A Real Race Face

Today, most of us would cringe if we were to see a white performer in blackface.  I could barely contain my rage when I found out that the only film version of The Tragedy of Othello available in the library of a college in which I taught was the one in which Laurence Olivier is in blackface.  I know he was legendary, but I didn't think I--let alone my students--could stomach the sight of even an actor of his stature in that mask of oppression.

You might think I've been infected with the hypersensitive political correctness of the academic world when I say that this photo nearly made me jump out of my skin:

 

He is Barry Hoban and, thankfully, he wasn't channeling Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.  Rather, he was wearing a mudpack to protect himself against the terrible weather he and other riders encountered in the 1972 Paris-Nice race.  Hoban was also wearing two layers under his team jersey and two pairs of gloves. 

By the way, he won that race.  In 1969, he became the first Briton to win two consecutive stages (Nos. 18 and 19) of the Tour de France, and the only Englishman to do so until Mark Cavendish did it in 2008.  He also won six other Tour stages from 1967 through 1975, and completed 11 of the 12 Tours he started.  To this day, no British rider, and almost no other rider from any other country, has finished more Tours.

He also won two stages each of the 1964 Vuelta a Espana and the 1974 Ghent-Wevelgem.  In the latter race, he finished ahead of Eddy Mercx and Roger de Vlaeminck in the overall standings.  In addition, he won a number of one-day classics and stages of longer races.

In the 1967 Tour, he won the stage from Carpentras to Sete the day after Tom Simpson collapsed and died during his ascent of Mont Ventoux.  Two years later, Hoban married Simpson's widow, with whom he had a daughter and raised two stepdaughters.

This is what he looked like without the mudpack:

 

Tour Green: Sean Kelly

Believe it or not, this was the jersey of a French cycling team.



So why does it look more like the flag of Ireland--or, at least, the way such a flag might look if it were designed by an Ulsterman?

The Sem-France Loire team raced from 1980 until 1983.  Directeur sportif Jean de Gribaldy formed it by taking the French part of the Belgian Flandria-Ca-Va Seul-Senair (Try saying that three times fast) team after Flandria withdrew its sponsorship.   The team was originally called Puch-Sem-Campagnolo, but de Gribaldy re-christened it Sem France-Loire in 1981, when Sem became the main sponsor.

In the squad's first year, it was captained by Joaquim Agostinho, a Portuguese cyclist who finished fifth in the Tour de France that year.  But in the summer of 1981, a certain racer who started his professional career on the Flandria team several years earlier contacted his former directeur sportif--de Gribaldy--about joining his new team.

DeGribaldy got the necessary sponsorship and signed said cyclist.  Once you know who he is, it will make--in an ironic sort of way--perfect sense that he wore the jersey in the picture.

I am talking, of course, about someone who would become of the most prominent racers of the 1980's--and one of the most successful Irish riders ever:  Sean Kelly.

With Sem, Kelly rejoined some of his former teammates, including Eddy Planckaert.  With such a strong cast, the team cast a shadow far longer than one might have expected from their small budget.  Their riders accounted for several important victories, such as the French road race championship of 1981, the Swiss Cyclo-Cross championship of the same year, as the Paris-Camembert in 1981, Paris-Nice in 1982 and Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 1983.  And, in 1983, Kelly would win the Tour de Suisse for the Sem team's last major victory.

The following year, power-tool manufacturer Skil became the main sponsor. Sem-France Loire then morphed into the Skil_sem team.  And Kelly went on to bigger and better things.  Although he never won the Tour de France outright, he took--appropriately enough--its maillot vert in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1989.

Next Year In Provence?

This ain't Peter Mayle's Provence:

German cyclist Tony Martin won this year's Paris-Nice race, which ended yesterday.  Here he's shown on the 27 km time trial to Aix-en-Provence.

If Monsieur Mayle were to write a book about training for the race, would he call it "Next Year In Provence"?