A new departure for Museum of Jerseys – or, perhaps, given the topic at hand, un grand départ might be a better description.
The Tour de France begins this weekend and, really, we had to start with this, worn by consecutive winners of the race and a design still regarded as one of the best to grace the peloton.
Blame, or praise, my friend Aidan Scully – cycling is not a sport I watch much but it has produced some fine literature and Slaying The Badger by Richard Moore, which is about the 1986 Tour and the battle between a pair of La Vie Claire team-mates, is well worth a read.
La Vie Claire was the original ‘super team’, created by flamboyant businessman Bernard Tapie in 1984 and named after the health-food store chain that served as main sponsor. An immediate splash was made with the signing of Bernard Hinault, who had already won the Tour de France four times and was keen to one more, while the addition of world champion Greg LeMond made them a truly daunting proposition.
In initial meetings, a black jersey was suggested, inspired by the powerful aura created by the New Zealand rugby team, but such an idea was shot down by team manager Paul Kochli and Hinault, not least because of the effect it would have in such punishing conditions.
According to Slaying The Badger, a student in the meeting then came up with the idea of a jersey based on Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow and it was universally loved.
Various companies with whom Tapie had links had their logos featured, including, on the shorts, pedal-maker Look, to whom he also gave the Mondrian treatment, something which lives on to this day. On the 1986 version, the logo of Italian manufacturer Santini was not visible.
In 1985, LeMond helped Hinault – nicknamed le blaireau or ‘the Badger’, hence the book title – and the veteran promised his American colleague that, a year later, the roles would be reversed. However, when the 1986 Tour began, Hinault was competing a bit too strongly for someone who apparently was not trying to win.
His attacks caused a rift within the team but LeMond was the stronger rider and he prevailed – Hinault claimed in his autobiography that his attacks were to tire out the opposition on his team-mate’s behalf.
LeMond would go on to win the Tour twice more, but not for La Vie Claire – in 1989 for AD Renting–W-Cup–Bottecchia and 1990 for Z-Tommaso.
By 1991, La Vie Claire was no more, with Tapie having moved on to his shinier new toy of Olympique Marseille – there was even some crossover in the late 1980s as the club’s goalkeeper Joseph-Antoine Bell wore a Mondrian-style shirt.
Wow! A cycling jersey worn by Joseph-Antoine Bell!
I remember that the other Marseille goalkeeper, Pascal Olmeta, during the Panasonic sponsorship years, among his short-sleeved goalkeeper shirts, he wore a Zimbabwe national rugby union jersey.