02-15-2003
Frankie Andreu, nine-time Tour de France cyclist and two-time U.S. Olympian, spoke at the Rotary Club Friday on cycling, Lance Armstrong and teamwork.
In his 12 years as a professional cyclist, Andreu said he spent three years each in Belgium, Italy and France. The cycling season runs from February through October and he competed in approximately 110 races per year, putting more than 22,000 miles on his bike annually. The largest race was 180 miles.
In Europe, he said, cycling is much more popular than in the United States.
When Andreu first started racing, he knew he wasn’t very good. But passion took over.
“It’s something that I loved and something that I stuck with because I love it,” he said. He won his first national championship when he was 18 or 19 years old. Because he loved cycling, he said, he was able to have and extend his career in the sport.
At the 1988 Seoul, South Korea Olympics, he placed eighth, and then fourth at the 1996 Atlanta games. He has gone on to hold the American record for finishing nine consecutive Tour de France races. Andreu was also part of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team that “powered” Lance Armstrong to victory at the Tour de France.
The first year Armstrong won the Tour de France, in 1999, Andreu said no one thought the team could do it. And the team itself didn’t know how they were going to pull it off but they defied the doubters. This year, Armstrong will try for his fifth consecutive Tour de France victory.
As for the sport of cycling, Andreu said it is a team sport and the goal for all the team members is “that the team will win.”
During the Tour de France, there are more than 200 guys on the road. The job of the team is to chase the other cyclists down to keep Armstrong fresh as much as possible during the race.
“Each rider on the team has a job, a responsibility to help do that,” said Andreu.
On the tour, riders have to finish every day to start the next day’s part of the tour. Reasons a rider may not finish include sickness, injury or fatigue.
Armstrong, Andreu said, is meticulous in his training. “He’s like a big time number cruncher.” What makes Armstrong special and what makes riders want to sacrifice for him is his ability to finish a race and win. That’s the objective, Andreu said, winning the race.
When a team is put together, he said, it is based on what each rider’s strengths and weaknesses are. Armstrong’s weakness used to be the time trials but, after Armstrong’s battle with cancer, he reconditioned himself and now does better in the time trials.
With all the positives that come with cycling, there are some negatives. As a cyclist, Andreu said he made a lot of sacrifices and put in a lot of dedication, including time away from his wife and three children. Another part one has to accept about the sport of cycling is the crashing. The only way a team director will let a rider stop for the day is if there are broken bones.
“That’s just the way the sport is,” he said.
Andreu resides in Dearborn, Mich., and retired from racing at the end of 2000. He then assumed a position of U.S. race director for the U.S. Postal Service Team. Along with competing in the Tour de France and the Olympics, Andreu competed in World Cup events, world championships and spring classes.
For more information, visit Andreu online at www.frankieandreu.com