How I Won the Yellow Jumper (42 page)

Somewhere in the midst of all the pushing and shoving that followed, Contador's shades were knocked from his head. As the crowd dispersed, our cameraman John Tinetti, sharp-eyed as ever, noticed them lying on the tarmac and, with entrepreneurial ingenuity, picked them up and hurried round to the mixed zone. There he handed them over to me, along with a marker pen, so that I could get the new Tour champion to sign them. What a prize.

Such relics can be laced with significance. The sweat-stained shirt, the stump, the hat-trick ball, the token of the genius. I have a colleague who reports on boxing who once swiped the corner stool Mike Tyson had sat on in between the rounds of an epic world title defence. His daughter now sits on it to do her homework.

These things have meaning. Yet, as I glanced down at this pair of slightly scratched, green-tinted glasses, I couldn't see much. They seemed as empty as the impassive eyes they were designed to shade.

What was it about Contador that lacked an appropriate sense of importance? When he turned up in Monaco for the start of his 2009 Tour win alongside the returning Lance Armstrong, he was like a little note in the margin compared to the big man. Shunned by his Texan teammate, and frozen out by his coterie of cronies, Contador cut a lonely figure. An air of abandonment clung to him.

The day before the race got under way, in the car park outside the Fairmont hotel, Armstrong held an impromptu press conference, pinned up against a team car by dozens of reporters. The rest of his team, meanwhile, milled around with their bikes, waiting for Armstrong to finish. Right on the periphery, occasionally glancing at his watch, was Alberto Contador, the soon to be two-time winner of the Tour de France, who had it within him, given his age and superiority over the rest, to challenge the legacy of Armstrong himself. He was looking bored and a little impatient. But most of all, he looked ignored.

‘That's Alberto Contador over there.' I nudged a colleague who like me was only half listening on the outer rings of the Armstrong throng. ‘He's going to win the Tour.'

‘Housekeeping!' There was a double knock on the door. I kept quiet. And then I heard the footsteps retreat down the
corridor and away from my room.

Over in Australia, and still booming out from the speakers, the Sporza commentator was heading for his dramatic final flourish. It was time for him to refer to his prepared notes. This was the climax of the race ‘. . . the undisputed, and still undefeated four-times champion of the world, Fabiaaaaan Cancellaaara!' He let rip in English suddenly, apeing a boxing commentary.

I watched the usual thing unfold. Cycling has a way of producing great champions, immense rides, colossal achievements. But it doesn't always provide them with the trimmings befitting greatness. Every other sport culminates in an arena fit for purpose; the more giant the occasion, the more monolithic the backdrop. Fabian Cancellara's record-breaking fourth world title was being celebrated in front of a row of suburban Australian retirement homes. He was embraced and feted in front of a picket fence with a sneaky view into someone's front room. I carried on watching, trying to muster a proportionate sense of celebration.

Some time later, David Millar was called upon by television to pass comment on the Contador case. His status as reformed doper allowed him no respite, even in the afterglow of one of his most full-hearted rides. I watched him from the other side of the world. He looked a little pained, but not at all reluctant. He spoke of the need for certainty, he called for calm, he appealed to people's better natures and trusted, hoped, that all would be explained away. Without diminishing the seriousness of the accusation, he tried to call off the dogs of war.

But the dogs had long since left their kennels, and were tearing down the online alleyways, salivating at the scent of transfused blood. Just as all this was happening at the World Championships, news broke that two more Spaniards, including the second-placed rider on the 2010 Vuelta d'Espana, had returned an initial positive test, subject to later confirmation.
Minutes afterwards, and at about the same time, the Italian police revealed that they had raided the house of the confirmed doper Ricardo Ricco, and confiscated some mysterious tablets.

And on and on and on.

I switched off the TV, and snapped shut the lid of my laptop. I stared out of the window and contemplated heading out into the Thursday morning drizzle for a run.

Another bright yellow train came to a noisy, grinding standstill just outside. I drew the curtain, plunging the room into an even more profound gloom, and I composed a text message congratulating Millar. I hit send, then, a little reluctantly, started to change into my running gear.

Months later, and after a wearyingly long procedure, Alberto Contador was cleared by the Spanish Cycling Federation of deliberate doping. They upheld his assertion that he had unwittingly eaten meat contaminated with clenbuterol. That exoneration paved the way for Contador to ride on. As this book goes to print, the best guess is that he will almost certainly head for the Vendee, where the 2011 Tour starts.

All that, though, was still to come. The news I had just heard was merely the starting pistol, announcing the beginning of a battle of accusation and denial. Back then, I only had one bald fact to contend with: Alberto Contador had tested positive for a banned substance.

I was lacing my running shoes, when my phone beeped at me. It was David Millar, texting from Australia.

‘Thanks, Ned. What a joy to rip that first lap. D.'

What a joy, indeed.

Hours wore on. Or perhaps minutes. As awareness crept in, I was seized by the very mildest form of panic, which is really only one level up from fascination. My dysfunction had become apparent to me. Which isn't to say that I could actually do anything about it.

With each attempt to address the turn of events that had dumped me in this curtained chamber deep in Lewisham Hospital, I displayed the attention span of a gnat coupled with the memory of a goldfish. Trying to remember was like purposefully flinging open the door to a room, striding in, and then instantly forgetting why I had entered it. A moment's confusion, then I flung the door open anew. It was tiring.

This is where the Piece of Paper came into its own. Hand-written in black rollerball, it listed the chain of events in bullet points.

It wasn't exactly a Buddhist mantra, but I intoned it internally with all the earnest devotion of a monk perched on a Tibetan mountainside reciting Om Mani Padma Hum. In a world which had become chaotic, it at least made coherent sense. The problem was that no sooner had I read it, than I had forgotten it all over again.

Kath, to take her mind off my insanely repetitive line of questioning, had started to scrape away the bits of Jamaica Road still embedded in a deep cut to my right elbow. I watched her with fascination as she fiddled away with a gauze swab dipped in sterile water, flicking grains of tarmac out from a wound close to my elbow bone. I didn't feel a thing.

More evidence that all was not well. The tiniest scratch would, on any other given day, have me swearing blue filth and screwing my face into the shape and flavour of a tightly squeezed lemon. Here I felt nothing.

The curtains whipped smartly to one side and the
Holby City
doctor was back.

‘How is he?'

‘How are you?' Kath threw the question on to me like a hand grenade.

‘Fantastically well,' I ventured, unsure of what the correct response should be, but wishing not to appear morose.

There followed a discussion between medical professionals (Kath is a qualified nurse) about how best to stitch together my unsightly elbow flap. Then there was a fair amount of rotating my arm to the left and right. Of course, there were also plenty of torches to be shone directly into my eyes. Then the questioning began again in earnest. Clipboards with
charts were readied to record the calibre and quality and implications of the replies.

Kath seemed by now, in her frustration, to be driving the agenda.

‘Ask him something he'll definitely know the answer to. He's just come back from a month on the Tour de France. Ask him who won the Tour de France.'

‘OK. Who won the Tour de France?'

Deeply hidden in my memory, a sudden thrill. A sudden taste at the back of my mouth. I tasted delight, pride and shock.

I thought for a long time. I was reasoning. I was aware that it sounded oddly triumphalist, but I was also desperate to say the right thing. And the right answer appeared within my grasp.

I glanced for the last time at my battered bike helmet and the tear in my Lycra. It was all the confirmation I needed.

‘Was it me?'

I should start by thanking Emily, who got me started on this journey. I owe a debt to Richard Moore, but I've already bought him a nice bottle of wine, so we're quits. Thanks to Stan at Jenny Brown, and to Matt Phillips at Yellow Jersey, for his alchemy.

Thanks also to Paul and Sue, who gave me lunch in 2003, and told me who Mario Cipollini is. To Josh for a word of encouragement in 1989. To Mike and Simon, for Monopoly in 2010.

Thanks to Brian Barwick, Mark Sharman, and Niall Sloane, all of whom have either signed or retained the TV rights to the Tour de France for ITV.

To all those who have worked with me on Tours past and present, back in London and on the road in France, thanks for your dedication, and sense of adventure: Rob Llewelyn, David McQuaid, Steve ‘Bilcoe' Blincoe, Freddie Morgues, Wrenne Hiscott, Chloe Deverell, Gary Franses, Pete Vasey, Andy Sessions, Revika Ramkissun, Sophie Veats, Tony Davies, Titus Hill, Peter Wiggins, Peter Hussey, Chris Littleford, Chrissie Jobson, Sarsfield Brolly, Patrice Diallo, Carolyn Viccari, James and Brian Venner, and all others in France and at Molinare who make the show happen. To other tourists: Matt Pennell, Stephen Farrand, Paul Kimmage, David Walsh, Phil Bryden, Bob Roll, Honie Farrington, Peter Kaadtmann, Mike Tomalaris, Simon Brotherton, Graham Jones, Phil Sheehan, Johnny Green, Simon Richardson, Frankie Andreu, Dave Harmon, Richard Williams, Brendan Gallacher, Daniel Friebe and Geoff Thomas.

To John, Steve, Gary, Chris, Glenn, Liam and Woody. Not forgetting Philippe and Odette and Romain, as well as Phil and Paul.

And a huge debt, as ever, to Matt.

Thanks to David Millar, Thomas Voeckler, Richard Virenque, Robbie McEwen, Lance Armstrong, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish: names I will never forget. Thanks also to Brian Nygaard, Fran Millar and Dave Brailsford.

And finally, to Kath, Edith and Suzi. They are my full stop.

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