Retaining the power to fascinate

CYCLING TOUR OF IRELAND: Keith Duggangets a birds-eye view of the Tour of Ireland as the competitors push their bodies to the limit

LANCE ARMSTRONG is taking refuge outside O’Shea’s Funeral Home. The second stage of the Tour of Ireland has just finished on a muggy afternoon in Killarney and as was evidenced on the breathtaking if tortuous cycle from Clonmel, the Texan occupies a place in the public imagination that has long transcended his achievements in his sport.

Irish people congratulate themselves on not allowing themselves to become overly hot and bothered when brushing shoulders with superstardom but the hunt for Armstrong, when he bombed through the finishing line on the Port Road, was distinctly manic. He had no choice but to disappear into the Astana camper van parked outside O’Shea’s.

The presence of the American in the field added a legendary dimension to what was a world-class field to begin with and practically every vantage point on the entirety of the 200 kilometre course was taken up by spectators eager to catch a glimpse of a man whose seemingly limitless courage from journeys through chemotherapy and the world’s most gruelling cycle races has made him an enduring figure of fascination.

The kids who held up hand-drawn banners declaring their support for Armstrong did not care about the allegations of doping infringements that have been levelled at him through a glittering sporting life. The women in white quality controls waving outside the Cadbury’s factory did not care about the repeated allegations, the stormy press conferences or the myriad testing that Armstrong has dealt with.

On a gorgeous August Saturday morning, they just wanted a glimpse of fame, even if it was crouched over handlebars and was hauling ass at a serious rate through the countryside. And that was the most striking thing about the Tour of Ireland.

There is no other sport in the world in which the leading practitioners will do their thing outside your kitchen window. It does not matter how great the claims to unspoilt beauty of The Vee might be: none of the locals are ever going to see Christiano Ronaldo practising free-kicks at the bottom of their back garden. Lewis Hamilton is never going to blaze through Musheramore on a fine summer’s morning.

The Tour of Ireland, snaking through the sometimes perilously narrow roads along the second stage, brought a touch of the exotic to the heart of the Irish country. It was a decidedly continental sight, evoking nostalgic memories of the hot and dusty summers when the nation was obsessed with the fortunes of Seán Kelly and Stephen Roche, yes, but also giving a real flesh-and-grimace look at a sport which, while coming close to battering its own reputation to death, remains unfathomably tough and, on a clear afternoon, still looks majestic.

The second stage began early in Clonmel. In Hewitt’s bakery, the lady behind the counter explained the hazards of making her way through the crowd barriers in time for work. At one point, she was informed that she could not go through. “I’ve been going through for 40 years,” she explained to the steward. “Why wouldn’t I go through today?” It was unarguable logic.

The race had hardly begun when Meath’s Mark Cassidy, riding for Seán Kelly’s An Post team, made a breakaway and was joined by Dutchman Dennis van Winden. It was behind these two that our escort car settled to watch a brave and quixotic attempting to push clear of the peloton for the remaining 200 kilometres. Our driver was Mark Quigley, the Westport cyclist who broke through along with Nicholas Roche and the new wave of Irish cyclists earlier this decade. A back injury put paid to Quigley’s ambitions to push through at the elite level but he still cycles competitively and is pretty nifty behind a steering wheel also.

Like everyone involved in Irish cycling, Quigley was still reeling from the death of Paul Healion, the Meath man killed in a car accident shortly before the tour began. Mark Cassidy had said that riding a memorable race would be the most fitting tribute he could pay to his friend and although his early bolt from the crowd was strategic, it seems likely that thoughts of Healion were drifting through his mind as he pressed home his advantage in the company of the Dutch man. After 80 kilometres, the pair had toiled to create a gap just shy of 15 minutes.

A full quarter of an hour advantage seemed sufficient to give rise to optimism that the others would simply give up the ghost. But instead, that gap began to shorten, slowly and remorselessly and when it had fallen short of 10 minutes, it became clear that their valorous attempt could not succeed. On the brutal climb through the Curragh, with a nasty gradient that made the best cyclists of the world veer from side to side like winded farmers, the Dutchman left Cassidy behind.

“That was a mistake,” Seán Kelly would say later. “Together, they might have had some chance but going alone it was going to be impossible. Mark did well, he got away well, it was just a pity that he could not keep it going.”

And the sight of Cassidy, attired in emerald green and hunched over his saddle laboriously inching up the steep climb was a study in sporting loneliness. He had no choice but to wait for his fate and there was something vaguely sinister about the knowledge that somewhere behind him, this thing was inevitably gaining ground. Except that when you looked behind, it was nowhere to be seen; there were only fields and at that instance, the peloton was as mythical as the Beast in Lord of the Flies.

And that is what the peloton becomes for the riders who choose to break free of its command: a demon chasing them down. When Cassidy was eventually submerged in the crowd, now moving with intent, it was obvious even to untutored eyes that he was spent.

“It was so windy out there,” he gasped seconds after crossing the finishing line. My legs were aching and the climb was hard. It was tough going.”

But Cassidy wasn’t complaining. He just wanted to get off his feet, fuel up and think about the 195 km that awaited him the following morning.

All through the field, there were examples of exceptional degrees of human toughness. Along the route, Matt Rendall, who has written several acclaimed books on modern cycling, told us about the new revolution in Rwanda.

Team Rwanda is not expected to feature strongly on the podium but the presence of their young team is one of the more uplifting tales from contemporary cycling.

Somewhere in the midst of that peloton, somewhere speeding past the handsome public houses in Millstreet was Adrien Niyonshuti, a light 22-year-old climbing specialist. He might not have been here at all: six of his brothers were killed in the genocide of 1994. If that were not enough adversity to overcome, he lost his father last year and a young cyclist named Godfrey Gahemba that Niyonshuti had trained was killed in a fall last December. This is his first race in Europe.

“He is a national hero at home in Rwanda,” said Jock Boyer, his coach. “Everyone knows about him, he gets great coverage on the radio, the government is backing him so he is hugely popular figure.”

Boyer holds a unique place in cycling himself. The Californian was the first American to race in the Tour de France in 1981. As we walked towards the podium ceremony in Killarney, he recalled how he had become an elite cyclist through pure persistence. He raced out of enthusiasm more than knowledge during his boyhood in Carmel and at 17 set off to France with the ambition of making it.

“All I had was an address,” he smiled. “It was in Sainte Eloy-Les Mines. I just knew they had this race club that went out every day and I showed up and said I want to be a cyclist.”

Three decades on, cycling still consumes Boyer. Tanned and pleasant, Boyer is indicative of the kind of independent spirit that has always been the driving force behind cycling, a triumph that is part romantic and part bloody minded perseverance that probably got lost in the scandals of the last decade.

Boyer’s involvement with Rwanda was half accidental. On a visit to the country with Tom Ritchey, a friend from his early years in cycling, they couldn’t but notice how popular the bike was as a mode of transport.

“And a lot of Rwandan kids had the natural physiques. We just felt that we could do something here. We wanted to get the project going and I was volunteered. This is a country with nine million people so the potential there in terms of cycling talent is obvious. But the goal of project one is about more than that. It is about changing lives through the bicycle. It is about helping young people there to learn English, develop skills, start businesses, we helped one cyclist with a family to buy his house.”

Boyer has been living in Cuzcanzi over the past couple of years. The legacy of the genocide is inescapable, not just because of the proliferation of memorials that have bloomed across the landscape but because it has defined the stories of the generation of Rwandans that are now young adults.”

Niyonshuti has become an omnipotent figure to that orphaned generation. And there is something wonderfully democratic about a young man like Niyonshuti emerging from such an extraordinarily violent and bleak childhood to join the company of Armstrong on a professional cycle race.

In 1994, when Niyonshuti’s world was about to be pitched into a black hole, Armstrong had already begun his professional cycling career.

The Rwandan faded towards the end of Saturday’s stage, but Boyer was not disheartened. The stamina will come.

At the business end of the race, Mark Cavendish, the supreme exponent of sprint finishing, set himself up for his 23rd stage win of the season. Cavendish’s story is yet another example of the sheer persistence and cavalier spirit that produces the best riders in the sport.

Growing up in the Isle of Man, he made the metamorphosis from BMX adolescent to straight cyclist after meeting David Miller. Cavendish was a highly-rated under-age cyclist but his ascent stemmed from pure self-belief; he quit a job in the bank to make a go of it and discovered his metier, the sprint, over the past two seasons. Cavendish’s speciality is as good an example of any of the obsessive attention to detail that turns the wheels of contemporary cycling.

Cavendish rides for the Columbia team and among the former professionals on their books is Eric Zabel, the German rider who eclipsed Seán Kelly’s record for the most green jerseys in the Tour de France. Nowadays, Zabel rides in a lead car. By Saturday, it seemed inevitable Cavendish would thunder across the line ahead of his rivals. Later, he was pleased by his win but his features clouded as he recalled a less than enjoyable incident on the first climb.

“We were going past and one of the spectators hit me a slap on the arse and had a good laugh about it. I was pretty upset by it. I mean we are not animals out there, you know. I hope whoever it is reads or sees this and is embarrassed by it. We are human beings.”

The transfer from Killarney to Bantry, where the third stage was to begin, began at 7am. Yesterday was unremittingly grim. Low skies and heavy overnight rainfall made the roads treacherous and from early morning, the rain fell with fresh vengeance, as though to atone for the perfect summer conditions of the first two days. In the Bantry Bay Hotel, the cyclists gathered at the bar to drink coffee and stay warm in the start up.

The organisation that it takes to move the peloton, a vast and unwieldy train of cars and bikes, is immense. As they raced through the narrow roads of south Cork, the input of the Garda traffic corps was critical. Without their presence, there would have been mayhem.

Because the cyclists stayed tightly bunched for the majority of the race, the press cars and guest vehicles travelled the entire length of the course without actually seeing a single cyclist – apart from a lady who was sauntering downhill from the store with what looked like a litre of milk and the Sunday Worldin her basket.

Out on the roads, it wasn’t long before the competitors began to drop out. Cassidy, obviously blitzed by his lone efforts on the previous stage, was one of the first to bow out. His An Post team-mates Benny De Shrooder and Ronan McLaughlin also took early leave but there was no shame in that. Even Armstrong declined to participate in the hellishly steep climb up St Patrick’s Hill and the other steep roads around Cork city.

In the rain, the last stage looked fiendishly ingenious, what with narrow U-turns on pedestrian streets, the claustrophobic climb up Patrick’s Hill and the long sprint to home, finishing in front of the Metropole Hotel.

Given the rain, the speed at which the peloton covered the final stage was remarkable. They went through the last food stage, outside Kinsale at 70kph. By that stage, the competitors were dropping out in big numbers. Word that Armstrong would not be seen in Cork city was bound to have disappointed the large crowd that had gathered but in truth, he would have been difficult to pick out in the crowd anyway. The skill and courage required to navigate the city course was breathtaking. Last year’s stage winner Marco Pinotti hit speeds of 100kph during his city ascents. But that had been a dry day – a summer’s day.

This close was defined by a more cautious daring. As it turned out, Russell Downing, the man who had pushed the form all through the tour, closed it out with a deserved win, finishing second and breathing down the neck of stage-winner Lars Petter Nordhaug, from the Joker team. It was Downing’s birthday and, in keeping with his nickname, Fonzy, he celebrated his win by hitting the brakes and skidding across the finish. “That was probably the top,” he said later, when the champagne had been spilled. “I had a great race here last year and to go one better is brilliant.”

And just like that it was over. Some of the teams were flying out that night. The An Post boys were due to stay in Cork city for a dinner. But most will be competing elsewhere in Europe tomorrow. Armstrong resumes his Livestrong campaign, with a press briefing scheduled for Dublin today. Boyer will be back in Rwanda tomorrow night. Like all professional sports circuits – motor racing or tennis or golf – cycling is circuitous and seasonal and at given times and seasons, old heroes and young pretenders take part in what is a strange and sometimes magnificent parade.

What people see, when these cyclists race by is a glimpse of a largely mysterious culture that, for all its troubles, retains its power to fascinate. By late afternoon, the barriers had been gone and the podium stage was stripped of its heroes and its bouquets and Cork city throbbed to the closing stages of the All-Ireland football semi-final. Normal life had returned.