CQ27_FINAL_SPREADS (1)

his country.
(There is a historic photograph.
It shows the finish in Órleans
at the moment when the riders
cross the line. It looks like a
freezing cold day, because
everyone is wrapped up warm.
Merckx is on the right of the
image, with his arm raised. He
is wearing the snow-coloured
leader’s jersey with the word
‘Molteni’ printed on his chest.
To his left, one wheel behind,
we see Ryszard Szurkowski. He
is wearing a world champion’s
jersey. His eyes are closed,
his mouth open. Perhaps he
understands the opportunity
that has just slipped through
his fingers. In the background,
far in the background, a teammate
of Merckx’s celebrates the
victory as if he had won himself.
It was then that Eddy said if
he had been able to sign as a
professional he would have been
buying a one-way ticket out of
Poland.)
After he retired times and
fashions changed. Then he
was able to innovate. He was
national coach for four years,
between Los Angeles and Seoul,
where Poland took silver in the
team time trial. He coached
Lech Piasecki to the double in
1985 – the Peace Race and the
world championships. Piasecki
was finally able to compete with
the professionals, and he scored
some remarkable results. Stage
wins in the Giro, time trials here
and there, a few days in yellow
at the Tour. One imagines
Szurkowski reading the news
smiling, with a touch of pride
and a hint of resignation. I could
have done that. I was better
than him. Still . . .
Of course, he was in a different
position. He was a legend. Legends
don’t get paid much, but
they stay in the memory.
It’s not clear which is better, in
the long run.
The Peace Race survived as long
as the communist regimes. At
least the classic version, the one
that made everyone dream. It
languished in the 1980s, unable
to generate new myths, to
produce historic moments like
those of decades before. All the
paraphernalia of propaganda,
all those beautiful images in
posters and photographs . . . so
distant now. Now we are older.
More cynical, less innocent. We
know that Poles and Russians
sometimes attacked each other
in the peloton, that Czechs were
looked down on. The magic was
lost on the road to dialectical
materialism.
It was a Czechoslovakian who
won the first Peace Race after
the fall of the Wall. The classic
capital cities were left out of
this edition, and the race took
a picturesque route between
Berlin, Slušovice, Bielsko and
Biała. The event lived on until
2006. Gaimpalo Cheula, an
Italian, won on the Linz-Karlovy
Vary-Hanover route. But nothing
was the same. There were professional
teams, brands showing
off, sometimes in obscene ways,
there were kids who had no idea
of the sacred significance of the
race they were riding. But yes,
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