CONTENTS

Foreword

by Phil LiggettAuthor’s Introduction to Second EditionPreface: Getting It Over With1 A Boy and His Bike2 Super Pursuiter 3 The Sparrow Flies Down Under 4 Distance Makes the Legs Grow Stronger 5 The Brittany Landings6 Classics, Monuments, Marriage and the Tour 7 Darkest Before the Dawn8 The Major Wears Yellow9 The Lion Goes from Strength to Strength10 Tommi Simpsoni11 ‘I Hope That One Day, Mr Prime Minister’12 After the Rainbow13 ‘Put Me Back on My Bike’

Appendix: Tom Simpson’s Palmares

by Richard Allchin

Reproduced by kind permission of Jeremy Mallard, from hislimited-edition print ‘Simpson on Ventoux’

PrefaceGETTING IT OVER WITHWhen Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux whilst competing inthe 1967 Tour de France traces of drugs from the amphetaminegroup were found in his body. Similar drugs were allegedly foundin his clothing. There, I’ve said it, got it out of the way right at the beginning of the book.

Because of this, notwithstanding that the ofcial cause of his

death, arrived at after investigation by the French authorities, washeart failure due to dehydration and heat exhaustion, to which itwas said that the drugs could have been a contributory factor, TomSimpson has been portrayed as anything from a straightforwardcheat, responsible single-handedly for subverting the ethics of

sport, to a hapless victim whose wings got burned ying too close

to his dream of winning the Tour de France. Neither of these theories are true and both do him, and come tothat the people who propound them, a disservice. Tom was neither of these. He was a talented, driven professional who paid theultimate price for pushing a bad situation too far. He was no cheat.To my mind a cheat does something his competitors do not andthereby gains an advantage. This is clearly not the case. Stimulantssuch as amphetamines were widely used in cycling in the sixtiesand today the sport is still beset by a drugs problem – the events of the 1998 Tour de France highlight that. Indeed, a drug culture has

existed in professional cycling almost since the rst race was run.

As for being a victim, forget it! Tom knew what he was doing. Itwas not something he did lightly, too often or without professionaladvice.