Racing for the Hell of It (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine July 2002

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Racing for the Hell of It (Cont.)

MAYBE JéRéMIE HEARS THE TALK, maybe not. Certainly he knows the truth: To win a single stage, in a race that barely matters in Europe, is not enough. And so Jérémie decides to go for it again on the 11th and final stage, the most prestigious of the race, a 156.5-kilometer run from P(tm), near the Ghanaian border, north to Ouagadougou. The stage will end in front of the Moro-Naba palace, home of the Mossi king, who will be on hand to watch.

The stage starts off slow and festive, but the riders—the 48 survivors of the race, that is, out of 77 starters—smell one last chance at glory. Twenty kilometers outside Ouagadougou, Jérémie finds himself in a breakaway again. In the ragged outer slums, the crowds lining the roadside are four and five deep. He can hear snatches of conversation. More than one person shouts, "Pafadnam! Pafadnam!" But Paf is not in the break. It is Jérémie, Sawadogo, a Moroccan, and a Camerounais—no Europeans this time. At one point they are ahead by more than a minute, but as they approach the city center they have barely 35 seconds, a sliver of a margin.

They enter the city from the east, dangling in front of the peloton, dodging potholes. At the United Nations circle they're ahead by eight seconds. As they take a hard left at the Banque Centrale d'Afrique de L'Ouest, with one kilometer to go, Jérémie can hear the pack closing in from behind.

Sawadogo takes off solo, going for the win. Jérémie gives one last push for the line, but his legs will not turn. They have no power—he wonders, is it the Wak?

The chasers swarm past, catching Sawadogo too, and a big, muscular Frenchman wins the stage.

Later, Adama Diallo—the head of Burkina Faso's cycling federation—comes up to Jérémie, removes his cigarette holder from his mouth, and gives him a questioning shrug, as if to say, "What's the matter with you?"

Jérémie endures it, somehow. He respects Diallo, but Diallo has never raced a bike, so he has no idea how hard it is: the suffering, the loneliness, the mental torture. Jérémie merely shrugs back and mumbles a polite explanation. He watches the Mossi king, his king, give a splendid white robe to the overall winner, Joost Legtenberg, who looks—there is no other word—goofy in it. Then he goes to look for Pafadnam, but he is gone.

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