Ryder Hesjedal takes Canada’s first victory in Grand Tour, but did you catch the guy doing the directing from the Garmin-Barracuda team car?
Slim guy with silver-grey hair. Maybe you saw him when one of his riders punctured, or when they went back for bottles.
That’s Allan Peiper, and he’s Australian.
One of the best Australian pro bike racers, in fact, back in the days when they started going to Europe in numbers. Peiper followed Phil Anderson, and Neil Stephens and a host of others followed him.
Loads of Aussies are in the top European teams now, and steadily ticking off victory in every major bike race in the world, but Peiper was one of the first I helped Allan write his autobiography a few years ago, and it was a privilege.
I spent time with him while he found his feet as a team manager, a job that they call sports director in Europe.
The big teams have several each. The most senior is usually in overall charge, think Johan Bruyneel in RadioShack-Nissan-Trek, then the rest get allocated a season of races that they are responsible for. One of Peiper’s babies for Garmin-Barracuda was the 2012 Giro.
Peiper is a million miles from the autocratic bosses he raced for. He’s all about support and planning, but he has a shrewd racing brain too.
Did you see the way Ivan Basso’s Liquigas-Cannondale team took responsibility for setting the pace? It’s an old tactic that worked in the past, but it won’t work now, not in 2012.
Bike racing is a more level playing field now, and teams can’t take a race by the scruff of the neck and dominate. Peiper knew that.
He also knew that the race didn’t really start until the final week, the final long weekend in fact, with two brutal mountains stage and a time trial.
Peiper’s planning and racing nous meant Garmin-Barracuda stayed cool while the other favourites, especially Basso and Liquigas, raced themselves to a standstill. Then they made their move, on the Stelvio, where it wanted making all along.
Peiper’s life story is like a film script. He was 16 years old when he left home, unable to stand seeing his father hit his mother any more. He travelled to Belgium to do the only thing he knew, race on a bike.
It would be an extraordinary step now, but in 1977 it was unheard of. Peiper lived in a Ghent slum with grown up bike racers, surrounded by down and outs, and tried to make enough money from each race to eat, pay the rent and keep his bike going.
It’s impossible to say what would have become of Peiper if he hadn’t been rescued by a Belgian family. Despite never having enough to eat, Peiper was good in races, and a true fighter. Belgians admire that, and his biggest rival, Eddy Planckaert took Peiper home to me his mum.
Madame Planckaert took one look at the waif on her doorstep and told her son to go fetch Peiper’s things, he was moving in with them.
That was his making. The Planckaert’s are a cycling dynasty. Eldest brother Willy won the green jersey in the 1966 Tour de France. Next in line, Walter won the Tour of Flanders and so would Eddy, as well as Paris-Roubaix and his own green jersey.
But adversity wasn’t over for Peiper. He raced nearly every day, and life with the Planckaert’s was tough. There was a lot of love in that house, but no mod cons. Peiper fell ill and returned to Australia.
His body was so wrecked it took six months of antibiotics to just do what normal people do, and even longer to get back racing. But Peiper got back.
He returned to Europe, to a Paris cycling club, and became just about the best amateur racer in France in 1982. It was the same club that Phil Anderson graduated from, and Stephen Roche of Ireland and Scotland’s Robert Millar.
Peiper followed them into the Peugeot pro team in 1983, and the rest is history.
He had a good pro career, always making the best of what he had, always being professional.
There was some success, some frustration and plenty of heartache. Cycling is a tough calling and Peiper’s super-tough start did him no favours physically.
But it did give him a vast well of character and humanity, and it made him think about his sport. Drawing on those things now that has made Allan Peiper one of the best sports directors in cycling, and it played a big part in Ryder Hesjedal’s Giro.
Peiper’s book, A Peiper’s Tale, can be bought here.
Fancy a wager on your favourite sport? Head on over to PlayUp for great odds and friendly customer service and pick a winner. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
Australia's Jai Hindley has said he is "lost for words" after a shock stage victory at the Tour de France earned him the leader's…
Australia's Jai Hindley has said he is "lost for words" after a shock stage victory at the Tour de France earned him the leader's…
Tadej Pogacar has won a drama-packed Tour of Flanders, winning in a breakaway with Matieu van der Poel second, Mads Pedersen third and Wout…
Women are not allowed to compete in the Tour de France. However you choose to re-read that sentence, the fact remains: the most famous…
The jam-packed month-by-month quiz full of 2022 sports trivia!
Australian Grace Brown has won silver in the women's time trial, the first event at the world road cycling championships.
