QUESTION: Does Annemiek van Vleuten remain the favorite despite being a minute and a half behind Marianne Vos?

ANSWER: "She is going to play her all in the last two stages. It is only on this ground that she can express herself correctly. She has the means to take a few minutes. I think she should not not be very comfortable in this platoon of 144 elements with these disparities in level.

Q: Can this explain some falls?

A: "There are, in my opinion, a few teams too many, teams that do not have the best international level with young people who rub without room for maneuver. They pass with barely room for the handlebars, so inevitably that touches everywhere. Some may have a lack of attention too. Women who come head-on into a peloton on the ground like on Monday, it's not normal. In my opinion, 144 runners at the start, that's a lot. But falls always happen."

Q: Are the organization and the means superior to the Tour of the 1980s?

A: "No, we had the roads completely to ourselves, the Republican Guard bikers for transfers and everything. It was great, we had the best in terms of organization. The men's Tour July audience was there for us too. The first two years, people didn't even know there was a Women's Tour (as a curtain raiser, editor's note) because there hadn't been the communication for this year. But then, they came on purpose, even foreigners came to encourage their own. It was a desire to stop the women's Tour de France. It was said that it was complicated, that it cost money. Organizations in general, when there at a moment of weakness economically speaking, they keep the gentlemen, the top of the pack, and abandon what pays a little less."

Q: Is it always the risk?

A: "I met famous and wonderful women such as Antoinette Fouque or Simone Veil. They always told me: + We have to be careful because there are euphoric years during which we are taken care of, but that falls quickly +. It seems that the man swallows his pride by saying + Need women + but it is not acquired, it is never definitively acquired.

Q: We can no longer imagine Marc Madiot saying that a “woman on a bicycle is ugly” as he told you in 1987 on television …

A: "He has evolved, he was a young man in the peloton. I could name others. They were a few who did not particularly appreciate that I was put forward and that women did the same things as them. . They were giants of the road and we arrived as little dwarfs of the tarmac, as I called us at the time."

Q: A dwarf with an immense track record, with five world titles in road racing (1985-1987, 1989, 1995), three Tours de France (1987-1989) and an Olympic title (1996)... Which is the best memory ?

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A: "They are different. With the Olympic title, I felt like everything changed. It was like a pass. People's gaze changes completely, it's the planet looking at you. Olympic Games, the public watches all disciplines, all sports. But it was a lot of emotions to arrive on the Champs-Elysées in yellow, too. I can't remember if I had paraded with Pedro Delgado. But with Greg (LeMond) and Stephen (Roche), yes. With Stephen, it was both our big year (1987), we did the Tour de France and World Championship double.

Interview by Clément VARANGES

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