On the afternoon of the 20th April 1980, while a little girl, called Anita Pethő ( the author of PelotonTales blog) was born in a small town in North-West Hungary, on the other part of Europe, in Belgium, Bernard Hinault delivered one of the most iconic victories in the history of the Monuments.
Snow can often turn a road cycling race into an epic saga. If heroism is an important keyword in the world of sport (and yes, it is, definitely), then a snowy afternoon offers a myriad of challenging moments for cyclists to prove they are able to overcome all the obstacles with heroic effort. Riding in snow is very unconfortable, also quite dangerous for several reasons (slippery roads, low visibility, etc), but being able to get to the finis line is always an epic victory, not only for the winners, bur for eceryone who finish a race amomg such terrible weather conditions.
The Liège-Bastogne-Liège held on 20th April 1980 was one of those terribly epic moments in the history of road cycling.
The event started in a raging snow storm already. After an hour of riding, only 60 (from 174) cyclists were still in the race. Even Bernard Hinault was about to abandon it. When Maurice Le Guilloux, his only remaining teammate later recalled the situation, he described Hinault’s state of mind like as captain of a sinking ship. He wanted to be the last rider of his Renault-Gitane team to give up the race. But Le Guilloux was still there, thus Hinault continued riding too.
It was already in the road back from Bastogne when the intensity of snowing eased a bit and even the sun came out for a little while, when Hinault’s race really began.
At this point Rudy Pevenage was riding at the heaf of the race. Between him and Hinault there were other riders ( Ludo Peeter, Silvano Contini,and Henk Lubberdin) too. Hinault’s plan was to ride in a strong group at the front, while making impossible for others to join them from the peloton.
But with 80 km to go, Hinault found himself at the front of the race alone.
He arrived in Liège after a 7 hour ride . The second rider, Hennie Kuiper came nine and half minutes later.
Only 21 riders were able to finish Liège-Bastogne-Liège on that day.