Pedro Delgado’s unjustified delay

    

The 1989 Tour de France, from 1 to 23 July, from Luxembourg to Paris, 3,285 km including the 7.8 km prologue (a short 900-metre climb just past the halfway point) – a time trial, hot, urban and tense. As in all individual time trials, the riders set off one by one, separately. The starting order is drawn up on the basis of the teams, and it is the teams that decide the sequence. The last to set off are usually the team captains. And the very last to set off is always the winner of the previous edition (or, in his absence, the rider who finished highest in the general classification). The fastest time was set by the Dutchman Erik Breukink, 9’54”47, followed, separated by just a few hundredths of a second, by Laurent Fignon of France, Sean Kelly of Ireland, and Greg LeMond of the United States. Next up was Pedro Delgado of Spain, winner of the 1988 Tour de France and the last to set off. But Delgado was not there.

Thirty-seven years ago, yet the television footage conveys an antiquated atmosphere. The start of the prologue is marked by the trailer of a lorry, fitted with two tailgates – the first for boarding, the second for alighting. Inside the trailer are the race marshals, the race officials and, for those few seconds between ‘ready’ and ‘go’, the riders. The bewilderment amongst the organisers was immense; they were ready, yes, to give the start signal, if only the rider were there. But Delgado was not there.

Time is ticking away. Time is ticking away regardless, from the moment the countdown was due to reach zero. One, two, three, four, five… inexorably. It has never happened before that a runner failed to turn up. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten… inexplicably. Sometimes there’s a bit of uncertainty, confusion, perhaps a few seconds’ delay, but never like this. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… unbelievably. It seems like a joke. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty… mysteriously. But why Delgado? But where is Delgado? But Delgado isn’t here.

Pedro Delgado. “Perico”, meaning “parrot”. Spanish, from Segovia. Twenty-nine years old, a professional for seven years, a climber and – unusually for a climber – also a descender. Stage winner at the Vuelta (Covadonga!) and the Vuelta (in 1985), stage winner (Luz Ardiden!, to name but one) and winner of the Tour de France (in 1988). This victory, however, was tainted: five days before the finish in Paris, Delgado tested positive in a doping control; the banned substance was Probenecid, which masks the use of steroids. But there was a problem: whilst that drug was banned by the International Olympic Committee, it was not banned by the International Cycling Union. First place remained suspended for 14 months: it was October 1989 when the German professor Manfred Doenike, regarded as one of the leading experts in anti-doping, analysed the results of Delgado’s tests throughout the 1988 Tour and determined that the profile of the steroids present in the Spaniard’s system had been consistent. The victory was officially awarded, but the suspicions remain to this day.

After more than two and a half minutes of confusion and commotion, Delgado finally appears. Dazed. He’s on his bike, which is fitted with a conventional front wheel and a lenticular rear wheel; he’s wearing the yellow jersey of the defending champion, with the number 1 on his back. Perico gets off his bike, climbs onto the truck, gets back on his bike and sets off. 2’42” have passed. Then he sets off, head down and pushing hard, head down and making up ground, head down and holding on. He crosses the finish line after 10’06”, but with a time of 12’48”30, 2’54” behind Breukink, finishing 198th and last. What happened, Perico?

Delgado will spend his whole life trying to explain that inexplicable – and certainly unjustifiable – delay. “My head was in the clouds. Everything was proceeding as usual. I left the hotel on time, warmed up properly on the circuit; everything was going normally. Then I fitted the lenticular wheel and started warming up again, trying to focus. I lost all sense of time and didn’t realise it was passing. And when I climbed onto the starting platform, the timekeepers told me I was running late. At that point, I gave it everything I had.”

Delgado has never come to terms with it. On his website, pedrodelgado.com, he writes: “Even today, I still can’t explain what happened. I wanted to shine right from the first pedal stroke. I went for a warm-up, something I never usually did. I wanted to get away from the journalists who were pestering me all the time, and I wanted to stay focused. I wanted to arrive just before the start. It was this, and nothing else, that made me arrive late. None of the press’s theories about that delay at the start were true; I was just stupid. The worst consequence wasn’t so much the time lost, but I haven’t forgiven myself, and out of anger I didn’t sleep a wink that night.”

What were the press speculating? A settling of scores linked to the doping scandal of the previous year: the team – it was said – was keeping quiet but knew what was going on. A power struggle between the IOC and the UCI. Blackmail by the Tour.

In that ill-fated 1989 Tour, Delgado crashed on the second day, finding himself over seven minutes off the lead. He made up ground as the race went on, but not quite enough; in Paris, he finished third, 3’34” behind LeMond and Fignon, who were separated by eight very long seconds. Without those 2’42”, he would still have finished third, but who knows – it might well have been a different race altogether.