Och’s Weekend Movie: Le Mystère Anquetil

July 22nd, 2007 by ikiro

Yesterday’s time trial around Albi is a fine example that to succeed in la Grande Boucle, that you’ll have to stay on your bike in the first week, that you’ll have to stay close with the competition over the first mountains (Pyrénées or Alpes), and that you’ll have to hammer down your opponents in the race contre-la-montre. Le Mystère Anquetil (1997) is about the man who turned time trialling into an art form: Jacques Monsieur Chrono Anquetil (1934-1987).

Jacques’ first victory was the 19th Grand Prix des Nations, an individual time trial over 140km that Fausto Coppi described as the hardest race on earth before collapsing after finishing. It remains still a mystery how the, then 19 years old, phenomenon managed to turn those massive gears with such skinny legs. This phenomenon becomes a legend when you consider that he won the Grand Prix des Nations for a record nine times, and pulverized Coppi’s 14 year old hour record in 1956.

Besides being Monsieur Chrono, he was also the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times and the first to win all Grand Tours. Not too shabby. He got his other nickname, Maitre Jacques, when he ruled in the 1961 Tour. At the start, he promised to take the Maillot Jaune at the prologue and carry it all the way to the Champs Elysees. A promise that he kept, not in the least strengthened by his race number: number 14…

In his professional cycling career that lasted from 1951 to 1969 Anquetil successfully picked up the gauntlet against i campioni del ciclismo of that era: Fausto Il Campionissimo Coppi, Louison le Boulanger de Saint-Méen Bobet, Charly de Engel vun de Bierger Gaul, Raymond Pou-Pou Poulidor, and Federico El águila de Toledo Bahamontes to name just a few. Famous is the duel on the puy-de-Dôme where Poulidor (La Vache Qui Rit) and Anquetil (Chanel Homme) rode coude-à-coude battling for seconds.

The documentary Le Mystère Anquetil, aka the Man, the Mystery, the Legend Anquetil, not only shows that Anquetil was a great champion but also that he liked to live life like everyone else: he was a great drinker (champagne on the Galibier), he had an explosive liver (whatever that means), and a big heart (that only pounded 32 times per minute when in rest). Something not be missed, although my apologies for the English voice-over.

demonoid