‘Monsieur Chrono’ they called him. Or Maître Jacques. Utterly dominant when riding alone against the clock, Jacques Anquetil was his era’s time-trial king, often catching riders who had been sent on their way minutes before and with the Arrivée banner still nowhere to be seen. A passage from Paul Fournel’s book Anquetil, Alone, describing a scene from a 68km time-trial between Bourgoin and Lyons during the 1962 Tour de France, encapsulates perfectly the demoralising effect this must have had on his rivals.
‘Raymond Poulidor, who set off three minutes before Anquetil, is about to be caught,’ Fournel writes. ‘His trainer Antonin Magne ignores the regulations and pulls alongside him.
