NED BOULTING
A TOUR DOWN MEMORY LANE A BUS, JAN BAKELANTS, AND SHARING A BOTTLE OF ROSÉ WITH PHIL AND PAUL
I remember being struck by the bond between Phil and Paul
In 2013, the Tour de France started on the island of Corsica. Back then, of course, David Millar was still racing, and racing to some effect as it happens. His performance on stage one was destined to become a half-forgotten detail in the drama of the day. Lest we forget: the race was marked in people’s memories by the hilarious surrealism of the Orica GreenEdge bus misjudging the height of the finishing arch and getting stuck, essentially blocking the passage of the 100th Tour de France at precisely the only point of the race that really mattered. It was almost a bunch sprint with a bus in the way.
Anyway, they managed to clear the finish line in time for Marcel Kittel to win the stage and take his first yellow jersey. What you may be forgiven for not noticing was the name of the rider who finished fourth, behind Kittel, Alexander Kristoff and Danny van Poppel: a certain David Millar. It was to be, to all intents and purposes, his last result of note, as his semi-planned, semi-forced retirement took place the following year.
The result wasn’t a fluke either, but a calculated and fairly remarkable attempt to set himself up with a chance of taking the yellow jersey the following day, on a more testing parcours, when he figured there was a chance the heavier sprinters might not make it to the sprint. In that regard, he was completely correct. David finished 13th, with Kittel, Kristoff and Van Poppel in a group some 17 minutes down. That much of his masterplan worked a treat.
So why didn’t David Millar start the next day in the famous yellow jersey? What went wrong? Well, a young Belgian rider, unknown to many at the time, stole a march on the pack with a late attack, and, with none of the big sprinter’s trains present to help chase him down, held on to win by a single, solitary, significant second. Thus did Jan Bakelants rain on David’s parade. To this day, when we are commentating together, and Jan appears on our screens, I become aware of Millar going very quiet, sometimes killing his microphone so that he can have a moment to himself to examine old sores and lick his wounds. Needless to say, I find this hilarious, and delight in asking him, on air, to recount the events of 30 June 2013, when the Tour came to Ajaccio.
Corsica had been beautiful. Later that evening, the Tour de France cavalcade sailed in a chartered ferry for the mainland. Waiting to embark, I remember sharing a bottle of rosé and a pizza with Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, watching the sun dip across the Mediterranean. It was one of those evenings. We laughed about the day’s racing, and how hard, almost impossibly so, it had been for Phil and Paul to positively identify Bakelants from the head-on shot of the finish. I’m not entirely sure they managed it. They might well have hedged their bets and simply shouted the name of the team instead, ‘Radioshack take the win!’ Understandable.
Not yet a commentator at the time, I could nevertheless empathise with their predicament. It is such a hard skill recognising riders, and you need to be so sure of yourself before you commit a name that could be wrong to the airwaves, and to posterity.
But more than anything else, I remember being struck by the bond between Phil and Paul. Off air, just as on air, they looked out for each other, sharing the joys and trials of the job, living in each other’s pockets. Theirs was a genuine friendship, a total symbiosis; they travelled together, lodged together, shared July together year after year.
Of course, that was then. At the same time as we were whiling away the time before the ship sailed, David Millar was already in a hotel room in Nice (the riders flew!), cursing Jan Bakelants, and blissfully unaware of the broadcasting reinvention that awaited him in the not-too-distant future.
Now, though, after three years of calling the race for ITV alongside David, I can begin to understand the bond that existed between Phil and Paul. I need David to illuminate the detail. He needs me to do the heavy lifting.
Paul Sherwen will be missed, badly. He was a ball of energy, caustic at times, but thoughtful and exceptionally generous too. He was always up for a laugh. But right now, and especially when July comes around, my thoughts are with Phil.