SERGING AHEAD
Serge Arsenault is on a health kick. What looked like wine in a wine glass was something else. “I stopped drinking to stay in shape,” he said. He gesticulated constantly with his vape machine. But neither the glass nor nozzle made it to his lips much, because in company, he is a talker. Health was on the mind of the silver-haired 69-year-old president of the Québec and Montréal races. His own a little bit, but mostly the sport’s.
In the Roosevelt Suite of the Château Frontenac, the suavely dressed former journalist, media magnate and now a powerful organiser, held court to a circle of European journalists insisting there’s a “cancer” at the heart of the sport. “What is killing cycling now is quite obvious: no one is working for cycling. They are sucking from it like a vampire,” he added. He insists he’s not a judge who wishes to apportion blame. But he is a businessman and the business is being killed. He lamented the current situation in which, as he sees it, cycling’s assorted organisers and associations fight each other for financial table scraps.
But among the things he really wants - and here came the pitch - is another one-day race on the East Coast - something for the sprinters. “I hate a bench with two legs,” he growled in the cultivated tones of one who has spent time in front of camera. “Anyone can do it! We’ll help with the plane and the logistics. Three races, three WorldTour events and the American leg is complete,” he said emphatically. “But I have one condition: we must maintain the quality of the product! If you just start with s**t, you will produce s**t,” he spat. “It has to be of top quality.”
So his search for the right partner, ready to follow his lead and channel millions of euros - he’s ploughed in almost 50 million since 2010 he said - goes on. At heart he’s a sports lover. In the late 1970s he established the Québec City marathon around the time Boston, New York and London were starting – or in the case of Boston transforming – into commercial and mass participation events. He name-checks the other three directors: Will Cloney at Boston, Chris Brasher in London and Fred Lebow in New York. “We were the f**king rat pack!” he said gleefully.
But it’s bike racing where his heart lies and he’s been an organiser on and off since the late 80s when he established the GP de Amériques. That lasted four years until it got pushed into an untenable October spot. He returned in 1999 with the 10-day Tour Trans-Canada, which lasted a year. The Laurentian double, as the GPs are becoming known in the official literature, is now in its eighth year. The races are lauded by riders for their organisation. The charter flight from Paris, the course-side accommodation and the fan turnout on the circuit all made the journey and jetlag worthwhile. “These races are the future,” Oliver Naesen said.
Back to Arsenault. “I love endurance sport because it usually ends eventually in an encounter with sufferance.” Dealing with the wheels within wheels of cycling politics and searching for potential partners is probably one long encounter with sufferance, but Arsenault shows no sign of leaving the fray just yet.