journalist on one side and a hirsute Spaniard on the other. The salle de presse seems a little like the peloton itself as you describe it in your next paragraph, somewhat fresh and disorganized at this early stage. Where’s your Luca quote? Have you woven it in?
As in all wars, the innocent are frequently victims. Laurent Jalabert (O.N.C.E.), an elder statesman of the Tour peloton, and Luca Jones (Megapac), a virgin soldier, were amongst the casualties brought down when wheels touched ahead of them at the last sprint point. Jalabert recovered to finish with the main bunch, his fingers bloodied and his brow dark. Jones, whose major injury was dramatically ripped shorts, took time out prostrate on a spectator’s picnic table, much to the delight of the public. ‘One minute I’m sitting on the bike,’ he recalled, ‘the next I’m sitting on Jalabert.’
Good work, Cat.
The green jersey, worn by the rider with the most points accumulated en route and for finishing in the top 25, is on the broad shoulders of Mario Cipollini. The true contenders for overall victory were hardly seen today. Just as the villages along the route cluster around their omnipotent churches, so Vasily Jawlensky and Fabian Ducasse were flanked at all times by at least 3 devoted team-mates. Wisely, they kept well away from the broiling at the very front yet still finished with the same times as that group.
And so began the week-long campaign by the audacious pure sprinters to retain the top positions. Soon enough, the Pyrenees will rip the peloton apart.
<ENDS>
Right, Cat, it’s gone nine in the evening and you’re only just leaving the salle de presse. Alone. You’ve positively slunk out, hoping no one’s noticed. Why? Didn’t you bond further with your colleagues last night whilst toasting Boardman’s superb win? He’s in yellow again today – isn’t that carte blanche for a celebratory evening tonight?
There are no plans for tonight. The only toast last night, literally, was the tough bread roll I ate by myself in my room. That’s my phone.
‘Hullo?’
‘Cat?’
‘Hey, Fen.’
‘Cat?’ she said. ‘You OK?’
‘Tired.’
‘Where are you? George Hincapie is gorgeous! Did I pronounce that right?’
‘Spot on.’
Cat listened to her sister enthuse about the day’s Stage. She closed her eyes, wishing she was in Fen’s house, settling in for an evening of wine and wittering.
‘Pip and I watched it together at her flat this time. We spoke to Django during the adverts and then had a major three-way analysis when the programme ended. I love that nice smiley man from Channel 4 – Leggings.’
‘Liggett,’ said Cat with a little laugh.
‘Do you know him?’
‘No.’
‘Have you met him yet?’
‘Almost.’
‘What did you do today? I’m fascinated. I mean, we’re only granted half an hour’s summary of the whole day – how does it pan out for you?’
‘Oh –’ Cat said breezily, swiping the air nonchalantly with her hand, a gesture of course lost on her sister.
‘Cat?’ Fen asked again. ‘You OK?’
‘It’s odd,’ Cat defined softly, ‘I’m finding it difficult. I’m fighting homesickness already. I was hopeful of a family atmosphere here. I think that was naïve. We didn’t even have a drink to celebrate Boardman’s win.’
‘It’s very early days,’ Fen said sensibly, ‘riders and everyone else finding their feet, surely. Anyway, I’m concerned that drink, or lack of, is the prime reason for your melancholy.’
Cat sighed. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she chastized her sister, ‘today I was sent flying in the finish-line scrum.’
‘God!’ Fen sympathised.
‘I was pushed and shoved, trodden on and ignored,’ Cat elaborated. ‘I don’t stand a chance. Now, I feel on the verge of floundering, of becoming lost amongst it all.’
‘Is it every man for himself, then?’ Fen asked.
Cat nodded and then said, ‘Yes.’
‘Who’s the gorgeous one who stopped off for a picnic?’ Fen probed.
Cat grinned and felt a softening of her tangled brow. ‘Luca Jones,’ she said, ‘and he gave me a super quote.’
‘There you go!’ Fen encouraged.
‘I know, I know,’ Cat conceded, ‘but I just feel a little, I don’t know – out on a limb. It’s only just started, I’m here for a long time – and yet this was supposed to be my fantasy incarnate and a world in which I’d find all the answers.’
‘You’ve only just arrived,’ Fen pointed out. ‘I bet you anything tomorrow will be fabulous.’
‘Fen, I feel too small and female.’
‘Bollocks, Cat,’ Fen said strongly. ‘Yes, you’re an anomaly out there – small and female – so you must be a breath of fresh air. I’d use it if I were you.’
Cat observed Josh and Alex turning the corner a hundred yards away.
‘Fen, I have to go. This must be costing you a fortune.’
‘Phone bill? You’re far more precious, stupid!’ said Fen, thinking herself to sound like a mother – a proper one, not one that had run off with a cowboy from Denver.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ said Cat.
‘Promise?’
‘Yes.’
Cat walked off briskly. Her ears, however, were peeled. She was listening for a half-hoped-for ‘Wait up, Cat,’ from Josh or Alex. And yet half of her hoped they had not seen her, that she could go and sit by herself in her hotel room and ruminate on her day.
Rachel McEwen’s room at Zucca MV’s Rouen hotel was cramped enough as it was, without the addition of three strapping riders and the veritable grocery shop Rachel set up each day. Her portable massage bench held domestique Pietro Calcaterra. He’d swerved to miss the knot of Luca Jones and Laurent Jalabert but had careered into Fernando Escartin instead. Now his knee was hurting. Massimo Lipari sat at the small table, softly humming his Giro pop song, helping himself to a huge bowl of cereal and arranging a diced banana artistically over the top. Gianni Fugallo, the team’s super domestique, lay on Rachel’s bed reading her Cosmopolitan magazine whilst listening to a Walkman.
Suddenly, Massimo exclaimed, ‘StefanoStefanoStefano!’ through a mouthful of cereal. ‘Big trouble,’ he declared, ‘very big trouble for Stefano.’
