For most two-year-olds, Daddy is the man in the suit who walks through the door at 6 o’clock each night. For Alan Gilbert, ‘Daddy’ is the man who wears a rainbow-striped jersey and rides a bike to work every day. What Alan can’t tell you is that Daddy’s rainbow jersey and BMC racing bike are the hallmarks of his profession – Daddy is better known as the current World Champion, Philippe Gilbert.
For father Philippe, the past two years on the bike have been as much of a rollercoaster ride as they have at home. Philippe was the rider of 2011, winning what seemed to be every single Classic in Europe in an incredible show of dominance and making himself the man to watch in 2012. Moving to BMC Racing Team at the start of the year, Philippe caused consternation when he failed to defend any one of his previous victories and added only one title to his palmarès, albeit the prestigious one of World Champion. The question on everyone’s lips is, therefore, what happened?
“My season was not that bad,” Philippe downplays the implications. “Sometimes I was a bit less than normal level, but often not that bad. I mean, I had some problems, some health problems,” he acknowledges. “I was sometimes sick with my Tours and everything and I lost a lot of power in this.”
His expression is almost hard-done-by as he explains the difficulties of his profession. “It’s never easy to keep cycling at a high level when you have some little problems.” Then his tone changes. “But now I’m lucky, everything is fine.”
Unfortunately, while Philippe’s words are telling one story, his face is telling another. There’s no hint of his trademark sense of humour in his eyes. He takes every question seriously, answers it fully. He downplays, but he doesn’t dismiss. The journalists are quick to notice and keep pressing him on the subject. Though his expression doesn’t change, Philippe’s tone becomes defensive, and his words carry a reprimand.
“I think we’re here to talk about the new season. We talked enough about this last year.”
It’s hard to say whether he’s disappointed or simply over it, but clearly, Philippe doesn’t want to talk about it. We move on.
On the topic of the new season, Philippe happily outlines his off-season and his lead-up to his first race of the year, the Tour Down Under in Adelaide.
“First, I stopped the season earlier, so I have a good base of training ‘cause I had good three months training in the winter,” he explains. “I had good endurance training behind me and now a lot of intensity of the last weeks. I’m feeling ready for this.”
“You need a good winter to make a big season, and a strong season,” he tells us emphatically. “I think I had a good winter so I can go for another nice season.”
Someone asks Philippe if he spent the whole winter in his new home base of Monaco. “Always in the sun,” Philippe replies. “I’m following the sun.” For the first time we see the characteristic grin – for that’s the only word for it – that has made him known as a real joker within the peloton. The journalists chuckle along and enjoy the lighter mood of the conversation.
Philippe’s chief focus is, as always, Ardennes Week, the brutal triplicate of Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallone and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in eight days. He’s not concerned by rumours on changes in the race route of the opening Ardennes Classic, colloquially known as just ‘Amstel Gold’. “Yeah, I mean, it’s the same,” he points out. “The big goal, it’s still the same, controlling the race until the bottom of the last time up the Cauberg, and then the strongest wins.”
The other Classics are on his radar, too, and he’ll take whichever one comes his way. “For me the Classics are all big and all important, and it’s what I’m racing for, so if I can win one of those it will be nice,” he reflects. He deliberates a bit more. “It’s not easy to say one race.”
But someone wants to know if you can actually ride all the cobbled and Ardennes Classics in one year. “It’s one race a week if you do this, so I think it’s possible,” Philippe says without any wavering. “Of course, long race, like more than six hours, but I think it’s possible to recover and to ride every weekend for weeks. I’m sure it’s possible,” he nods. “The only problem is if you do Paris-Roubaix in the rain, maybe you’re more tired.”
With Ardennes Week beginning only a week later, Philippe thinks that a rainy Paris-Roubaix might prove the undoing of a rider bound for the Ardennes, but it doesn’t cast doubt on the overall concept. “I’m still convinced that it’s possible.” The fervour with which he asserts this makes it sound almost like he wants to be the one to prove it.
To begin with, though, Philippe is focussing his attention on Milano-San Remo, despite the amount of competition he predicts he’ll face. “We will be like, maybe…15 potential winners, it’s harder to win this race,” he stresses. “In Liege, if you’re on the top level, maybe two, three guys who can win, but,” he pauses once more, “San Remo, it’s a lot of guys.”
So, when you’re racing 15 other guys for the title at Milano-San Remo, what does the Classics specialist say are the key skills needed to win? “Just having good timing and sometimes having a little bit of luck also; having a good feeling but having also the right reaction behind from the other riders.” Philippe could be summing up the entire sport. He has a model for the perfect victory too - “Like we saw Simon Gerrans,” he says, referencing the Australian’s unexpected Milano-San Remo win of 2012. “He won, perfect.”
Though he mentions one of last year’s Classics winners in Gerrans, Philippe isn’t yet ready to make a call on who are the contenders in the Classics for 2013. “It’s hard to say, I think that I should wait like one or two months, to see the level of the other guys,” he says evenly. “See who can establish a high level and who can keep it to Liege. Last year from Qatar, I was there for the first race, I could see which riders were ready or not and just like that to Roubaix or to Liege.”
He doesn’t really even want to speculate which of last year’s top-10 finishers might step it up a few rungs on the finishers list or onto the podium. “I don’t know, it’s always hard to say,” Philippe vacillates. “Maybe some young guys, like [Peter] Sagan,” he says with sudden inspiration. “No-one expected Sagan last year to be that good on the Classics, and he was there.” It sounds like Sagan took Philippe by surprise just as much as everyone else, and it’s clear that he respects the prodigal youngster. “[John] Degenkolb was there also,” Philippe notes. “Maybe they can win.”
“What about Bauke Mollema?” one of the Dutch journalists presses. There’s a long pause. “…yeah?” Philippe replies. Everyone laughs at his confused expression, unable to avoid being backed into a corner. Then someone mentions the Classics rider of 2012, Tom Boonen, and the praise is instantly genuine. “He’s a hard competitor,” Philippe says, willingly acknowledging that Boonen will be his main rival in the Classics this year. “He’s fast, he’s smart, he’s strong, hard to beat.”
An Italian journalist mentions the Italian riders who once dominated that Classics, and Philippe doesn’t even let him finish his question before he answers it. “I’m already more complete, I think,” he tells the journalist candidly. “I’ve won all the Classics, just not Roubaix, I’m minimum on the podium of each Classic, Flanders two times on the podium and San Remo two times on the podium, so that’s already something good but I can do better.”
In cycling, the word ‘better’ can only mean the Tour de France. Last year Philippe was simply a workhorse for Cadel’s defence of his yellow jersey, but in previous years he’s ridden for himself, sights set on the sprinter’s green jersey.
“I saw in 2011 the energy you need to fight for the green jersey,” he says strongly. “You need all your power on this and if I’m going in the Tour it’s to help Cadel or Tejay. When you help somebody else it’s not possible to fight for a jersey or for winning a stage or something. It’s or you give everything for the team, or you go for your own chance,” he says emphatically, punctuating his English with French grammar in his intensity. “Not both together.”
Philippe’s equally clear when it comes to his own chances in the GC. “No,” he says unequivocally. “Mentally I cannot do this, it’s too hard. I don’t think so, no.”
“I’m always ambitious and I don’t want regrets when I stop my career,” he repeats the canonical words of the peloton’s older riders. “I’m going for every race just for me, the pleasure it starts for me and for family and friends, and then it’s coming out for the public and the sponsors.” But as a new and hopefully better season dawns, Philippe remains primarily self-motivated.
“I go first for myself, and then of course for my sponsors and for the team, but first is for myself.”
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