HESJEDAL’S REJUVENATION
Eight weeks before the first GPCQM races in 2010, Svein Tuft applied a new nickname to his teammate and compatriot, Ryder Hesjedal. The British Colombian would from that moment be known as Weight of a Nation. Hesjedal was flying high in that year’s Tour de France with Garmin-Transitions. He was on course for a top-10 finish, the first since Steve Bauer finished fourth in 1988 and, well, he had the weight of a nation on his shoulders.
Hesjedal delivered, bounding up the GC in the final four days to finish sixth, after the dust had settled on Alberto Contador’s DQ. That September in Montréal he bagged the first of two podiums during his career at the race. Two seasons later in 2012, with the team now Garmin-Sharp, he won the Giro d’Italia and became Canada’s most successful rider ever. But around races, in the public eye, Hesjedal had the studied detachment of someone who raced because that was his job. He was professional to a tee, but he rarely looked like he loved it.
The 2016 season was Hesjedal’s last in the professional peloton. He retired home to the Canadian West Coast to ride bikes for fun. “I don’t really know how to do anything else!” he said brightly when we found him on the Montréal finish line.
Hesjedal was a breezy presence around the races. We’d watched him surprise some of his old Cannondale-Drapac team-mates in the lobby of the Frontenac, to their obvious pleasure. He had handed out the prizes in Québec City to rapturous applause. In Montréal he’d made new friends and found old ones in the hospitality tents strung along the finishing straight. He was the first to jump over the hoarding and congratulate his old teammate, Cannondale-Drapac’s Tom-Jelte Slagter.
“It’s a little taste of the other side,” Hesjedal said in that deep slow Canadian drawl, of his new role as honoured guest. “The format of the three days is just amazing. There’s nothing like that in the world. It’s a great event and hats off to the organisation and everything that it takes to do it. I’m such a fan, I still love the sport,” he said more generally.
“I feel like I retired in a good way. I didn’t break all ties. Some guys like it like that. This has been a big part of my life.”
The news had recently broken that Education First had stumped up the cash to save Jonathan Vaughters’s Cannondale-Drapac squad, who were at risk of closure due to a funding shortfall. It had been the team where he experienced almost all his success. “It’s perfect. I can imagine there were some tough moments there. I don’t think they were the first and I don’t think they were the last,” he continued. “There were a lot of guys still there who I rolled with and no one wants to see them in trouble, but even more so the staff and those guys doing things behind the scenes. We had the support of those guys for years.”
The whole long weekend, Hesjedal couldn’t go two minutes without taking a tap on the shoulder, often from another ‘real big fan’ who had more questions for GPCQM’s VIP-in-chief. Hesjedal took each one graciously. The weight of a nation had lifted.