He suffered the whole year, which ended with a memorable win on the famous boulevard. “The days before Paris, it was torture. The first ten days it rained, it was cold. I caught a cold and was just surviving in the pack. As it got faster I couldn’t breathe. Every hill was an ordeal as my sinuses filled with mucus. Thinking about winning the last stage was audacious,” admitted the native of Trenčín.
But in the end, the sprint was a completely clear matter. It was his only attempt in his career to challenge for victory in Paris. “I rode the Tour de France eight times, only finished it three times. And only in 2001 was there a sprint for victory. My team didn’t have the strength to control the mass reach, but I was just lucky. It is often fought to the last millimeter and you don’t know who won. That time I had a lead that allowed me to enjoy the victory,” Svorada recalled.
Start of the sprint train, contribution from Studio TOUR with Petr VakočVideo: Sport.cz
He went to France himself this year to watch the cyclists compete in the most prestigious race. And already during his career he saw how the Tour de France outgrew the dimension of the sports world. “He’s somewhere else entirely. I saw that at the team presentation. I can’t even describe the specialness of the moment. Everything took place at the castle, with a lit-up lake, in front of a full grandstand in the evening,” described the successful sprinter with a smile.
According to him, finishing in Paris is on a completely different level compared to the other stages. “At other races, everyone wants to get to the car, the airport and home quickly. There is no rush in Paris. You enjoy yourself there. It’s pompous,” said Svorada.
“Media and public interest in the Tour is huge. You won’t see so many journalists and TV cameras at other races. As well as photographers. I noticed them mainly in sprints. I often wondered at the finish line if those waiting for the finish photo would dodge a little behind the tape or if we would just fly into them. It always turned out well somehow,” he recounted.
The amount of attention presents a problem with more sensitive matters during the race. With the necessity to jump to the toilet. “Sometimes you just need to stop. But it often happened that there was simply nowhere, because people surrounded the road from the start to the finish. There were crowds everywhere. And even this basic need should be with some respect for the fans,” he described.
What does the Tour do to a cyclist? Contribution from the program Studio TourVideo: Sport.cz
So cyclists always had to choose carefully where to stop. “There were and are thousands of fans on the roads. It is unbelievable that they gather at the roadside just to catch a glimpse of cyclists for a few seconds. But that’s just the Tour de France,” Svorada smirked.
In his career, he recorded five winning stages at the Giro d’Italia, three at the Vuelta a España, and to the famous triumph in Paris he also won two more at the Old Lady. The first in 1994 as a representative of Slovakia, four years later even in the jersey of the Czech champion. “That was a very special feeling. An unforgettable moment,” he recalled.
2023-07-14 11:55:00
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