Sylwester Szmyd

Sylwester Szmyd

Picture the scene: you arc

lovingly polishing a battered and blackened pre-War bidon when a genie appears in a puff of smokc, clad in retro gear.

He makes you an interesting offer: a long and honourable career as a professional road racer, capped by one - but only one - magnificent victory. Whcre would you want yours? The Pordoi, the Tourmalet, the Champs? And at what price, in ycars of domestique drudgery?

This sccnario is evocative of the brilliant mountain domestique Sylwester Szmyd, seen most recently hclping his Liquigas team-mates Ivan Basso and Yinccnzo Nibali to first and third place respectively in May’s Giro dTtalia, and then riding july’s Tour de France, again for Basso.

Szmyd's unusual career statistics suggest a malignant folk tale. Ycars spent hclping the worlds best climbers and stage-race specialists: ten. Days of individual glory: just the one. But what a win! And what a setting! Mont Ventoux, during the 2009 Dauphine Libere.

The race was on, with 13.4km to go. Szmyd flashed out of the pcloton. Basso darted after him, Jesus Hernandez in tow, his open shirt cracking like a whip in the breezc. The movc only lasted for 300m but its violcnce rcduccd the yellow jersey group from half the pcloton to 13 elitę riders.

Make that 12: Szmyd had already launched another attack.

Fora while hc vanished into the space between moto one, covcring the survivors of an early breakaway up the road, and moto two, which stayed with yellow jersey Cadel Evans. With 12km to go, fivc riders tried to cross to him. Only two, Basso and Zubeldia, persisted. They too disappeared into the void between the camera bikes.

H hen, with 9.3km to go, Alcjandro Valverde shot out of the group. As Szmyd piloted Basso and Zubeldia up to the wiking stage leaders, 1500m later, Valverdc rodc past them all. “When Valverdc rcached us, Ivan said ‘okay’, because he wasn’t fccling good,” says Szmyd, in the present day. “Until then, 8km from the finish linę, Fd bccn riding for him. Out of 25km of climbing,

I only rodc the last eight for myself.” Haitner Zubeldia waśni able to follow. It took Szmyd 300m to catch Valvcrde, they exchangcd glances and then took turns at the front for the ncxt 6km.

Fast forward to the last kilometrc. Suddenly, inexplicably, the hitherto brilliant Szmyd was in crisis. The tension in his shouldcrs dispersed. Hc

“OUT OF 25KM OF CLIMBING, I ONLY RODE THE LAST EIGHT FOR MYSELF.”

coasted, head down, then almost camc to a standstill as Valverde sprinted away. The water-carrier’s fear of victory? Hc said after the stage,

“My legs just stopped. I thought I might be sick.”

Fast forward again, to near the finish linę. Valvcrdc camc into vicw then, bchind him, Szmyd appeared, rocketing back into contention. As Valverde entered the finał corner, Szmyd tore past. Victory was his.

"I always wanted a race win.” Szmyd rccalls in the Provenęal village of Vencttc during this ycar’s Dauphine, “but 1 didn’t want to be allowed to join a breakaway, and then to make it to the foot of the finał climb with 15 minutes’ advantagc. I wanted to win a great mountain stage levcl-pegging with the best.” Through the window, Mont Ventoux's haunting outline looms. Szmyd glances at it as hc speaks. “That’s how I won up thcrc.”

He was 31 when hc took his first win. At this moment of latc consummation, his entire career passed before his cyes. "When I was 10,1 didn’t want to be hanging around in front of the building smoking. My parents bought mc a bikc and 1 thought, Tli try this’,” hc said. “I lived in Bydgoszcz, where Romet bikes were manufactured. The factory is gonc now but, in thosc days, Romet

backed Poland’s best cycling club. Two or three years after 1 started, they gavc me one of the bcatitiful bicycles they madę for the national team. I was overwhelmed.”

Szmyd goes on to talk about the heroes of Polish cycling: Ryszard Szurkowski, who won the World amateur titlc in Barcelona in 1973, with Stanisław Szozda second in that race and fourth in 1974. For Szurkowski, the 1974 Paris-Nice was declarcd open to allow him, an amateur, to race F.ddy Merckx. They crosscd swords in a couple of swashbuckling attacks, then Szurkowski fell and abandoned the race.

/•w

Szmyd’s real inspiracion is Szurkowskie succcssor, Joachim I lalupczok, amateur world champion at Chambery in 1989.

“He was 10 ycars older than me but 1 was already riding when he won the world title. Hc turned professional and rodc the Tour ofltaly. Hc abandoned the race after 15 stages, when hc was fifth or sixth ovcrall. In the end, hc had hcart problcms and had to retire. I Ie was playing football in his villagc in Poland when hc had a fatal hcart attack." That was in 1994. A year earlicr, Zenon Jaskula had finished third in the Tour de France. Polish cycling was in frccfall. By the timc Szmyd started, hc was on his own.

“1 went by myself to Italy to race in my last year of high school. 1 was 19 and I had to take all my schoolbooks with me and then go back to sit the cxams. For three years, I didn’t have a Computer or a mobile phonc. I spokc to my parents once a week using a 5,000-lire phonecard. And 1 wasn’t winning. 1 wasn't like Peter Sagan: young, earning good money, surrounded by friends. 1 didn’t drcam of being a champion. 1 just wanted to make a living.” During his first two years as an amateur in Italy, hc took no race wins. In his third year, howcvcr. he took four, while sharing a fiat with a much stronger Russian named Dimitri Gainidinov, who won sevcn or eight intcrnational races. Wini Caldirola signed him up and hc took me with him," he says.

Szmyd spent two years at Vini Caldirola, riding for their Austrian climbcr Peter Luttcnburger, and then for Dario Frigo - at a time when, we now know, somc riders were spending up to C’50.000 a year on doping produets. “The elitę, yes. Middlc-ranking riders must have bcen spending less. Imaginc what it was like for ncw professionals, with nonę of t hat assistance. 1 was paid to ridc fast in the mountains but. at the Tours ofltaly and Spain, I could barcly rcach the foor of the finał climb in the leading group. There were days I was dropped when thcrc were still 60 or 70 in the pcloton.” ©

1’ROCYCLINCi NOYl-MBKR 2010