also probably the best outcome you can get when interacting with a member of France’s riot police, the CRS. Simply being told to go away was a bonus. Communication is apparently something these guys reserve only for themselves. They live in compounds with well-equipped gymnasia and shooting ranges. They are a breed apart. Welcome to the fittest and meanest division in the hierarchy of the French police.
At the bottom of the pecking order of Les Flics, you find your local police; often chubby and driving tatty Renault Clios. Like all police here, they are armed, but in their case their weapons probably get drawn only for compulsory practice.
As you rise up the pecking order, you go through the regional police, with slightly better cars as well as slightly better levels of intellect and fitness. Go higher and higher, and you will get to the Presidential Guard. Basically the equivalent of the SAS. Close to this pinnacle is a subdivision marked ‘Hard’ where you find a utility division called the CRS, Les Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, but otherwise known as Car Rempli des Singes (cart-load of monkeys). This is the Riot Squad.
As you may have gathered, they are not necessarily here to serve the public: they are here to control the public. The clue’s in the name; their job is to police riots. And that means no small talk or indeed any talk at all – unless they are letting their fists do it. ‘Don’t mess with the CRS’, says the T-shirt.
By and large, most people attached to the Tour de France are glad to have the CRS in the vicinity. Those who ignore them are in more trouble than they realise. Indeed, this trouble can come rather quickly and, be warned: you will bruise. The regular police can, to a certain degree, be messed with. You can ask a regular cop, ‘Why?’ and he may take the time to wearily explain his instructions. But with the CRS, you get just one chance. I took the order ‘Allez!’ with good grace and did indeed allez rather quickly. Others have, in the past, fared less well. The CRS can get a little, well, enthusiastic. Like with Antler Man, for instance.
Antler Man was a crazy American cycling fan who’d turn up on the Grand Tours wearing an American Football style helmet, sometimes with bison horns, ram horns or moose antlers attached to it. Known variously as the Raging Stag, Moose Man and Antler Man, his real name was Dore Holt and he was an aircraft mechanic from Seattle. He’d run ahead of the riders waving the Stars and Stripes with this ridiculous headgear on and he made a nuisance of himself because he couldn’t go as fast as the riders, even uphill. As he looked round, he’d come close to knocking off the riders with the horns sticking out of his helmet.
My fellow Eurosport commentator Juan Antonio Flecha, who used to ride for Sky, told me of when he once snatched Antler Man’s flag off him in the middle of a race because the American was annoying him so much. He then rode with it for a hundred metres or so before chucking it to the side of the road. Later on in the day he saw him and apologised for taking the flag.
‘I don’t mind you taking the flag,’ Dore Holt said. ‘But you didn’t respect the flag. You threw the flag away.’
Antler Man was a royal pain in the arse and I always made a point of ridiculing him in my commentary, so I hope I had something to do with his recent absence from major races. He was warned many times by the police, but he just wouldn’t keep away and continued appearing on mountain stages, getting in the way and coming close to poking various eyes out with his antlers – the eyes of riders, of spectators, and of the CRS.
When the CRS have had enough of such miscreants, they often decide to throw them into the back of the van. Sometimes before they’ve remembered to open the doors. It’s a statement.
We haven’t seen much of Antler Man in Europe in recent years, although I understand he still likes to ply his trade back in the US.
‘He was on the line but it was full of washing.’
5
The Five Lions
While we are pondering the characters that surround the Grand Tours, it’s probably worth taking a moment to talk of the guys at the top of the game. They’re British, don’t you know!
2018 was when the Three Lions of British cycling became Five. We had Cav, Wiggo and Froomie. And then Geraint Thomas produced a truly remarkable display of
