Jersey tales
‘You wear the rainbow jersey, the only one in the peloton. You are thinking now, in this moment, in this race, I am a different rider because I am wearing this jersey.’
Those are the words of Oscar Freire, the triple road race World Champion, who literally burst out of the pack and announced himself on the global stage at the 1999 Worlds in Verona. Just 23 years old at the time, the little-known Freire stunned the world of cycling to claim his first rainbow jersey.
‘The silence in the finishing straight was deafening,’ ran one race report, yet Freire’s win secured him a
