Stuff Someone Said: Sean Yates...

By now you may be well aware of how I continue to use a written journal to document the happenings of daily training rides. I have long supplemented these with apropos quotes by more famous personalities in the sport, and thought it might be worth sharing some of these here. Today's quote comes from the great British racer, Sean Yates:


"You can't participate in the bloody race if you're not at the front, can you boy." It doesn't get anymore straight forward than that.

photo from the January 1997 edition of Cycle Sport,
the Yates Special Issue in honor of his retirement from racing

This quote was brought to mind as I watched the video of the 1994 Tour de France while yesterday's rainstorm passed through. Miguel Indurain was still in his heyday, winning his fourth Tour that year, but I also remember the edition for what happened to Yates. Sean was wearing the Yellow Jersey at the time and was preparing to contest for a time bonus during an intermediate sprint. He was prevented from doing so, however, when another racer (who I had previously admired, but whose image is now forever tarnished) grabbed hold of Yates' jersey, and prevented him from moving forward. Needless to say Yates did not gain the time bonus, which instead went to a challenger for yellow, and co-incidentally, teammate of the "jersey-grabber". Yates lost the jersey that day.