Mystery rider on podium stage 13

quietobserver · 21-07-2009 9:55am #1

anyone see the guy the other day at the tour de france? i think he was wearing Francais de Jeux gear and got up on the podium and started waving he wasnt a rider on stage 13.
He got a great shove from Hinault but i cant find the clip on youtube.

wanna see it again. thanks

Chips Lovell · 21-07-2009 9:59am

Second year in a row that Hinault shoved a protester/spectator off the podium:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXLSUpPS6So

Don't mess with the Badger

quietobserver · 21-07-2009 10:03am

The Badger is biting alright, saw that clip.

Any sight of the other one?

Chips Lovell · 21-07-2009 10:13am

One of my favourite Hinault stories:

The Breton farmer, who said that his favourite pastime as a schoolboy was fighting, remains – after a shocking 23 years – the last Frenchman to win the Tour. It is almost as if each successive generation of French cyclists has been inhibited, and felt unworthy of inheriting the mantle of the cyclist known as Le Blaireau – the badger – for his tendency to fight if backed into a corner.

....

One other anecdote about Hinault – which perhaps explains why the young riders appear to be scared of him – comes from Paris-Nice in the early 1980s.

Striking workers blocked the road, stopping the race, but Hinault was having none of it. At full pelt he rode into the strikers, sending them scattering, and swinging punches at those that remained standing.

He sustained a fractured rib in the melee. And still managed to finish the race.

It was striking miners as far as I recall.