Paris (AFP)
Present every summer on the roads of the Tour de France on behalf of the sponsor of the yellow jersey (LCL) who dressed in this favorite color, Raymond Poulidor, who died Wednesday, had kept in touch with his distant successors.
"Poupou" occasionally defended today's cyclists while being aware of the changes that have taken place in almost half a century.
"It was really another time but the violence of the effort to provide remained," he said in his autobiography published by Editions Jacob-Duvernet. "You always have to train, have a healthy life and have a great will to be a cyclist".
By identifying the changes that had occurred, both for the equipment and the dress of the runner and the quality of the roads, Poulidor insisted on the food: "The chicken legs, the semolina cakes, the small ham sandwiches are gone to be replaced by energy bars, restorative drinks. "
"The training methods turned a 180 degree turn," he added, "we are now studying the best possible position on the bicycle in the wind tunnel, all of which shows the progress of the man but the fundamentals have remained the same." is always the man who pedal and nothing else.
In the years following the Festina affair in 1998, "Poupou" had broken through his misunderstanding: "The ditch is too big with what I've known, and now, in some teams, we pay the riders according to the image that They are peddling, everyone is surrounded by doctors, masseurs, press officers, psychologists, sophrologists, etc. Money makes many people turn their heads. (...) I am sad, but I also see with the public is always present, it is this enthusiasm of the public, this enthusiasm that is constantly renewed, that will help cycling to recover. "
In recent times, the rise of his grandson, the Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel, recalled the cycling of the time Poulidor, with attacks and races full of panache.
© 2019 AFP