4 Jours de Dunkerque

A really strange race, the coverage itself being the most interesting part. On the penultimate day,
the final breakaway of four riders, or which at least three were on the 1998 Festina team, and the
fourth was of that same era. The only missing element was Virenque, who was in the final break until
the last 10K. One wonders about the future of cycling, whether the old guys are still doping just as
much, whether the young guys are, or whether the old guys have been doping for so long that it has
changed their system permanently. Interestingly, not one comment about the make-up of this final
four on TV or in l'Equipe.

Christophe Moreau won the stage anyway, even after doing about 75% of all the attacking and
chasing for the last 60K at least. Then he won the ITT the next day by 30 seconds for 19K. No
doubt good form.

The most amazing part of the race was the last 2 K's of the last stage, a circuit race in and around
Dunkerque. Moreau had been on O'Grady's wheel all day, in order to be protected by the most skilled
rider on the team. Then, with about 3K to go, Moreau went nuts and started doing weird stuff,
possibly trying to set O'Grady up for a sprint win. Apparently not used to riding at the front of a
race in the final kilometers, Moreau got into some deep trouble. First, he had to jump over a curb,
since he had ridden into the parking lane. Then, he almost crashed into a rider coming back from his
pull at the front. At this point, O'Grady realised he had to take things firmly in hand, and stuck
his left arm out right in front of Moreau, and rode this way for about 500m, letting his leader
safely drift towards the back.

Amusingly, after the race, French TV asked Jalabert and Thevenet what advice they had for Moreau,
in view of the Tour de France. They didn't give what seemed to be obvious from the coverage: Learn
how to ride your bike! Clearly, his "bad luck" with crashes last year didn't have anything to do
with luck.

-ilan

 

"Ilan Vardi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> A really strange race,

One of the stranger things is that it isn't a four day race. What's up with that?

> Christophe Moreau won the stage anyway, even after doing about 75% of all the attacking and
> chasing for the last 60K at least. Then he won the ITT the next day by 30 seconds for 19K. No
> doubt good form.

His winning time was 23:05, and he won by 25 seconds. That's almost 2%. The gaps were 25, 26, 33,
38, 40, 47, 48, 52, and 55 seconds to the 2nd through 10th places.

 

"i watched his older brother go on the attack in the same race back in 1994 only to find out he went
down the frontage road. he had about 100 meters on the field then had to dismount his bike and jump
over to the roadway and remount. he then had about 100 meters on the field again. in the
rears.....he must have trained his little bro on attacking and riding tactics.....