Word: anquetil
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...most popular athletes on the Continent, the handsome Belgian dominates bike racing the way Brazil's Pelé rules soccer. Fans hail him as the "Beethoven of the bike." Sportswriters call him "the synthesis of bulldozer and adding machine." France's own great racer, Jacques Anquetil, simply shrugs: "Unbelievable...
...France's Jacques Anquetil, 30: the Tour de France bicycle race for an unparalleled fourth straight year, and his fifth win in eight years of competition. After 23 days on the grueling, 2,816-mi. course that snakes in and out of six countries, only 81 of 132 starters were still riding as the tour swung into the final 17-mi. dash for Paris. Anquetil had a bare 14-sec. lead over his closest pursuer, but then bike racing's reigning rajah turned it on and pumped across the finish line for a 55-sec. victory, slimmest margin...
France's Jacques Anquetil, 29, is the world's best bicycle racer-and one of its most unpopular athletes. A one-time baker's helper from Sotteville (literally: Stupidville) in Normandy, he makes a fetish of independence-testily ignoring fans, truculently snubbing opponents, even going so far as to wear his watch on his right wrist, simply because most people wear theirs on the left. Critics complain that Anquetil "does not like to suffer" (a quality Frenchmen demand in heroes) and that he races "like an accountant" (always conserving his strength, never taking risks). "Jacques," his coach...
Over the Hill? Anquetil can afford to be rude. He is the only cyclist ever to win all three of Europe's top marathon races-the Tour de France, the Giro d'ltalia and the Vuelta a España. He once set a world record by covering 46,159 km. (about 29 miles) in one hour and he has won the Grand Prix des Nations, a kind of World Series of bike racing, seven times. The sport pays him $150,000 a year, and he lives in champagne luxury-beautiful blonde wife, country house near Rouen, Mercedes...
...Anquetil leaves, and Sebastian pursues his amour with the ageing but resplendent beauty. When scandal threatens, however, she abandons him, though it costs her her heart and her youth. Sebastian roams on darkly, rebellious but ineffective. For a time he finds a pretty young middle-class doctor's wife refreshing, until her bourgeois virtue thwarts him. Later he loves a hard-headed little model for her honest kindness, and there is mention of a game-keeper's daughter. His only steadfast affection is for Chevron, its venerable house, its loyal tenantry, even its exhausting duties. Increasingly the proprieties grow upon...