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Outside Magazine July 2002

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Racing for the Hell of It
Nothing comes easy for the riders of the TOUR DU FASO, West Africa's tortuous answer to the Tour de France. Their bikes are beaters, the heat is infernal, la dysenterie is inevitable, and every year the locals get shown up by European interlopers looking to find an exotic thrill. But for Jérémie Ouedraogo and his teammates—proud citizens of the fourth-poorest country on earth—the only way out is to break away.

By Bill Gifford

HE IS ALONE, but he is not alone. There are the schoolchildren by the road, waving shyly as he passes, and the idle men resting in the sparse shade. There's a yellow Mavic-sponsored motorbike trailing him, with extra wheels in case of a flat, and a small convoy of official cars, creeping along at the pace he sets. Behind them, somewhere, is the peloton. A police motorbike draws even and a chalkboard is waved in his face: 40 seconds. He boosts the pressure on the pedals, turning perfect, powerful circles, extending his lead.

The other racers can see him, of course. The road is as flat and straight as a stretched-out snake, and the lead he's fighting to keep is less than a kilometer. When Jérémie Ouedraogo (pronounced "wed-DROW-go") took off from the pack, sprinting into the clear, a few riders tried to chase him, but not for long. Perhaps they thought it was too early for a breakaway to succeed, or perhaps they saw the color of his skin and didn't like his chances. But he went out anyway, and now he's pushing a strong, steady cadence across the savanna, his wheels turning like the silmandé, the turning wind, which transports magicians and spirits across great distances, but not bike riders. He crosses a white line on the pavement: 25 kilometers to go.



	Give me your flat-tired, your worn out, your sweltering Europeans: Inside a Tour Du Faso transport wehicle, ferrying riders over a stretch of impassable road. (Roger Lemoyne)

He is a rouleur—a workhorse. When others are content to stay in the pack, sheltered from the wind, Jérémie attacks, he makes things happen. Today there's a chance he could make it to the stage finish ahead of les blancs—the Dutch, Belgians, and French—but it's a slim one. It's the eighth stage of the 11-stage race, everyone is tired, and he's too far down in the standings to threaten anyone's overall lead, so maybe they'll let him go.

Or maybe not. The peloton is waking; the riders smell the finish. The wind is waking, too, pushing at his face, and because he is riding alone, he is doomed. The chalkboard again: 30 seconds. His legs feel heavy. Then 22, 15, 5. They swallow him.

An hour later, Jérémie watches French race officials give the stage winner's jersey—the first awarded to a West African this year—to N'gatta Coulaibaly, 33, an Ivory Coast rider he has beaten many times in the past. Coulaibaly is so exhausted he can barely stand, his gold shorts stained dark from urine. His tears of joy mix with sweat as he does a barefoot dance, to the delight of a mostly African crowd that numbers in the hundreds.

Jérémie, a 27-year-old native of Burkina Faso, waits patiently to receive the red "combativity" jersey, given to each day's most aggressive rider—his reward for those long kilometers alone. He puts it on quickly, kisses the podium girls, and smiles for the cameras. But it's a loser's prize, and he knows it.

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BILL GIFFORD wrote about U.S. ski pro Bode Miller in January. He lives in central Pennsylvania.

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