Goeie reportage. Ik wist eigenlijk niet zoveel van Tom Simpson (buiten de tragedie natuurlijk, maar het was dan ook van voor mijn tijd). Hij was duidelijk meer dan zomaar een renner die doodviel.
What Colin Lewis says at 48:45 is very, very true, these days with Team Doctors and Tour Medicals Tom probably wouldn’t have got to start the 11th stage, let alone the 13th, as he was very ill...this is well documented - just read the various accounts by his teammates - Vin Dinson’s book is particularly poignant. But let’s face facts taking anything, including a well monitored, professionally designed regime of EPO, red cell re-injection and or amphetamines (or whatever) will not make you a long term or multiple ‘winner’ or top 10 finishers in world titles, monuments, minor classics or Paris Nice…all of which Tom achieved… Not to mention an Olympic medal before turning 20 - interestingly nearly every ‘star’ bike rider from the 50’s on that I have researched, either won or ‘medalled’ in a worlds or Olympics many at 19…
Are you sure? Jan Ullrich riding in the 2003 TdF with 39°C fever (more 39°, 40° than 38°C according to Rudy Pevenage) up Alp d'Huez ... could've been another Tom Simpson in the making.
A former soigneur said something very true and interesting in some other talkshow or documentary: "The most common misperception is that athletes take doping to get better at their sport. They take it to get better easier, with less effort and pain." I doubt anyone would dispute Simpson was a great talent who worked hard. At the same time it's just human nature to seek the easiest way to succeed, even if it's against the rules, even if it's bad for your health. But as to the cause of death: Heat, exhaustion, alcohol, amphetamines and illness seems like a pretty toxic cocktail of factors. You're already weakened, you intoxicate yourself to numb the pain, making your body even more exhausted, and then you pile on top of that sweltering heat and an extraordinary physical effort, it's just asking for trouble. I found the quote "If 10 will kill me, I'll take 9" the crucial line in this whole show. Cycling the Tour de France is pushing yourself to your absolute physical limit, Simpson seems to have applied that mentality not only to the efforts he put in on the road, but also to his preparation and medication, and he sailed to close to the edge. One day of extreme heat at the wrong moment, and it took the fatal toll. I'm sure he wasn't the first athlete ever to find themselves at the wrong end of that equation, and I know for an absolute fact there have been athletes - in cycling and other sports - since Tom Simpson who have died because of a wrong doping product at the wrong moment. It doesn't make him a bad person, nor a bad athlete, just a fallible one.
Die Franse Bejaarde mogen ze de doodstraf geven. Hoe dan ook de Mont Ventoux is mijn berg en koester ik. Iedereen beschermde iedereen voor het geld. fools.
