In Dan Martin‘s new book Chased by Pandas: My Life in the Mysterious World of Cycling (opens in new tab), he reveals the inner workings of the sport. In this excerpt, Chapter 15: The Race of Broken Bones (The Fear of Destroying Your Body), he describes how his relationship with the Garmin-Slipstream team fell apart. Reprinted with permission from Quercus.
It hurt every time I caught my breath, thousands of times a day, until the pain became a part of me and of my routine. I put a lid on it but, deep inside me, it pushed and tapped, wanting to come out of its box, and at those moments a silent scream of agony ran through my head. What hurt the most was that I hadn’t chosen to be in this situation. I shouldn’t have been suffering. Instead of struggling every day, racing with broken ribs on Swiss roads at the Tour de Romandie, I should have been resting at home. But my team denied me that option. It prolonged the torment.
… (Clipped for brevity – ed.)
The Tour de Romandie starts two days after Liège–Bastogne–Liège, but you don’t often go there after racing the Classics. The event marks the real start of the stage racing campaign for GC riders. When you’re there you focus on not getting sick, by covering your chest with newspaper at the top of the passes, for instance, and drinking a cup of hot tea before going to bed – doing things the old-fashioned way.
The Tour de Romandie is often more of a winter race than a spring one; the snow is only just starting to melt and icy gusts blast down the valleys, which are thick with cold fog hanging over the lakes. It’s not uncommon for the queen stage to be shortened or completely wiped from the race map. But not that year. I was in for the whole shebang.
I thought I might be eliminated in the team time trial, dropped after 600 metres, left adrift on my own and, ultimately, outside the time limit. But I was wrong. I managed to hold on to the wheels of my teammates for the whole 19-kilometre test, which we covered at an average speed of more than 50km/h. That evening I reflected on what my directeur sportif had said. ‘The pain will ease as the days go by.’ Would things actually turn out the way he’d suggested?
That night, it quickly became apparent that they wouldn’t. The pain persisted. It felt like a needle was piercing my stomach every time I breathed. I thought I had at least one broken rib, probably two, maybe three. I was really worried about the fact that I was racing rather than resting. I’d heard that…
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