Stage 4 Valkenburg - Liège (122.7 km - hilly)
The next morning I wake up a little more nervous than the previous days. A little mix of the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège awaits us. Even the weather suddenly resembles that of spring. There are grey, dark clouds hanging over our heads that could burst at any moment. And they do as soon as the start is given.
During the neutralisation, we are sent over the Cauberg for the first time. It’s unimaginable to see how many people are on the side of the road. But once we are flagged off in the middle of the Geulhemmerberg, I turn all my focus to the peloton, which immediately shifts up a few gears. The first two hills I get through well, but by the second time Geulhemmerberg I already have to go pretty deep to not lose connection with the peloton. And the second time up Bemelerberg isn’t easy either.
I breathe a sigh of relief when we leave the local ‘Amstel Gold race’ course and I can settle comfortably in the peloton again. The heavens are now fully open. My positioning is not running as well today as it has in the past few days. I find myself more in the back of the peloton and when I meet Thalita I let her know that I am not really having a good day. ‘My body is probably suffering a bit from yesterday’s crash and the rain doesn’t really help either.’
The fact that we are entering Belgium for the first time is immediately noticeable. The roads suddenly feel noticeably rougher and the potholes in the road surface pop up like mushrooms. The peloton enters the descent in an elongated line towards Mont-Theux, the first climb on Belgian soil. The wet roads cause breaks in the line and we are set to chase before the climb even begins properly. Inside, I curse because of my poor position, but a closed train crossing quickly allows the peloton to merge again. ‘Damn it,’ I think to myself.
Everyone drums and makes their way to the front row of the race. Inside, I know this is the death for my already not-so-good legs. Setting off again from standstill in this weather and immediately popping up a climb is pernicious. As soon as the barriers open, everyone shoots back into their clickers like crazy. My expected feeling immediately draws present but I stay on as long as I can. It turns out I am not the only one with that feeling and soon a nice grupetto forms. Just bulge in as sparingly as possible is now the message.
Never before have I ridden up La Redoute so quietly and so I enjoy everything around me. The bad weather has not stopped many fans from coming to support me on the steep slope. On all sides I hear my name and look curiously at the people who appear to know me. It even feels a bit crazy to be shouted so much ahead. A foreign rider riding next to me asks if I have a fan club standing. ‘Not that I know, it’s crazy!’ I tell her, laughing. When I even hear my new nickname ‘Doortje’ several times, my day is made.
Once at the finish, I get freezing cold. The rain knows no end and so we rush to the nearby hotel. Once in my room, shivering, I take off my soggy clothes and turn the heater on full blast in the bathroom. It totally looks like a day in spring.
Stage 5 Bastogne - Amnéville (152.5 km - flat)
Thankfully, the sun is back on the scene today. It feels special to be able to start the fifth Tour stage on home soil in Belgium. The stage is considered ‘flat’, but the profile does foresee some tough hills and steep sections. The first one follows after only 14 km and immediately gives me a terrible feeling. I keep raking to stay with the peloton, but when I also see teammate Fauve drop out, my legs fill up. At first I don’t really panic and think I can make the connection again. But after the GPM there are some uncategorised steep pustules that make my chase more difficult.
‘How can this be?’ I think to myself. I try to keep up the pace and get back to the peloton, but the cars pass me one by one and I don’t seem to get a metre closer. When Fauve joins me, I shift up a gear again. I look back and no longer see a Lotto Dstny shirt in my wheel. ‘Come on goddammit, follow me!’ I shout indignantly at her. This cannot and should not yet be the end of our Tour story. But as soon as the second set of follow cars come up behind us with the green flag behind them, I don’t know what to think for a moment.
We have lost the peloton for today anyway and with at least a good 120 kilometres to go, this day seems hopeless. ‘As long as Fauve doesn’t give up, I won’t give up either,’ I think to myself. We don’t say another word to each other. Fauve does blurt out ‘Hold the wheel dickhead!’ once more, but for once I ignore her well-meaning joke. One more chaser joins us and a little later we also pick up the ex polka dot jersey wearer of the first three days. I keep riding, but in my head things are going in all directions. I think of everything and nothing at the same time.
The second car is behind us, containing Kurt Van de Wouwer, who encourages us to keep riding. He calculates the time we could still lose and, for now, it still looks good. Thanks to him and Fauve’s presence, I’m starting to believe in it a bit again. But the road is still long and every incline hurts pretty badly. I try to set a goal each time. Sometimes it is the next GPM, da other time reaching the 100 km.
Upon reaching the 25 km arch, I ask how much time we have left. Giving up is now totally out of the question and I feel another dose of energy rising from the adrenaline. When the arches of the 15, 10 and 5 kilometres have also been passed, we seem sure of our piece. We still have a nice time left so we can now bulldoze in peacefully. We let our companions go and ride side by side towards the line. ‘Come on, we’re going to pretend to do another sprint,’ says Fauve. I hesitate for a moment but I can use some humour and we both throw our wheel towards the thick white line that took far too long to appear. ‘We made it!’ and we give each other a hug. What a day.
Stage 6 Remiremont - Morteau (159.2 km - hilly)
After yesterday’s off day, I’m keen for a good stage. It will be important to survive the first 3.2 km climb that follows after only 11 kilometres. Once that is behind us, a relatively flatter section follows before climbing again. The start is given and I make it a main thing to move up well immediately so that I can start the climb at the front. The first kilometre still goes reasonably well, but then I start systematically losing places until I finally end up dangling at the tail of the peloton again. ‘What the hell is this?’ I get angry with myself. I keep pushing hard on the pedals but again I end up between the cars.
‘Not again!’ shouts the alarm loudly in my head. This really cannot happen again. Through the cars, I try not to completely lose touch with the peloton. Fauve also gets into trouble again. Once a slightly flatter stretch finally follows, we try to guide each other towards the peloton again. After a chase of more than 20 kilometres between the cars, we can finally connect with the peloton. A sigh of relief goes through my body. But I feel anything but good.
At every slightly uphill, I feel my legs and don’t understand how everyone around me seems to ride around so easily. The ex polka dot jersey wearer and my fellow competitor from yesterday comes up to me and says: ‘This is better than yesterday hey!’ But I can’t confirm her good feeling and reply hesitantly: ‘Not for me!’ I pump myself with courage but when we start climbing again to the next GPM I completely explode. I can’t do anything anymore. My body feels empty and I struggle to push another 100 watts. I can’t even muster the courage to jump behind a follow car and let the convoy slip past me.
I look at my Garmin and see it says 85 km. So that means I still have 75 kilometres with a lot of altimeters to conquer. In front of me, nobody is riding anymore and nobody seems to be behind me either. I am all alone. Only the van with the green flag on comes riding up beside me to ask if I need anything. I nod politely and try to hold back my tears. I no longer understand anything and still can’t find my rhythm. I switch to automatic pilot and start staring ahead. Minutes tick away and the course only gets harder.
The spectators along the road give me no chance to think long and sit by. They shout at me every metre ahead as if I am riding for victory. Even when they are no longer by the side at all, they come sprinting to the road again to cheer me on. I try to take in every shout and turn it into strength. When I also see some familiar faces along the road, I try to flip my switch and shift up a gear again. My Tour cannot and should not be done here yet and even though my body is screaming to stop, I ignore the pain and continue on adrenaline.
When the second car containing Dirk Onghena waits for me to hand me water bottles, I ask anxiously about my backlog. ‘Keep riding, anything is still possible.’ But I realise it will be risky and go and start calculating. Uphill I find a bearable pace and on the flatter parts and downhill sections I make a tight pace. I put my finish line at 15 km from the finish. From there, I know it’s only downhill. But the final climb is murderous and contains some steep sections. The supporters along the side shout me ahead again and for a moment I imagine myself Pogacar. But his very slow sister.
‘You still have about 15 minutes to get in.’ Dirk tells me who has accompanied me again for the last 20 kilometres, reaching the summit. I smash my way down the descent like crazy and ride the time trial of my life. The kilometres are running very fast now but I hear in my ear that it will really be about minutes and get on my pedals one more time. The last kilometre is back uphill, the finish arch is hidden in a faint bend and so I look for my very last strength to see that arch as soon as possible. I look for the shortest way past the fences and stare ahead. Suddenly I see a bunch of people blocking my shortest path towards the finish line and one of them signals for me to move to the right.
‘What are they still doing here?’ and I drive past the group of photographers and cameramen in a flash. Everything devolves into a blur. I find the first best place in the shade and stumble off my bike onto the ground. When I lift my head again, I see a mob of people surrounding me. ‘You made it, you made it!’ scream my team doctor and kiné proudly. But I don’t understand anything about what has just happened and is happening around me. ‘I’m broken,’ and I start weeping with fatigue, disappointment and pain. ‘I’m really broken.’
Stage 7 Champagnole - Le Grand-Bornand (166.4 km - mountain stage)
Two more days, two more stages. But never has a finish seemed so distant as this morning. I get up with a scraping throat, terrible legs and an overdose of fatigue. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to make it today.’ I tell team leader Grace honestly. But I want to try anyway. I don’t want to give up until I know I really can’t do it anymore. Otherwise I’ll never forgive myself. And so I make my way to the starting podium in high spirits.
The big smile I easily managed to put on my face the days before is now struggling to keep from bursting into tears. Even during the interview for Sporza, I can no longer hide the fact that I am exhausted. Mentally and physically. But somewhere I just want to move on and so, like every other ride, I prepare perfectly for yet another long ride with a hefty dose of altimeters.
The neutralisation starts uphill and I find myself among a lot of Belgians. ‘I feel my legs already,’ says Julie Van den Velde. I smile and reply ‘I’m glad you said that!’ The start is also given on an uphill section and the peloton immediately pulls away. My body immediately pulls all the alarm bells. It feels like there are giant bruises between the muscles of my thighs, a pain that feels unbearable and I have never had before. I give a few more kicks but the peloton drives away from me after less than a kilometre and I realise it is over. Grace comes riding alongside me and immediately sees too that there is not much point in this anymore. I let myself drop down to Dirk’s car and nod no. It’s over.
Dirk rides past me and is waiting for me at the side of the road a few minutes later. In tears, I step off my bike to the applause of the bystanders. ‘Courage!’ I hear several times, but I lower my head and step towards the passenger seat of the car. ‘L’abandon du numéro 186, Mieke Docx du Lotto Dstny. Abandon of number 186, Mieke Docx of Lotto Dstny.’ it sounds through the radio. It sounds so official. It is official. I have hereby left the Tour. Moments later, Grace, in radio communication, also informs the other riders that I have left the race. Tears stream down my cheeks.
We stop at the first attendant and I get into the team’s Volkswagen van. ‘It really didn’t go any more,’ I say disappointedly to Peter. ‘I really ran out.’ We have to rush to the next resupply point, as the only way there is over winding roads and mountains. But I don’t notice much of that rush and curves and soon I fall asleep like a log. My body is empty.
Stage 8 - what should have been alpe d'heuz
I didn’t sleep last night. Not because of the disappointment. My body doesn’t even have the energy for that anymore. My throat didn’t allow me a minute’s rest and the rest of my body felt terrible too. Consequently, I get up feeling terrible. Before breakfast I decide not to join my teammates at the table. I notify our doctor and set myself aside at a table. ‘I really don’t feel well,’ I let her know. Once back in my room, I try to organise my bags for departure. But with every minute of movement, I sit back on the floor. I just can’t manage.
That something is wrong is starting to sink in more and more and so I ask for a covid test. I walk to the bus where our doctor Mieke is waiting for me. After a few years, I have forgotten how painful such a test taking is. ‘So in 15 minutes I’ll let you know.’ I quickly go to the toilet on the bus and then quickly glance at the test that is processing my samples. It’s a test I haven’t seen before and so I don’t quite understand what all the dashes mean, but even so I seem to be startled by my observation for a moment. ‘I think it’s positive,’ I think to myself and I rep to my room to pack my bags before my roommate returns.
‘It’s positive Mieke.’ appears on my phone not too much later. A wave of joy and disappointment rushes through my body. Joy because I finally have a reason for my way-too-heavy offdays and terrible pain in my legs, disappointment because just now, just now corona has got me.
Wearing a mouth mask, I make my way towards the hotel at the top of Alpe D’huez. I had imagined climbing this mythical climb in a completely different way. Exhausted, I lie down on my bed. From my room, I can just barely see the finish line, but I can hear it. It hurts twice as much to experience everything so close yet so far away. Everything hurts, I can’t find a position in bed that doesn’t hurt. My back hurts, my legs, my throat, my head, even my teeth give a bad feeling. But most of all, my heart is broken.
I want to thank everyone for the kind messages and messages of support over the past few weeks. You have made me realise that I can still look back at my first Tour participation with pride. When I will actually end up doing that, I don’t know yet. But one thing is certain: je reviendrai!
X Mieke
Photocredits: Brecht Steenhouwer – VRT
