The five time winner of the Tour had not expressed himself since the Festina affair. He tells of his annoyance by the multiple attacks levied against the legend of the Tour, of which he is a part.

Since the Festina affair you have stayed on the sideline of the polemics, but knowing you, one feels certain that all the stories about drug use must irritate you.

Last year I was disappointed, bitter, very shocked by what I heard, by what we discovered upon the arrest of Willy Voet. All that scientific arsenal. But I didn't think it was useful for me to add to it. At the beginning I understood the necessity of debating the issue, later I found it unfortunate that things got to the point of taking it out on the Tour, this Tour that made me live and to which I gave a little bit of my life as well. This winter there was the examination of Daniel Baal, then the suspicion migrated to to Jean-Marie Leblanc, who was also questioned. Even to Charly Mottet! Because for four days he was the team director of l'équipe de France. All interrogated like common drug traffickers. It is they who battle against doping and it is they who are wronged! I am revolted because the primary wrong doer is the state, the minister of Sports who has not done enough to regulate this problem.

Have you read the books of Mentheour, of Willy Voet?

I was too disgusted.

If only to keep informed?

I will read them later. For now, I haven't had the desire.

In discussing the integrity of the Tour, the press has called the legend into question, as if in the past one has admired riders who did not merit to be admired. You were not affected by that?

Of course I am still affected by it. One would have the impression, in reading the commentaries, that all cyclists are doped. Hinault like Anquetil, Merckx, or Indurain! The newspapers have made it seem that all those who won the Tour could not have won it on clear water. That's stupid, but what do you think I should say to that? I have my own good conscience.

That legend which vacillates, you don't wish to defend it?

The best response is the public who supports it each day. The legend is there with them, on the roadside, on the side of those who continually thank me for still believing in it. The more one strikes at the Tour, the more people there are. And read what they are writing, on the banners, you will see that they are fed up with all the suspicion.

You remain unsatisfied?

When I went on the road to Puy de Fou, I thought that some rider would make a mistake, I knew that the riders had their future in their hands, and I am happy to see that they understood that. That didn't prevent a good hundred journalists to come in search of a scandal, journalists who punctuate their articles with suspicions, who feed the polemic but, not finding a story, they added in suspicion, they poisoned the Tour, to the point that in eight days, one will ask again if Armstrong deserved to win.

That is what you could not tolerate?

It makes me angry because it implies that someone who has had cancer cannot win the Tour. That is ridiculous. When I was informed that he was ill, in the manner in which it was presented at the time, I thought he would not be able to pull through, after a short while he would be three feet underground. Then I saw him come back, thinner, head shaved, covered by a hat, eyes narrowed but alive. The cancer had uncovered his will to live, and to win, it is what gives him his force, plus the fact that he had lost ten kilograms of fat tissue which he never regained. Then he reconstructed himself via sports, like Lemond after his hunting accident, starting by winning the Tour du Luxembourg, finishing fourth in the Vuelta, the World Championship, without the least suspicion that he was using drugs.

Which means that perhaps it is the Tour which is targeted and not Armstrong...

Perhaps, yes, that some pressure group seeks to demolish the Tour, in which case, it's not ready to be demolished. But the worst is that the ministry takes a turn by feeding the suspicion, with Madame Buffet, who asks the UCI for the results of the blood checks, suggesting that the UCI has hidden the results or refuses to be open when over the past few months, the team directors, the sponsors, and the riders have done everything they could to create a healthy situation. Instead of of taking it out on the Tour, she would do better to treat all sports equally.

Armstrong has let it be understood that he would take legal action against Le Monde pour defamation.

If Le Monde was wrong, Armstrong is right to take legal action. I hope he takes them for a large sum of money and creates jurisprudence with the effect that the press be more careful in how it treats information.

The public did not believe Jean Marie Leblanc last year when he stated that he was unaware about the extent of drug use. Were you yourself surprised by what was going on in the Festina team?

Yes and no. If one thinks about it, one can understand the position of Bruno Roussel, who had put measures into place to prevent his riders from making even worse mistakes, that they were going to other doctors without him being aware of it. On the other hand, what strikes me as pure folie is the quantity of drugs which were found in the car of Voet, which left me flabbergasted. I didn't know that what they were taking was so dangerous. Today they are apparently at no risk but in two years, in ten years?

Did Jean-Claude Killy and Jean-Marie Leblanc involve you last year in their internal discussions, during which time some of the press were calling for a halt to the Tour?

Not especially but I was around. At one difficult moment, I took Jean-Marie aside below the podium just before the protocol, he was having the blues, almost in tears, we rubbed elbows, I told him, have to hang in, don't crack and he didn't crack even if sometimes it was difficult. Today if so many people are thanking him it's because they know that in his place they would have lost it.

Were you shocked at proposals to halt the Tour?

Yes, shocked. It is easy to criticize when one has not done any of the work. For one thing, that would not have dealt with the drug problem and then how stop everything when you think about all of the towns which were mobilized, of all the people who had planned their vacations around the Tour, one did not have the right to disappoint them. Besides, the public, by its presence this year, has given us its enthusiasm -- you've seen this joie de vivre?

Jalabert, champion of France, not only quit the Tour, but he encouraged other riders to do likewise. Did that surprise you?

He was not acting at the level of his rank, wearing the jersey of the French national champion. He gave the impression of exiting like a thief.

You yourself, in 1978, lead the strike at Valence d'Agen (to protest the transfer days) while wearing the French national champion jersey. At the time you did not feel that you were harming the Tour de France?

Not the same thing. I was going on strike, that's true, but I stayed in the Tour. Besides we had no other recourse. You knew Monsieur Levitan, who was a boss, shall we say, authoritarian, fine. But I am not saying that I did not make an error, that it would not have been better to negotiate outside.

You don't have the impression that the young riders are refusing to integrate themselves into the chain of generations, that they no longer bother to carry forward traditions, that they prefer to work the system, saying 'after me, the flood'?

There is a little of that. Everything for me, the others just have to fend for themselves.

When you left the Tour in 80, at Pau, through the entrance of a grand hotel, you suffered from that famous suspicion which weights on Armstrong.

I was too occupied by what I had [knee problem]. However, I suffered through rumors after my victory in the Vuelta in 83, when I had my knee problem. One journalist had written: 'one supposes that it's the cortisone'. After that, all the others repeated that. Instead, it was purely a mechanical problem having to do with my seat adjustment. Later, during the criteriums, people would shout out: 'hey Mr. cortisone, how's it going?' It has always been like that. And it's regrettable. A champion who is ill is always suspect.

What is your position in the face of statements by Moser, who made use this spring of blood transfusions?

Moser made use of autotransfusion. So he was playing with his own blood. He did no more no less that the Finnish athletes, Lasse Viren and the others. It suffices to take some of ones own blood during the spring when it is rich, hyperoxygenated, and to reinject it when one is fatigued. Is that really doping? Maybe not, except if the blood is placed into a machine to reoxygenate it to the maximum.

Some doctors favor hormonal equiliberating. And you?

Yes, perhaps, with one condition, that it be strictly controlled. Hormones are given to bed ridden elderly to regulate mineral levels so that they do not degrade too much, so why not? It's necessary to study the issue, to approach it with caution.

One hears about longitudinal studies. Guimard noted for us that, at Renault, you conducted experiments at the CHU [University Hospital Center?] de Nantes, twenty years ago. And that was a stabilizing factor in your career.

I think so. One can adjust ones training program, take a step up. One measures the thickness of the skin, the thickness of the fat tissue. That was the beginning of sports medicine. I don't know if we were in the lead but we had the desire to make progress. The project of Géard Rué was inspired by that school, since he hoped to regroup his riders in one region, near a CHU, like for football. It is undoubtedly in that direction which things should go.

What do you think about the importance which was given to Bassons abandoning?

Bassons was wrong to say that he was clean and the others were dirty. He himself sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber. Like for Moser. Doping starts there, even if oxygen is completely natural.

He never stated that the others were dirty...

The manner in which it was presented meant that. Then he arrives and the others are wondering what's going on with him and tell him to get lost. When he abandonned, he was made into a martyr, but he is no martyr.

One gets the impression that there isn't a place in the Tour for a rider like Bassons.

He has a place like the others. No one put him outside the door. But if instead of jockeying with the press every evening he would have concentrated on the race, perhaps he would still be there.

If the press took up his cause, it's because before him no rider had ever adapted his philosophy...

OK, but did he have to trumpet it so loudly? It is his professional conscience. He gave the impression of not giving a damn about the others. He said that the others were changed by money but if he did those articles, it is certainly because he was paid for them? And I read that he had multiplied by three fold his criterium contracts. So he is not so clean as that.

Saiz was not welcome. He nevertheless was in the Tour.

Personally, I would not have accepted him. One does not insult a country, one does not treat the organizers of the Tour like slobs. There are some things which one should respect.

Virenque?

Same answer. The rules had been laid down, I was in agreement with those rules, but everything crumpled in face of the UCI.

Chronology

• Bernard Hinault is born on the 14th of November, 1954 at Yffiniac (Cotes-d'Amor).
• He is maried to Martine and has two children, Alexandre and Michael.
• He begins competition in cadets at CO Briochin and signals his first exploit in 1972 at Arras, in the French Junior championship, where he leads the race from beginning to end.
• At the age of twenty, after a stage victory in the Route de France, he states: "I will become pro with whoever takes me." That is with Gitane-Campagnolo in 1975, which becomes Renault-Campagnolo then Renault-Gitane.
• In 1975, he meets Cyrille Guimard, who is finishing his career in racing to become sports director of Gitane. It is the beginning of a long collaboration between the two Bretons.
• In 1977, he begins international competition and has immeidate success: victory in Liège-Bastogne-Liè, in Gand-Wevelgem, at the Grand Prix des Nations, and in the Dauphiné, notably. The masses want to see him in the Tour but Guimard preserves him: "When Hinault comes to the Tour, it will be to win.".
• In 1978, the Tour constitues the principal objective of who they now call "le Blaireau [the Badger]". Before going there, he finishes with success his first test, the Tour of Spain, and puts on the Tricolor tunic at Sarrebourg. In Paris, he wins the first of his five Tours (1978, 79, 81, 82, 85). [translator's note: during his career, Hinault won 28 stages in the Tour de France]
• In 1980, he wins Liège-Bastogne-Liè despite a frozen finger which he loses use of henceforth. He dreams of going on to a double Giro-Tour, but he retires from the Grande Boucle (the Tour) at Pau in the middle of the night due to knee pain. He gets revenge in becoming world champion at Sallanches.
• Hinault, who dislikes cobblestone, suceeds in winning Paris-Roubaix (1981) despite crashing 11 kilometers from the finish because of a dog.
• In 1982, he achives the double Giro-Tour but his relationship with Guimard starts to deteriorate. [translator's note: Hinault repeated the double Giro-Tour accomplishment in 1985].
• In 1983 he forfeits the Tour to have knee surgury. The following year he is dominated by Laurent Fignon.
• In 1984 he joins Bernard Tapie at La Vie Claire, the team where he will finish his career in 1986.
• The memorable image of his last victory in the Tour is the stage at l'Alpe-d'Huez in 1985, where he crosses the finish line hand in hand with Greg Lemond. The two men have taken a step: the Tour in 1985 for Hinault, who will assist the American to win the following year.
• Today, Bernard Hinault runs an agricultural business and works in public relations for the Society of the Tour de France.