Authors: Laurent Fignon

We Were Young and Carefree (33 page)

BOOK: We Were Young and Carefree

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As early as 1997, completely possessed by this crazy idea, I became convinced my choice was the right one. I went to meet Josette Leulliot and talked through my thoughts with her. She was interested but undecided. I knew from other sources that the Société du Tour de France, headed by Jean-Marie Leblanc, was also in the running. It goes without saying that the Tour had the cash to back up its ambitions.

So as an alternative I broadened my experience in running events. The Polymultipliée one-day race, once known as the Trophée des Grimpeurs, was reinstalled at Chanteloup-les-Vignes where it had been founded and where, according to cycling history, early derailleur gears were tested. Then came Paris–Bourges. Next I began to create events for major companies such as Point-P (a major building products company). All these enterprises involved constant battles: to get road closures, to win over sponsors and partners and keep them on side.

Alain Gallopin had come back to my side after a brief move to the short-lived Catavana team, but he was tempted once again by the professional peloton. In 1997 he was hired by Marc Madiot as assistant
directeur sportif
at La Française des Jeux. ‘I can’t turn it down,’ he told me. He was right, but I was still angry. It was a long time before we spoke again. I was in the midst of a period of intense activity: I liked to think about a project, dream up its broad lines, then make it happen. Paris–Nice haunted me. I knew that Josette Leulliot had vowed that she would never surrender the event to the Tour de France. Her brother Jean-Michel, a former journalist at TF1, was overly focused on the bottom-line and did all he could to persuade his sister to up the ante, no matter who was the eventual winner. For months, I struggled with it. Then one day Eric Boyer, a former Renault rider who had stopped racing and worked from time to time for Josette, called. ‘They are about to sell Paris–Nice to the Tour. If you really want it, you’d better get a move on. It’s now or never.’ I picked up my pilgrim’s staff again. I pushed them, in the nicest possible way, in the name of the high principles that Josette herself had delineated. And she accepted. I offered almost 4.5million francs. A massive sum for me, but next to nothing for the Tour. With Paris–Nice and ‘associated races’ I acquired other events with prestigious names that had resonances for all cycling fans: l’Etoile des Espoirs, la Route de France, le Grand Prix de France, and so on.

From the very beginning of the enterprise, or pretty much, my troubles began. Initially with the bank, who really stuck a stick in my spokes. I had conceived a businesss plan over three years which permitted me to put in 2.2 million francs: one million in a company which would buy the race, the rest into a current account which would cover ongoing expenses, to which would be added a loan of 2 million francs. The bankers finally turned this down, obliging me to put the 2 million francs into the purchase which deprived me of liquidity. The icing on the cake was that the loan was for only eight years rather than fifteen. It all made it tough to get going. It was hard on my nerves: a few weeks after we had reached agreement, the bank began calling me every day. It was harassment. It was hell. I had to argue with them every inch of the way just to keep afloat. At one point I began wondering if my troubles with that bank were mere coincidence.

I was all the more worried because I knew my personal weak area: I’ve never been a good salesman. I ‘sell myself’ rather poorly. And Paris–Nice needed a professional marketing man; I never managed to hire one. At the start of the second year it became clear that I wasn’t going to come through financially. Apart from Phonak, with whom I had signed a contract, it was the devil of a job to find partners. I eventually found out why this was. On the one side there was Havas Sports and on the other the Tour de France. There was a kind of non-aggression pact between the two companies: neither would knowingly do anything to damage the interests of the others. So apart from the fact that my attempts to forge relations with Havas were doomed to failure, the other big sponsors that I had contacted all thought twice before coming in, because they didn’t want to offend either of the big companies. The power of the Société du Tour de France, who didn’t wish me well, was a handicap for me. In those days no one wanted to alienate directors of the Amaury group.

The facts can’t be denied. All my negotiations with possible stage towns, local and regional councils, were complicated. To make the racing lively I was determined to devise new courses with hills that had not been used for racing before, if possible not too far from the finish to offer the riders stages which were tough enough to cater for their racing instincts. My goal was to avoid the monotonous Paris–Nices in which one year’s race ended up looking like the one from the year before; I’d ridden a few of those in my time. I can recall five or six Paris–Nices in which the stages were all virtually the same down to the last metre. It was a joke. But one day I visited Mâcon to suggest a stage finish to the mayor. It would have allowed me to use a new finale over a decent hill. The mayor said, ‘No problem, Monsieur Fignon, I’ll put it to the vote at the municipal council, it’s as good as done.’ Three days later came the surprise: it was turned down. I ended up hearing on the grapevine that the directors of the Tour de France had been along as well. By happy coincidence, Mâcon was chosen as a finish-town for the Tour the following year, 2002. Similar things happened in other places. The councils were left with the distinct impression that if they wanted the Tour then they should not accept Paris–Nice.

I ended up putting my hand in my own pocket. In year one. And year two. In 2000 and 2001 Paris–Nice was a fine sports event, I reckoned. There were no glitches in the organisation. There were attractive start villages and beautiful finishes. But it was a permanent battle with the stage towns, even the ones that were part of the furniture, like Nice itself, where I had to negotiate hard to counteract their urge to break with convention. They even dreamed up the idea of having the last stage in the streets of Nice itself, as it is today, rather than on top of the Col d’Eze. I wasn’t having anyone doing away with this mythical finish. I fought the idea and I won a symbolic victory, temporarily at least. It eluded my successors.

To organise Paris–Nice I employed a total of six people. Two of them, the former pro François Lemarchand and Valérie, who was to become my wife a few years later, kept up work on Laurent Fignon Organisation’s other activities at the same time. But as early as the second year I no longer had any doubt about whether I could hang on financially; I was certain that it wouldn’t be possible unless I ended up losing my shirt. The second edition of the race had gone perfectly but I knew I wouldn’t make it to a third. Unfortunately I had to sell. So what was my strategy now? It was simple. I hung on as long as I could to oblige the Tour to buy me out. Although it sometimes left me a bit short of breath, the buy-out had to turn into something resembling a moral obligation for them. I was aware of the trouble I was in, but I waited until January before I picked up the phone to call them. It was all of three months before the prologue time trial was due to be held.

I called Jean-Marie Leblanc. ‘Are you still interested in buying Paris–Nice? I’m selling it.’ He said he would think about it. And he didn’t hang around. Two days later I had their answer. It was a big ‘yes’. But the price would be the same as two years previously. I didn’t expect better. The upshot was that I lost two million francs of my own in the affair.

I did still manage to fall out with them. To start with Jean-Marie Leblanc didn’t want to negotiate directly with me and he delegated the task to Daniel Baal, former president of the French Cycling Federation, who was at that time the number two at the Société du Tour de France and the anointed successor to Leblanc, although he would never actually step up. He was accompanied by Jean-François Pescheux, the Tour’s
directeur sportif
, and their job was essentially to go through the accounts. I was left wondering what notion they had about other people, whether they believed I had been cooking the books or something. Being that mistrustful is almost unhealthy. They found nothing of course, but they had tried to humiliate me.

That wasn’t the end of it. On the day appointed for the sale a group of five of them turned up while I had only my lawyer at my side. I was amazed: they wanted to renegotiate the deal. That was all. In particular the payment deadlines, which were spread out over a long period of time. I was boiling in my chair. My lawyer, who knew me well, was concerned that I might overreact. He read me right. After a couple of hours I banged on the table as hard as I could and said, ‘You are winding me up, all of you. Do you take me for a crook? That’s it, I’m pulling out of the sale. Just clear off.’

They had not behaved honourably towards me, which was something alluded to in his autobiography by Jean-Marie Leblanc, who had worked as hard as he could to edge me out of the cycling family since the end of my career. In
Le Tour de Ma Vie
(Solar, 2007) he wrote ‘Reading “between the lines” I sensed that the preliminary discussions were not good for their self-esteem. But you should never offend your opposite number when negotiating.’ It was touching to see a little humility for once on the part of Leblanc, who was never completely open as a journalist or a director of the Tour. He knew plenty about deal-making. Along with Roger Legeay and Thierry Cazeneuve he held the reins of French cycling for far too long.

I had every right to react the way I did to Baal and the others. They left in a state of shock. My lawyer told me: ‘I could sense that it was going to end up like that.’ Meanwhile the former cyclist Tony Rominger had entered the fray with the backing of a Swiss financier. It had potential. I called him at once but to my great surprise he could not offer a meeting any time in the next two weeks. I had a gun at my head.

I had seen off Baal at least, but I knew that Leblanc wasn’t going to lift a finger. So I called Patrice Clerc, the boss of Amaury Sport Organisation (the Tour’s parent company). I told him sincerely: ‘What I said went further than what I really thought. But I still don’t like the fact that people want to renegotiate the deal; we had agreed on the basics and then I was told on the day of signing contracts that I was to be paid over a timescale which is impossible for me.’

He was concilatory: ‘Are you still ready to talk?’

I answered: ‘Yes, but not with Baal.’

Clerc did what had to be done. Another negotiator was sent and everything was settled as before. I remember thinking: ‘If Baal is appointed as head of the Tour, they will have trouble. It’s not just his way of negotiating, he doesn’t understand anything about bike racing.’ I had read it right: he never got to step into Leblanc’s shoes.

Objectively speaking, if I had kept going with Paris–Nice I might well have lost everything. Bear in mind that the start of the new century was a time when cycling was going through a massive crisis as the sport struggled to recover after the Festina drugs storm, with a succession of other doping scandals coming along. For a lone wolf like me, daring to purchase Paris–Nice in this context was a massive gamble – and it was doomed to failure. Only the financial power of the Société du Tour de France was capable of shouldering the burden in this dark time. After our little run-in, they behaved well towards me, allowing me to have a role in running the event for the next two years. Paris–Nice was healthy and flourishing after all. At the time when everyone else was turning their backs on cycling I had managed the considerable feat of setting up a revolutionary media operation for the race: I had reached agreements for at least a hundred hours of worldwide television coverage whereas beforehand Paris–Nice could boast about ten at most.

The page duly turned. After this setback to my organising business, I cut back, deeply. I gave up virtually all the events I had been running, apart from Paris–Corrèze. I was fed up with it. I had lost money, but that wasn’t the main issue. I was going through a divorce from my first wife, Nathalie, and my lofty dream of transforming Paris–Nice had been dashed. I had been through an entire cycle: ten years after the end of my racing career the key thing was to move on to something new, as I seemed to do every ten years. I was still driven on by my passion for cycling and I came across a fantastic opening: I was approached to take over a business which was cycling-based. I travelled down to Gerde, a village near Bagnères-de-Bigorre in the Hautes-Pyrenées. Seeing the spot, shivers ran up and down my spine.

I knew at once that I had discovered the perfect place to create the Laurent Fignon Centre, which opened in June 2006. At the foot of the legendary Col du Tourmalet, in a
département
which boasts twelve mountain passes and a host of mountain top finishes which have been used by the Tour de France since 1910, what more could you ask for? Down there, I dreamed up a whole new range of training camps for amateur cyclists, over less demanding courses. Throwing myself into this particular venture was like love at first sight.

I will make one confession, however. When I think back occasionally to Paris–Nice, I have to admit that I was wounded by that particular setback. I am convinced that in attempting to run it I was not taking on more than I could handle and I am still convinced deep down inside that I could have transformed this event into something unique, something which mirrored my personal style.

The directors of the Tour de France were annoyed that I got there first and made me pay the price. Sometimes, even the most daring souls have to give way to those who enjoy more power.

CHAPTER 37

A WHIFF OF AUTHENTICITY

BOOK: We Were Young and Carefree

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