By Bruce Hildenbrand
Photo: Franck Fife/
AFP/Getty Images
While every rider brings his A game to the Tour de France, not everyone sees the spotlight. Some are expected to shine and just don't perform well, while others are there to support their team leader by toiling up, down and around France in anonymity. Domestiques are support riders usually recognizable only because their jerseys are filled with water bottles for their more celebrated teammates.
Doing great impressions of the Michelin man, domestiques spend almost all day either at the front of the pack helping to set pace or at the back among the team cars picking up water bottles and food. While the team leaders sit in the pack and rest, domestiques, like worker bees, always seem to be tending to one task or another.
Much like NFL offensive lineman, domestiques toil behind the scenes. It would be easy to think of them as second-class citizens, but that is hardly the case. Champions in their own right, most domestiques are capable of winning just about any race other than the Tour. For example, Jens Voigt of Team CSC won the 2007 Criterium International and a mountain stage in Spain. Come Tour time, however, expect to see him loaded down with water bottles or setting tempo at the front for team leader Carlos Sastre.
Voigt knows he will get his chance to shine, as he did in winning the weeklong 2006 Tour of Germany, but in France in July he's a team player. Even when the popular German wore the yellow jersey in 2005, he did not expect his team to keep him in the golden tunic and surrendered the coveted jersey shortly thereafter.
Such is the difference between the Stars and the Water Carriers as chronicled in the excellent 1973 documentary by Jorgen Leth. But it's not an entirely altruistic pursuit. The riders are paid to pedal for their leader and if that leader happens to be Lance Armstrong, it paid well. The Texas Tornado is rumored to have paid a personal bonus to each of his support riders well into five figures. Clearly, he realized that without his teammates' tireless support, he would not have worn yellow in Paris year after year after year.
Some team leaders have clauses written into their contract that mandates a payout by the team of $10,000 to $20,000 for each rider who finishes the Tour if their leader wins. The money is nice, but can it make up for giving up a rider's personal aspirations? Racers such as Jose Luis "Che Chu" Rubiera and Jose Azevedo were legitimate overall contenders when contracted by Lance's team to ride in support. Both of these riders had top-10 finishes in other major tours and with the right circumstances might have been able to win the Tour.
However, there is a difference between being a contender and being a winner, and if your chances of victory are slim, there is a huge amount of personal satisfaction in helping someone else to the top spot on the podium. When you see the winner on the Champs Elysees in Paris, think of the support riders who were crucial in getting him there. They'll all be partying somewhere in Paris that night and all will have smiles--because without the domestiques, the champagne would still be corked.