With the current UCI World Championships in Glasgow overlaying nearly each facet {of professional} bike racing apart from cyclocross, there was loads to have fun. Whereas there have been epic battles aplenty (i.e., the Males’s Elite Particular person Pursuit), the premier occasions should be thought-about the Elite Males’s and Ladies’s Highway Races, each with deserving winners of the Rainbow Jersey in Mathieu van der Poel and Lotte Kopecky respectively. And, fortunately, no one talked about The Curse.
The Rainbow Jersey of the Highway World Champion is a sacred vestment in professional biking, the one jersey that the winner will get to put on in each race for the next 12 months, not like race-specific clothes such because the Maillot Jaune within the Tour de France or the Maglia Rosa within the Giro d’Italia. Biking is a conservative sport, typically trying to the previous, which is simple to do given the historical past of the racing calendar. And cyclists being a generally superstitious lot, with traditions resembling pinning the race quantity 13 on upside, the concentrate on the success or failures of the wearers of the Rainbow Jersey has induced some to think about it to be one thing cursed. This query is the topic of a brand new GCN+ documentary, “The Legend of the Rainbow Jersey.”
World champion Annemiek van Vleuten
Cillian Kelly is GCN’s statistician and as a presenter right here has a fan’s childlike enthusiasm for all issues biking. The present begins with a go to to an Irish fortune teller, who, upon being given a Rainbow Jersey to deal with, declares it to be a garment of a lot emotion and even some tragedy. Kelly’s activity is to carry the story of the jersey and its darkish previous into the sunshine and he undertakes this problem by going to Belgium, the epicentre of biking, and in time for the 2023 Liėge-Bastogne-Liėge race.
Evenepoel in Liège
The premise of The Curse is that winners of it have a dreadful season the next 12 months and that is definitely true in some circumstances. Stephen Roche, who had an incredible 12 months in 1987 by successful the Giro, the Tour and the World Championship, received nothing in 1988, and a number of other different riders had information that weren’t a lot better, though Freddy Maertens, who had a fairly depressing 12 months in 1982 after his 1981 Worlds win, can also be the rider with probably the most wins in a season (44), which occurred the 12 months after his first Rainbow Jersey win in 1976! Others have studied The Curse and provide you with three logical interpretations: the Highlight Impact, the place the failures of the champion are far more famous than these of different riders; the Marked Man Impact, the place the visibility of the jersey means redu’s ced alternatives for assaults or escapes; and the Regression to the Imply, the place the rider, who had a stellar 12 months successful the jersey, returns to his (or her) standard kind the next 12 months.
Kelly with the rainbow jersey of Benoni Beheyt
Statistician Kelly makes an attempt to run by means of the numbers of what occurred to winners and isn’t satisfied there is sufficient to say the jersey actually does have a damaging impact on a rider. He categorizes winners is a unique means as properly: a) stars-to-be early of their careers; b) stars of their prime; c) stars ending their careers; and d) the outsiders. Visiting the superb biking museum in Roeselare, Belgium, he pull out a panel with the jersey and medals of 1963 winner Benoni Beheyt, who grabbed and held again fellow countryman and biking legend Rik van Looy, to take the win, to the mortification of the complete nation and kind of the top of his personal profession.
Jean-Pierre Monseré
Maybe The Curse is perhaps most relevant within the story of younger “Jempi,” Jean-Pierre Monseré. He received received the Worlds in August 1970 and died the next March at 22 in a minor race whereas carrying the Rainbow Jersey as he was making ready for Milan-San Remo. He was struck by a automotive that entered the course and the museum in Roeselare has a superb exhibition dedicated to him. (Kelly doesn’t point out that horrible postcript to this: 5 years later Monseré’s seven 12 months previous son Giovanni died after being struck by a automotive whereas using his racing bicyle—and whereas carrying a Rainbow Jersey).
Roeselare
In fact, most of the riders talked about by Kelly had wonderful seasons after their Worlds victories so he decides to speak with a spread of individuals about The Curse, together with journalists, followers at L-B-L, and quite a lot of the professional racers preparing for the race. Not one of the younger racers appeared satisfied of any sort of curse (besides maybe that they’d not been in a position to truly win it but!) and the followers have been uncertain as properly, though if their man Remco didn’t win L-B-L that day they’d take into account it, possibly. In fact, Remco Evenepoel’s 2023 season was to be a portrait of a bicycle owner energized by the Rainbow Jersey…
With the followers in Liège
Kelly has the chance to interview a number of of the previous winners of the jersey: Johan Museeuw doesn’t consider there’s a “ghost on the jersey,” and his season in 1997 began fairly properly, though failure to win his two largest races, Flanders and Roubaix, that 12 months, was a letdown however racing at this degree is all the time laborious. Michal Kwiatkowski, 2014 winner, appeared ambivalent about The Curse, noting that shifting round within the peloton was simpler with the jersey, whereas using away from it was not. Rui Costa (2013 winner) speaks of the stress to carry out with the jersey, and the way different riders deal with you. That is amplified by Philippe Gilbert (Mr. 2012), who clearly has respect for the jersey and what it means however clearly didn’t benefit from the psychological impact. He notes that he was an attacker and if you have been the Rainbow Jersey it isn’t that a couple of different riders need to go together with you however extra like 50 in a race, so in some methods it modified him as a racer.
Philippe Gilbert
Philippe Gilbert’s 2013 was not all that nice (one stage on the Vuelta) however within the years following he would add a lot lustre to his palmares, with wins on the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold, and Paris-Roubaix, to quote just a few successes. Annemiek van Vleuten, whom Kelly notes that on the time of filming had solely a 3rd place win in her post-2022 profession within the Rainbow Jersey, would after all win two of the main girls’s stage races (in Italy and Spain) later within the season as she prepares for retirement after an astonishing profession. And we all know that Peter Sagan and Tom Boonen each had seemingly countless wins within the Rainbow Jersey and afterwards, so no curse there.
Kelly spoke to Johan Museeuw
“The Legend of the Rainbow Jersey” is an pleasurable hour to spend with Cillian Kelly, the biking nerd’s biking nerd, as he performs the historian, the star-struck fan, assembly legends of the game, the star-struck fan consuming a beer on La Redoute with the opposite beer-drinking followers, and even present process merchantile remedy as he retailers for jerseys. It’s a good dive into the historical past of one in every of professional biking’s iconic clothes and the fascinating characters who’ve campaigned in it, whether or not beset by qualms or having fun with it to the total.
Michal Kwiatkowski thought on the rainbow jersey
“The Legend of the Rainbow Jersey”
Presened by Cillian Kelly, directed by Harry Dowdney
51 minutes
GCN+ Originals, 2023
Out there by means of streaming on GCN+
That jersey
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