Richard VirenqueRichard Virenque's name is pronounced Ree-shah Vee-rahnk. Virenque considers himself a man of the South but pronounces his name in standard French. Confusion is caused by the southern habit of pronouncing "en" as "ang" or "eng", making it Vee-rank. But Virenque says Vee-rahnk or Vee-ronk, a sound difficult to write in English. (born 19 November 1969) is a retired French professional road racing cyclist. He was one of the most popular French riders with fans,As Tu Vu... cote-azur, Richard Virenque known for his boyish personality and his long, lone attacks.Virenque's fan club in 2000, two years after the Festina scandal had 5,000 members, of whom 2,000 were described as active. In 2000, Virenque received 589 letters in three weeks during the Tour de France, more than any other rider. He was a climber, best remembered for winning the King of the Mountains competition of the Tour de France a record seven times, and as one of the central figures in a widespread doping scandal in 1998, the Festina Affair.
Childhood Virenque, his parents, his brother Lionel and sister Nathalie lived in the Iseba district of Casablanca. The family was affluent, employing both a gardener and a nurse.L'Équipe Magazine, 13 October 2001 His mother described Richard as a gentle, kind boy, full of life, who enjoyed helping her in the garden. His idol was Michael Jackson.L'Équipe Magazine, France, 5 June 2004 His father, Jacques, ran a tire company. As a child, Virenque began cycling by riding round the garden of the family's house. "It wasn't much of a bike," he said. "It had no mudguards, no brakes, and I had to scrape my foot along the ground to stop."Vélo, France, November 2003 Virenque often skipped school to fish on the beach.Procycling, UK, November 2001 He told a court during the Festina doping inquiry (see below): The family moved to La Londe-les-Maures, near the Côte d'Azur, in 1979 when he was nine. There his father failed to find the same sort of job and relations between his parents suffered. Jacques and Bérangère VirenqueVirenque's mother, Bérangère, was born in the Alpes-Maritimes region of France, the daughter of a public works entrepreneur. She moved to Morocco when she was young and spent her childhood there. She gained qualifications as a hairdresser and beautician but never worked, at the request of her father and of her husband. divorced soon afterwards and Virenque said he was devastated.
He couldn't stand being in school any longer than he had to, he said, and he left to work as a plumber.
Early career
Cycle-racing did not immediately inspire Virenque. His brother, Lionel, cycled, read specialist magazines and watched the Tour de France on television.
He rode for the Vélo Club Hyèrois from the age of 13 where, encouraged by his grandfather,Procycling, UK, undated cutting he took out his first licence with the Fédération Française de CyclismeL'Équipe, France, 13 July 2003 He said he knew he could climb well from the start.
His first win was in a race round the town at La Valette-du-Var, when he and another rider, Pascale Ranucci, lapped the field. He then did his national service in the army battalion at Joinville in Paris to which talented sportsmen were often sent.Laurent Jalabert had already done his national service in the army's 'sports specialist' battalion at Joinville in Paris; Jean-Cyril Robin, Eddy Seigneur, Philippe Ermenault and others were there at the same time as Virenque. Robin recalled a quiet, thoughtful man who, the moment anything started, dedicated himself to it. "He really joined in war exercises," he told Vélo. He remembered an incident when Virenque walked across a frozen lake for a bet, followed by a hail of stones and rocks in an effort to break the ice. He spent his last period as an amateur with the ASPTTASPTT — Association Sportive Poste Téléphones Télégrams, a national grouping of sports clubs associated with the former PTT, the national communications organisation. The ASPTT still exists but without its former close links to the post office. in Paris.
In 1990 he came eighth in the world championship road race at Utsunomiya, Tochigi in Japan, riding une course d'enferColloquially, riding une course d'enfer would translate as "like a bat out of hell." to impress Marc Braillon, the head of the professional team, RMO, said Pascal Lino.Vélo, France, October 2004 "I was riding like a kamikaze. I rode out of my skin," Virenque said.Tour de France Guide, UK, 1998 It worked: Braillon offered him a contract.
Professional career
He turned professional for RMO in January 1991. Virenque rode his first Tour de France in 1992 as a replacement for another team member, Jean-Philippe Dojwa. He was earning 15,000 francs a month. He said he dreamed only of "being able to follow the best in the mountains, riders like Claudio Chiappucci, Indurain, LeMond, Thierry Claveyrolat." On the third day he took the yellow jersey as leader of the general classification after a long breakaway with two other riders on the col de Marie-Blanque in the Pyrenees. He held it for a day, losing it next day to his team-mate Pascal Lino, who led for the next two weeks. Virenque finished second in the climbers' competition.
Virenque was sought by several teams after his first Tour and Cyrille Guimard said at the world championship at Benidorm that he had arranged for him to join his Castorama team, where he would replace Laurent Fignon. But the announcement was premature and Virenque joined another French team, Festina. He stayed there until the team dissolved in the wake of a doping scandal in 1998 (see below).
Virenque first wore the yellow jersey of the Tour de France in 1992 and for the last time in 2003. In 2003 he won the stage to Morzine and wore the jersey on the climb of Alpe d'Huez. Virenque was a talented climber but a modest time-triallist. He was coached for time-trials by Jeannie Longo and her husband.
Virenque finished twice on the podium in the Tour de France (third in 1996 and second in 1997) and won several stages, among them Mont Ventoux in 2002. He is the 18th rider in the Tour to have won stages over 10 years apart;The other riders who have won stages over 10 years apart were Jean Alavoine, Henri Pélissier, Philippe Thys, Louis Mottiat, André Leducq, Antonin Magne, René Vietto, Gino Bartali, André Darrigade, Jean Stablinski, Raymond Poulidor, Felice Gimondi, Gerben Karstens, Ferdinand Bracke, Joaquim Agostinho, Lucien Van Impe and Lance Armstrong. The 19th to have done it is Cédric Vasseur. he wore the Maillot Jaune for two days in his entire career.
Festina affair In 1998 the Festina cycling team was disgraced by a doping scandal (see Doping at the Tour de France) after a soigneur, Willy Voet, was found when crossing from Belgium to France to have drugs used for doping. They were, said John Lichfield, the Paris correspondent of The Independent in Britain: "235 doses of erythropoietin (EPO), an artificial hormone which boosts the red cells (and therefore endurance) but can thicken the blood to fatal levels if not controlled properly. They also found 82 doses of a muscle-strengthening hormone called Sauratropine; 60 doses of Pantestone, a derivative of testosterone, which boosts body strength but can cause cancer; and sundry pain-deadening corticoids and energy-fuelling amphetamines."The Independent, UK, 3 July 1999 Bruno Roussel, Virenque's directeur sportif, told L'Équipe that Virenque responded to the news by saying:
Virenque's teammates, Christophe Moreau, Laurent Brochard and Armin Meier, admitted taking EPO after being arrested during the Tour and were disqualified. Virenque maintained his innocence.
While his former team-mates were served six-month suspensions and returned to racing in spring 1999, Virenque changed teams to Polti in January 1999"L'Équipe, 4 July 2000" and prepared for the 1999 Tour by riding the Giro d'Italia, in which he won a stage. Another Italian, his team-mate Enrico Cassani, said Virenque was referred to in Italy as "the shit". He said: "When he arrived, we were originally against him. Then, very quickly, we saw he knew how to live and to joke and we respected him. He proved he had some character, some personality."
A few weeks later Virenque's name emerged in an inquiry into Bernard Sainz, the so-called Dr Mabuse of cycling who was later jailed for practising as an unqualified doctor.L'Humanité, France, 12 May 1999 Franco Polti, the head of Virenque's team, fined him 30 million lire.
Race director Jean-Marie Leblanc banned Virenque from the 1999 Tour de France but was obliged to accept him after a ruling by the Union Cycliste Internationale.
Cycling Weekly in Britain called it "a major blow" to the Tour's organisers.Cycling Weekly, UK, July 1999 Leblanc said he hoped Virenque would not win.Virenque had been asked to stay away from the 1999 Tour de France along with Manolo Saiz, manager of a Spanish team who in withdrawing his riders from the 1998 Tour said he had "stuffed [his] finger up the Tour's arse." Virenque's lawyers depended on a clause in the UCI's rules, number 1.2.048, which says tour organisers must say at least 30 days before a race whom they wished to admit. The Tour had not done so. The UCI also obliged the Tour to accept Saiz.
Virenque rode, at his team's request, on a bicycle painted white with red dots to resemble the polka dot jersey worn by the leader of the mountains classification and he travelled between stages with a bodyguard, Gilles Pagliuca. That year, he wrote Ma Vérité, a book which asserted his innocence and included comments of how doping must be fought. He wrote that his team-mates confessed to using EPO because of pressure from the police. He said Moreau's urine showed EPO had not been detected.
The Festina affair led to a trial in Lille, northern France, in October 2000. Virenque was a witness with others from the former Festina team. He at first denied he had doped himself but then confessed. "Oui, je me suis dopé", he told the court's president, Daniel Delegove, on 24 October. But he denied doping himself intentionally. Voet said he was aware of what he was doing and participated in trafficking between cyclists. Virenque said this happened without his approval. That led the satirical television programme, Les Guignols de l'info - which displayed Virenque as a moronic rubber puppet with hypodermics in his head - to change his words to "à l'insu de mon plein gré" ("willingly but without knowing"), and the phrase passed into French popular culture as a sign of hypocritical denial.The phrase "willingly but without knowing" returns in a later sketch by 'Les Guignols de l'info', in which Virenque mistakes tennis player Amélie Mauresmo for a cyclist: video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1203579429921376149 Voet wrote a book, Massacre à la Chaîne, published in a legally-censored English edition as Breaking the Chain, in which he came close to identifying Virenque as an unrepentant doper.
Post-trial reaction
Virenque was criticised by the media and satirists for his denial in the face of increasing evidence and his pretence of having been doped without his knowledge. Voet wrote in Le Journal du Dimanche that he preferred Virenque as a young pro "because he didn't dope himself much". Many former colleagues shunned him, remembering his arrogance and criticism.Le Journal du Dimanche, France, 26 September 2004