Phil Liggett: I was so right about Cadel Evans, so wrong about Lance Armstrong

Phil Liggett, the global doyen of cycling commentary, has announced his (partial) retirement. I spoke to him on Thursday.

Fitz: Phil! You’ve just finished covering your17th Olympics! That must make you – dot three, carry one, subtract two – old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was only sick? Is it that simple equation which caused you to announce that on the day that this is published – Sunday – is not just your birthday, but also the day of your retirement from the Olympics?

Phil Liggett with Cadel Evans in 2010. Liggett predicted Evans would win Le Tour, 13 years before it happened.Credit: Vince Caligiuri

PL: Yes. I won’t be at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles because I don’t want to bore people, and I’ll be approaching 85 years of age. But I will be doing all my other work for the foreseeable future, and so I will be on the Tour de France, which will be my 53rd, and I will be at the Tour Down Under and so on. So not full retirement, but it was certainly nice to be able to read all these kind obituary pieces, and see what people think of you after your “death”!

Fitz: How old were you when you became completely engrossed by cycling? And how do you explain its massive attraction to those like me, who try, but just don’t quite get, why people are so absorbed by it?

PL: Growing up in regional England, I was totally useless at every other sport. In rugby, they just threw me into touch. In cricket, I couldn’t bowl. In football, the only goal I scored was when the goalkeeper had gone home. But I loved fishing and bought a bike, so I could put the fishing pole along the crossbar. And then my best friend said, “Phil, I want you to come cycling with me this Sunday.” I said, “I’m not coming out on a Sunday on a bike or anything else. It’s the only day of the week I get a hot meal.”

Fitz: You nearly missed out on the whole thing?

The key to good commentary? “Tell the story in pictures, to add to what the audience can already see.”Credit:

PL: Yes, but then he kept on about all these places he’d seen, like Wales, which was only 20 kilometres away. I’d never been to Wales, as we had no car in the family. And so I went cycling, and I found out how engrossing the sport is for the friendship and wonder of seeing so many things, how beautiful my country was, and that I was also quite good at riding a bike.

Fitz: So good in fact, you nearly went on the Tour!

PL: Yes, I went to Belgium for a year to see if I could get a pro contract, but unfortunately, I wasn’t as good as a guy called Eddy Merckx who, to this day, is the greatest bike rider who’s ever lived. Since then, we’ve become friends and I told him: “You’re the reason I didn’t turn professional.” To which Eddie said, “What’s the reason?” “Because I could never beat you, Eddy, you were too good.” And he looked at me. His eyes went from my feet to my face, and then he said, “You ... beat me?” I said, “That’s what I mean. That’s why I didn’t turn pro.”

Fitz: And so to commentary ...

PL: Yes, I started by picking up a microphone at a local bicycle race. Before long the BBC rang up and said, “Can you do a radio report on this race for 30 seconds?” And I remember saying to my wife, “You won’t believe it, the BBC just sent me a check for £15 for a 30-second report!”

Fitz: And look at you now, Phil. Looking back over all those Olympics, including the winter ones, could you name the top three Games, just in terms of vibe and presentation?

Liggett with fellow SBS Tour de France commentators Mike Tomalaris and (right) the late Paul Sherwen in 2011.Credit: AAP

PL: Without doubt, when I attended Sydney 2000, they were the best. The Sydney Games were perfect in every way, but then they were replaced in first spot by ... London in 2012. I was calling a race at the track, when Sir Paul McCartney spontaneously stood up and started the crowd singing, Hey Jude. Wow. It echoed through the whole stadium. The riders stopped racing. They all looked up, and there was Sir Paul McCartney. And it was magic. I said to Lord Sebastian Coe, the organiser, “Hey Seb, I’ve got to say to you, 100 per cent congratulations. You put on the finest Olympic Games I’ve ever been at.” And he just looked at me, and then he looked at the crowd all cheering and singing, and he says, “How could I lose? Look at the people, all enjoying themselves.” [His voice grows hoarse.] I’m breaking up thinking about it ... So, London comes in as my top, beating by a whisker, Sydney. The third one, probably Paris!

Fitz: Your favourite moment at these Games in Paris?

PL: I interviewed Cadel Evans under the Arc de Triomphe. I said, “Cadel, the last time I interviewed you, was just 200 metres from where we’re standing right now and you had just won in 2011 the Tour de France”. And there we were in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. And that brought it all home to him.

Cadel Evans celebrates his triumph at the Tour de France in 2011. Credit: Bernard Papon, AP

Fitz: You and Cadel had a bit of history?

PL: Yes, back in 1998 in Tasmania I saw him ride the Tour of Tasmania and climb Mount Wellington. I said to Phil Anderson, who was a superstar coming off his career at the time, “We’ve got to stop this kid riding mountain bikes. This kid could win the Tour de France.”

Later that evening I saw Cadel at the bottom of the mountain, and I said: “Cadel, you’ve got to pack in this mountain biking. I believe you’ve got all the ability required to win the Tour de France.” He was not convinced and had other commitments. Then he did turn pro and when he won the Tour in 2011 I had to jump over the barriers because SBS wanted a hot interview. I grabbed his left shoulder, and I said, “Cadel, could we chat? I need to speak to you.” And he turned around and said, “It was you.” I said, “What was me?” “You told me in 1998 that I was going to win the Tour de France.” I said, “I did, but I didn’t expect it to take you 13 years!”

Fitz: OK, some quick-fire questions, if you will. Who’s your favourite commentator from other sports?

PL: I was a friend of the great motor racing commentator Murray Walker. The purpose of being a commentator is to tell the story in pictures, to add to what the audience can already see, to stop the little old lady making the tea until the commercial break, and Murray was great at that. You’ve got to make them want to stay and watch the show. So on the Tour de France I threw in a few things about the birds and the animals and the châteaux. I told stories about what they were seeing, and it definitely worked.

Fitz: On that subject, you’ve done 52 Tours de France, a tour de force. What’s your favourite part of France?

PL: It’s got to be the Ardèche down towards the Pyrenees, with the Tarn Gorges and the beauty left behind by the Romans who penetrated that area a lot. They left behind beautiful buildings and monuments among all the gorges.

Fitz: When will an Australian next win Le Tour?

PL: Between three and five years. There’s a lot of great talent coming through.

Cyclist Jai Hindley is one of two Australian riders who could win the Tour de France within five years, Liggett says. The other is Ben O’Connor.Credit: Joerg Mitter / Red Bull Content Pool

Fitz: OK. If you had to put the sheep station on one Australian to win within five years – an English sheep station, which is probably two hectares – which one of our riders would you put it on to win?

PL: Ben O’Connor or Jai Hindley.

Fitz: How does Tour Down Under compare to the European stage races?

PL: Very highly. I said it from the word go, even when they flew me out there, business class, to Australia – to fly me around the courses in the helicopter – and I remember the Channel 10 helicopter landed on the sacred square down at Adelaide Oval and I thought the groundkeeper was going to shoot us. But it is the people of South Australia who make it, who turn out in such numbers and are so enthusiastic. The organisers have done a brilliant job.

Fitz: You were a proud supporter of diversity in cycling before diversity was even a thing, and you always pushed African participation in cycling. What will be the impact of Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay winning the green jersey in this year’s Tour?

PL: A million more kids riding bikes is the answer. As simple as that. I have friends in Eritrea who sent me footage of kids dancing in the centre of the town because of Biniam, then little kids rushing around the streets, riding bikes. The atmosphere was magic, all happiness and friendship.

Fitz: How do you rate Tadej Pogačar doing the Giro/Tour double this year in such emphatic fashion?

PL: Hats off to the kid. I mean, we commentated on him when he won his first Tour de France and we said at the time he would go far. He’s racing because he loves to race. He just wants to win. He’s got no plan. He doesn’t know when he’s going to attack. This is why he’s very hard to beat because he annoys the peloton. He’ll just attack, and now they’ve got to chase him or they don’t know what he’s going to do.

Fitz: Of your 52 tours, 11 Summer Olympics, all your Giros and all the rest, what’s the standout race?

PL: Tour de France 1989. Greg LeMond, the great American cyclist, had won the Tour in 1986. Then, in 1987, his brother-in-law shot him by mistake while hunting turkeys, and put 200 pellets in his back – nearly killed him. In rehab for 18 months, in a wheelchair, and he had to push himself around and nobody wanted to give him a pro contract. But he got one and on the final day of the Tour, a great young Frenchman, Laurent Fignon, had a 50-second lead, with 24 kilometres to go from Palace of Versailles to the Champs-Élysées. I did a cross before it started, and my cohost said “It’s got to be Fignon, because he lives here. Closing up 50 seconds in just 24 kilometres is not enough.” So I looked down the camera and I said, “I think Greg LeMond will win, and I think he will win by six seconds.” Well, he won by eight seconds, and my producer back in London yelled down the line into my ear, “Next time, Liggett, get it bloody right!” And then I burst into tears, I was so moved.

Fitz: OK, to the last, and most difficult question. Lance Armstrong. You were the last man left standing defending him, and were proven wrong. When I even mention his name, do you just groan and go, “Oh God, here we go again”?

PL: Well, I do. But ... I know the whole story of Lance. I knew him from the minute he turned pro, and he was so good. And then he got cancer, and took time off to fight it. When he got back, he realised what was going on in the tour, with doping. He gave the ultimatum to his team, “if you want to ride the Tour de France on my team, we have to dope because there’s no other way to win the event, and we’ll do it better”. I know that now. I didn’t know it at the time. I did a lot of work on Lance’s charity side, and I saw a different man. He raised over $600 million for cancer charity. $600 million!

‘You bastard’: Lance Armstrong’s cheating felt like a personal betrayal to Liggett who had been one of his biggest supporters.Credit: AP

Fitz: Sure, but the core of it is this: I was a bitter critic of Armstrong for many years from a huge distance. And I said, “this guy is as hot as mustard. This guy must have flecks of urine in his drugs.” And yet, you were right in the middle of it, and really were the last defender. Do you feel bitterly betrayed by him?

PL: Difficult to say. I sat in his bedroom three years before he ever got to the confessing, and I said, “For God’s sake, Lance, don’t take drugs because it’s going to be bloody difficult.” He said, “I don’t take drugs.” But I also saw how he was with cancer victims, how caring he was. This is a different guy to the guy who thought he was doing his job to cheat to win.

Fitz: But you sound like you’re defending him now. Did you never say to him what needed to be said, “Lance, I trusted you. I defended you. You’re a filthy cheat. Never darken my towels again!”

PL: I never had the chance. Never saw him from the day he confessed. He confessed in America, and he never spoke to me again. And I’ve never actually physically seen him since.

Fitz: What would you say to him? Would you say, “You, filthy, stinking cheat”?

PL: Aussies might do that. I’m just a nice, polite Englishman. I’d say, “Lance, you really let the side down,” in a most polite English manner. “I’ve seen both sides, as I say, and the job he did with sick people, I totally supported. But of course, like everybody else, I suspected the fact that it must be true, but nobody was proving it. And I’m not going to run out and try to prove what nobody else could prove, from every agency, from the top to the bottom. The only reason he confessed was because his son was being beaten up at school because they’re always saying “Your dad’s a drug taker,” and the kid got into a fight every time. And so he finally said to his son, “I did it. I have taken drugs, so don’t try to defend me ever again.”

Fitz: Well, I guess that does show some integrity.

PL: Well, yeah, but then when he went and confessed on television, I was in a Hilton Hotel in a special room and I just watched with devastation. I thought, “you bastard”. That was my immediate thoughts.

Fitz: Phil. Your career has been, appropriately enough, like one of the great stages of the Pyrenees, a tour d’horizon. Long, strong climb, mostly peaks thereafter, rim the precipice, and finishing strong near the summit. Warmest congratulations.

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