Jacky Durand

Jacky Durand (born 10 February 1967 in Laval, Mayenne) is a retired French professional road bicycle racer. Durand had an attacking style,[1] winning the Tour of Flanders in 1992 after a 217 kilometres (135 mi) breakaway, and three stages in the Tour de France.

Jacky Durand
Durand in 2000
Personal information
Full nameJacky Durand
NicknameDoudou or Dudu ("teddy bear")
Born (1967-02-10) 10 February 1967
Laval, France
Team information
Current teamRetired
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Professional teams
1990–1995Castorama
1996Agrigel
1997–1998Casino
1999–2000Lotto
2001–2003Française des Jeux
2004Landbouwkrediet-Colnago
Major wins
Tour de France, 3 stages
Tour of Flanders (1992)
Paris–Tours (1998)
French National Champion (1993, 1994)

Durand turned professional in 1990. He was national road champion in 1993 and 1994 and won Paris–Tours in 1998, the first French winner in 42 years. Durand rode seven Tours de France, finishing last in the 1999 race. In 1995 he was the surprise winner of the prologue, starting before it began raining. He wore the yellow jersey for two days. Durand won the combativity award in the 1998 and 1999 Tour de France; the latter year he also took the Lanterne Rouge. He retired at the end of 2004. He has since worked for Eurosport as a commentator.

Amateur career

Durand was born to a poor farming family in the Mayenne region of northern France.[2] He started racing in the minime class, the very youngest, but never won a race there or in the older cadet category. "It's difficult to win as a kid when you're neither a climber nor a sprinter," he said. "For me, the most beautiful jersey in the world is the French champion's. Yes, when they play the Marseillaise for you after a championship and then you go and show it off for three weeks in the Tour de France, the national flag on your shoulders, it's emotion and pleasure every day."[3] As a senior, however, he won the national amateur team time-trial championship in 1988 with Laurent Bezault, Pascal Lino and Thierry Laurent. He turned professional in 1991.

Lone breaks

Durand became celebrated for long, lone attacks which sometimes succeeded but usually didn't. The French magazine, Vélo, printed a monthly Jackymètre to log the kilometres ridden at the head of races during the course of the season. Durand said: "Fortunately, in cycling, it's not always the best who wins, otherwise we wouldn't win so often."[4]

His riding style was encouraged by his first directeur sportif, Cyrille Guimard. It brought him a seemingly suicidal win in the Tour of Flanders (see below). Guimard told him to attack early in the national championship at Châtellerault in 1993, to try his chance and to spoil those of Laurent Brochard and Luc Leblanc.[5] The writer, Jean-François Quénet, said Guimard told Durand to attack far from the finish "because he didn't want to see Laurent Brochard in blue, white and red and even less did he want a second consecutive title for Luc Leblanc, who was in disgrace in the Castorama team.".[6]

Of the way he rode, Durand said:

I'm not a revolutionary of any sort, but on the bike, I've always refused to come out of a mould. It astonishes me that most riders are followers, even sheep. A lot of them, the only people who know they're in the Tour are their directeurs sportifs. I couldn't do the job like that. They finish the Tour without having attacked once, maybe the whole of the season, even the whole of their career. I'd rather finish shattered and last having attacked a hundred times than finish 25th without having tried. Yes, I get ragged about it, but it's always in a friendly way. In the bunch, the guys know that Dudu is as likely to finish a long way behind them as first.[7]

Tour of Flanders

Durand won the Ronde van Vlaanderen, or Tour of Flanders, in 1992, 36 years after the last French winner, Jean Forestier, in 1956. He broke away from the field with Thomas Wegmüller after a quarter of the race, with 217 km still to ride.[8] His success as an outsider, and after such a long lone ride, stayed in the memory of Belgian fans. Years later, Durand was stopped for speeding. The Belgian policeman who came to his car said, "Vous avez gagné le Tour des Flandres en nonante-deux" ("You won the Tour of Flanders in '92") - and let him drive on.

Durand finished his career with Belgian teams. "Winning the Ronde made me a bit of a naturalised Belgian," he said.[9]

Doping and disqualification

Durand took drugs during the Tour de la Côte Picarde in 1996 and was given a one-month probationary suspension.[10] He was disqualified during the Tour de France in 2002 for holding on to a car during the mountainous stage to the Plateau de Beille in the Pyrenees. There had been complaints from riders, including the Czech, Jan Svorada, that he had done the same the previous year.[11]

His name was on the list of doping tests published by the French Senate on 24 July 2013 that were collected during the 1998 Tour de France and found positive for EPO when retested in 2004.[12]

Retirement

Durand retired from racing in 2005 after receiving no team offers.[13] He followed that year's Tour de France as representative of the supermarket chain, Champion.[14] He is now a television commentator for Eurosport.

Private life

Durand stayed loyal to his first club, CC Renzé, throughout his career. He lives in Mauritius.

On 25 November 2017, Durand's 80-year-old father, Henri Durand, was reported missing by his wife, Colette, after he went out for his usual bicycle ride and never returned. His body was found in a lake on 2 January 2018, in between Ballots and Saint-Michel-de-la-Roë. An autopsy confirmed he had died from drowning.[15][16]

Major results
1988
 France National amateur team-trial champion
1989
Paris - Alençon
1991
Grand Prix d'Isbergues
1992
Tour of Flanders
1993
Bol d'or des Monédières
Bordeaux - Cauderan
Dun Le Palestel
 France National road champion
1994
Lisieux
Monein
 France National road champion
Saint-Chamond
Tour de France
Winner stage 10
1995
Tour de France
Winner prologue
Vienne
1996
Dun Le Palestel
Amiens
1998
Callac
Paris–Tours
Tour de France
Winner stage 8
Winner combativity award
Vayrac
1999
Ronde d'Aix-en-Provence
Chateau-Chinon
Tour de France
Winner combativity award
2000
Camors
Rognes
Toulouse
2001
Tro Bro Léon
Tartu Rattaralli
2004
Hellemmes
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References
  1. "Durand calls it a day". cyclingnews.com. 16 December 2004. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
  2. L'Équipe, 14 July 2000
  3. L'Équipe, 14 July 2000
  4. Vélomania, France, February 2005
  5. Vélomania, France, February 2005
  6. Vélomania, France, February 2005
  7. L'Équipe, 14 July 2000
  8. Vélomania, France, February 2005
  9. L'Équipe, 14 July 2000
  10. L'Équipe, 9 January 1997
  11. L'Équipe, France, 21 July 2002
  12. "French Senate releases positive EPO cases from 1998 Tour de France".
  13. Vélomania, France, February 2005
  14. Vélo, France, March 2005
  15. lecourrierdelamayenne.fr. "Corps repêché à Ballots : la victime identifiée - Le Courrier de la Mayenne". www.lecourrierdelamayenne.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-01-23.
  16. "Sud-Mayenne: le corps repêché est bien celui d'Henri Durand". Ouest-France.fr (in French). Retrieved 2018-01-23.
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