Perico Delgado was late for the appointment … and disappeared from the Tour: "My fool then!"

-I’m very relaxed, it’s very hard for me to arrive on time, I almost prefer to be late than soon-he shamelessly admits. Slim Perico.

-Sometimes they ask me: “How many trains will you miss?” And I say, “not a train, a plane because I left my tickets at home … and a Tour de France!”

When they share a hurry, Perico doesn’t get it. Calm down, the man, happy with his ignorance on the clock, never felt grief on time or late at an appointment that altered his apathy. But that’s not the day to be loose on punctuality, just the day where you need to render the most accounts on the clock: a test of time. And, even if the clock slowly ticks, it’s unrepentant, uninterrupted, for no excuses, the Tour isn’t waiting for anyone, even the champion. “My fool!” ejaculation now.

It was 5:16 pm on July 1, 1989 that ‘Grande Bouclé’ opened in Luxembourg with a 7.8-kilometer prologue and Perico had to leave. But Perico is not. 5:17 pm, 5:18 pm, the clock keeps beating, Perico without showing. The man, in all the madness in the world, curled up in his time of indifference, was blabbering on.

“I got well on that Tour and I don’t want to waste a minute in the starting area, I want to start at the right time, because if you go a while before starting, like then last year’s champion started in yellow. jersey, people are asking for an autograph and wants to be calm. Since I had time, I went to the warm-up area and found out Thierry-Marie (a runner) and because he was kind I asked him what the time trial route was, ”explained the then runner of Reynolds-Banesto.

The team manager, Jose Miguel Echavarri, he shines as a detective for a few moments the mechanic, Carlos Vidales, who orders the tracking of the uninformed Perico a few minutes before the prologue, who knows Segovian’s particular relevance to the time. “Since I’ve been cycling and Carlos hasn’t, we’ve been in uneven conditions because it’s a place with a lot of traffic. and he can’t follow me. “ Delgado pointed out.

“Perico, Perico!” They desperately shouted, as if shouting for help, from the team. “You’re a bunch of people in a hurry, always the same!”, disgusted Segovian replied, believing he still held the truth. “I knew it was right, but still on time”, reasoned one then reigning Tour champion. He finally stood on the exit ramp. There he understood that something was wrong. “I was going to take the start but the judge held me, it was because I hadn’t attached my shoes to the pedals yet. But as I put them on the pedals, it pushed me. According to my watch with 12 seconds left. There I said to myself: “You screwed them up”. He wasted time, but he didn’t know how much. It is true that the watch he is wearing is a bit strange, in the shape of a B (from Banesto, the sponsor), but that is no excuse ”, narrates Perico with the same grace with which he recounts so many other incidents as a commentator on TVE. “Yes, now I explain it with humor, but don’t see the the mixture is bad I was there then, no one talked to me ”, he clarified between laughs.

Perico had already felt the harsh reality and, after focusing on the clock on the asphalt with all that charged him for the delay – he only lost eight seconds on the route along the Lemond and Fignon-, was able to escape the press when crossing the finish line. “When I reached the goal there was wall of journalists and I stopped speaking, I didn’t dare because I didn’t know how much time I wasted. Delgado landed a few hours later but when he arrived at the hotel, he lay down when he asked what the damage report was.

– How much have I lost? Perico asked.

“About three minutes,” a team member told him.

-My fool! – replied a Perico who was anxious to disappear at that moment.

Losses are exactly calculated on 2 ’40’ ‘. Anxiety came to disturb Peter’s happy sleep. If it was the passing of the hands of his alarm clock so audible, the damn clock that slipped would hit his head all night. “Echavarri tried to act as a psychologist, he didn’t get angry and encouraged me, but I didn’t sleep a wink all night. I curse myself for that nonsense. “ Delgado recalled. The lack of sleep helped to leave her second Tour in a dream, as her way of assimilating to that ugly man on the clock who betrayed her.

“I didn’t lose that Tour because of the time trial, but because of the way I digested what happened. Tomorrow is double sector day, I did futile attacks in the morning stage because of my anger and then I lost time in the team time trial (his teammates had to slow down to wait for him). The same if that day in the afternoon is not a test of time, things will change, ”Perico reflected. The gap cracked from 2’40 ” to 7’20 ” with respect to Fignon and 6:29 to Lemond.

After taking time on the mountain to show off his exceptional physical condition — he has never felt like this this year —, he finished third overall about three and a half minutes behind two, where Lemond won, so everything is broken. in those first two days. And not all. “In the time trial before Alpe d’Huez I wanted to make up for the time but I couldn’t because a corn which is at his feet. The solution is to open a hole in the shoe. I should have done it before! ” Delgado adds in another lament.

Lemond-Fignon, a Tour decided by 8 seconds

That Tour was about the whims of the clock, the penalty for Perico, the French round where the clock ordered that the end in yellow depended on eight seconds in the epilogue with more suspense over the slightest difference in history. If Peter had accumulated carelessness with the clock, he could no longer indulge it. Greg Lemond for him to lose the stroke Laurent Fignon the 50 seconds he took from her when she reached the final stage of Paris, a 24.5 km time test.

The flying American on trial at that time was like a journey into the future to drag him into the present and show a change, to land on a triathlete steering wheel unprecedented until then to get a more aerodynamic position, announcing the Champs Elysées a real technological revolution in cycling, although in previous tests of that Tour it has already shown such a change.

Adding his effort to that invention stopped the chrono and got it 58 seconds to Fignon, suffering from scratches on the crotch that reduced him. The futuristic image of the American, with an aerodynamic helmet and fearless in his position on the bike, exposed the development in contrast to how old the Frenchman had suddenly become, more ramshackle on the bike naked, without a helmet, with his teacher’s mirror, in the air that rebellious mane sought to counteract an onset alopecia.

Fignon was a champion – he won the 1983 and 1984 Tours and the 1989 Giro -, as a curmudgeon, sometimes rude, as he launched the day before a spit on a camera from Televisión Española (in the video above). LeMond, who still has pellets on his body from a hunting accident suffered two years ago, will also dress in yellow in 1990, a year before the hegemony of Miguel Indurain, that he would win a stage in that Tour of 89.

It also happened that the rugged Fignon became kind and started celebrating then because of LeMond’s beard as he had to think about making room in the closet for the most wanted press. Perico was overjoyed at the party. “So, on the train, the top three finishers in the overall classification and their teams are in the same car. Fignon has already provided the victory for sure and began to toast with his team and the others, LeMond was in that car. I, of course, drink too (laughs). I thought it was very brave of him because the last stage could still happen ”, recalled the Segovian man, not very visible to the‘ professor ’, who died on 2010 for a cancer.

“It’s funny because Fignon wrote a book and it made me laugh because it said I was in league with Lemond when, respectfully, I didn’t like him because he was at the wheel all day and only devoted himself to time trial, but everyone is playing their cards. He preferred to win Fignon because he deserved it. He wasn’t the best physically, but his competitive mentality met him, I remember that on another Tour he took advantage of a Lemond puncture to attack ”, explains Delgado, who collaborated with the Frenchman on the stage Alpe d’Huez, helping buy Lemond’s time and nullifying Fignon’s conspiracy theory.

‘The professor he won another Tour than Perico, but he wouldn’t have the courage to finish a ‘Grande Bouclé’ on the podium starting late as Segovian did. “After the lost time, two days later, I was shocked at the back of the pack. Fignon stopped to pee and when I passed he told me he was going home instead of me”, reveals Perico Delgado.

The champions carved their charisma through their imperfections and, on the Tour where the clock gave him a delirium of selfishness, Perico, who was always unlucky in this race, he felt even more sorry for being late. Just as was the case of the best and most charismatic Spanish cyclist currently active -Alejandro Valverde-, when he lost a Vuelta due to taking a raincoat in 2008, the riders also won over fans with such anecdotes.

“Charismatic? My fool then! Perico Delgado repeated, bursting into laughter, still being persecuted by his subconscious for that. “Not much happens to me, but sometimes I have nightmares about the Luxembourg team, I dream that I will be late for another time test or at the start of another career,” warned Perico, who, just like Phileas Fogg He never let himself be entertained by the clock or haste. The difference is that Fogg needs to travel the world. Perico, ‘just arrived’ in time for a time test.