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  A return to remember Durand makes a triumphant return to the Tour de France
Posted: Monday July 20, 1998 10:23 AM
Special from L'Equipe, the French sports daily PARIS (L'Equipe) -- After having been past over in 1997, Jacky Durand, the two-time French national champion repeated his 1994 Tour de France stage win in scorching heat Sunday. After he passed the finish line, a happy and exhausted Jacky Durand did a sort of controlled skid in front of the wall of spectators that blocked the long avenue in Montauban and landed on the burning pavement. The smile which seldom leaves the two-time French national champion's face was back on the tour. This moment reminded him of that 1994 day when he won his first Tour de France stage in Cahors, 60 kilometers to the North, in scorching heat already. Heat turns him on, and so does morale, like it does everybody else. His was as low as possible last year when Vincent Lavenu decided not to pick the former yellow jersey for the Tour de France. "At the end of 1996, I probably made the mistake of spending the winter completely in dilettante, and I ended up with the Casino team like a Jan Ullrich, between 22 and 33 pounds too heavy," he said. "But I had good sensations again before the tour and it's true that, at that time, I was mad at Vincent. When you're in good shape and you're not picked for the tour, it hurts. Me, I'm from the old school, that which spends the winter partying with pals, and I landed in a team that had very different methods. But I was able to put myself into question. I participated in a lot of training sessions this past winter. We rode a lot, way too much to my liking, but I had to go through that. This season has been a lot better, even if a fall in Paris-Roubaix upset my goals. I always held on, I knew it would pay off one day."
And the fact that he's worn the Tour's most fighting rider's jersey ever since the tour took off from Dublin tends to show that he deserved to win Sunday. After attacking in almost all the stages, instigating or taking part in most of the breakaways, he started the decisive attack Sunday, 76 kilometers into the stage, and won thanks to favorable circumstances. "For one hour, it had been terrible," Durand recalled. "After 40 kilometers, we didn't have anything to drink anymore. I went to the back of the peloton to get some bottles for me and my buddies and then it was one [of] the day's hardest times. I had to go all the way up to the front of the pack and from then on I stayed up front. I knew that a majority of the peloton was going to crack at some point. I saw that a lot of riders didn't have any bottles left, I had two full ones and, under those circumstances and on those roads, it was obvious something would happen. The official elevation chart made this stage look kind of flat, but I knew it would be hard and that teams with good sprinters would have a hard time controlling everything, that the Telekom men wouldn't waste too much energy in this heat to protect Jan Ullrich's yellow jersey, unless an underhand trick should occur." Yet Durand didn't look too comfortable in the company of Italian national champion Andrea Tafi, Cofidis' Philippe Gaumont and Laurent Desbiens, Joona Laukka, Eddy Mazzoleni and Fabio Sacchi. "I was afraid of Gaumont, most of all, because he was the fastest of us all, but fortunately, he had to work a lot in order for Desbiens to take the yellow jersey. In a breakaway like that, the tactics usually dictate that you should attack in the last five kilometers to get to the finish line alone. Especially since I'm not a sprinter. But it was impossible to come out. Firstly, there was head wind. Secondly, Andrea Tafi was very very strong. Too strong, most certainly. I think he felt he couldn't be beaten. But when Tafi countered Mazolleni's attack in the last kilometer, and launched the sprint in the last 300 meters, I told myself I couldn't be beaten," he said. That's how the French riders gave the Tour de France some of its old gloss back." This won't make us forget the Festina riders. I salute them and I hope to see them soon. But it's over, we should talk only about cycling and I hope that the media will not linger too long on the Festina case," Durand said. Monday morning, Jacky Durand was third overall, 43 seconds behind former teammate Desbiens, but didn't have high hopes for the rest of the competition." In two days, the Tour is going to change. I'm going to become a team player again. There are a few climbers in our team, and I think that Bo Hamburger scares a lot of people off," he said. Copyright (c) 1998 L'Equipe
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Jacky Durand overcame past failure to take the eighth stage 