Responsible for public relations, and not a manager as is often said, Francis Lafargue never stops responding to invitations and requests of all kinds addressed to Miguel Indurain. Mission which he always carries out with even humor. The Biarrot, based in Larressore for almost ten years, is both the steward and the confidant of the Navarrese. But it was also from Pedro Delgado. A story of men and friendship born from a common passion: cycling. A simple story.
Could Francis Lafargue, a modest social security employee in Bayonne, have guessed that Jose-Miguel Echavarri, one fine day, would call him to his side? “When I was young,” he says, “I cycled with Dominique Arnaud and Biscay who won the “Kilomètre Rustine” under the colors of VC Biarrot. At that time, Jose-Miguel Echavarri was racing professionally with BIC. I must have met him two or three times in Biarritz where he came from time to time to see one of his uncles. But our most memorable meeting was undoubtedly on the occasion of San Fermín, in Pamplona, where he ran a bar. He remembered it a little later…”.
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Francis Lafargue still had to not have left the cycling world. Immediately after his national service, he tried rugby, as tradition requires when you are Basque and the attraction of a life in the open air turns you away from trinquets. In Arcangues and Larressore, bib number 15 was pinned to his fleece jersey. Damn he couldn’t lie: failing to supplant Serge Blanco, he married Nande Iraçabal, the niece of the ineradicable pillar of Rowing.
Souvenir of Pamplona
In 1980, the engagement of his friend, Dominique Arnaud, in the brand new Reynolds team, brought him back to cycling. “At that time,” recalls Francis Lafargue, “Spanish cycling was at its lowest point. However, Reynolds was entered in the Tour in 1983. The same year when Jose-Miguel Echavarri, perhaps spurred by the Tarnosian, remembered the “festayre” he encountered in a feverish street in Pamplona. “He called me to be his interpreter,” says Francis Lafargue. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. To tell the truth, I was lucky, and in the following years too, to find a lot of understanding among my employers. I took a lot of my vacation time to follow the Reynolds team. But they never prevented me from taking unpaid leave if necessary.”
The article from “Sud Ouest” devoted to Francis Lafargue, July 26, 1992.
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This is because Francis Lafargue was becoming more and more essential to the sports director of the Spanish team. 1988 in the background. The year of Pedro Delgado. “My best and my worst memory,” says Biarrot even today. Where the announcement made to the press that Segovian had been declared positive, although the incriminated product, probenicide, was not on the list banned by the UCI, caused confusion until the arrival in Paris. “Still happy that Perico showed himself to be strong then. Me, because of this affair, I lost 5 kilos in three days…”.
Since then, rest assured, Francis Lafargue has found his figure. Or rather its lines, whose roundness is reminiscent of the rolling hills of this Basque Country to which he is so attached. This corner of France where Pedro Delgado and Miguel Indurain come to pay a good slice when the opportunity is offered to them. “They both know that the house is always open to them and the refrigerator well stocked. You may not know it, but Perico is a foodie. He knows all the good restaurants in the area and the Ibarboure brothers’ restaurant, in Guéthary, has no secrets for him.” When he talks about the duettists from Banesto, Francis Lafargue speaks of them as his brothers. It is true that, since 1989, the date of his definitive commitment to the Spanish team, he has worked with them regularly. “That year, I took the plunge. I am indebted to Social Security for not having done anything that could prevent me from combining an original passion with a new profession. Beyond the salary that was offered to me, I was entering the field of my dreams.”
Sort it out
A choice all the less difficult to make as the 1990s heralded the reign of the conquistador of Villava. “Perhaps,” Francis Lafargue corrects, “but I still had to open up to Nande, my wife.” Today, in Larressore, she is even more alone than before. Of course, there are always Maïder and Peyo with her, but the trips of the master of the house have become longer, more frequent too. It’s Miguel’s fault.
Miguel Indurain, Francis Lafargue knows him inside and out. “Since 1983 exactly. I watched him grow up on the Reynolds team when we were still a small team traveling on a sluggish bus. We may forget it, but in 1987, the year before the advent of Perico, there were only four Reynolds at the finish of the Tour in Paris: Gorospé Hernandez-Ubeda, Marc Gomez and Miguel …”
Was the champion already breaking through under the teammate? “We knew he had qualities, but to imagine that he could win the Tour de France! I remember that, at the time, when he came to my house, those who saw him thought he was a rugby player.” Oh? “Miguel is an extraordinary guy. His great strength is this serenity that he exudes daily. However, he is also capable of getting angry. But he never holds grudges…”.
The day the biography of Miguel Indurain is written, we can bet that Francis Lafargue will be the ghostwriter. Isn’t he already taking care of all his post-Tour contracts? “And unfortunately I have to make choices. All the criterium organizers are asking for it, but his goal now is the world championship which will take place on September 6, in Bénodorme where his fiancée’s parents live. For the moment, final agreement has only been given to Monein, Château-Chinon, Hendaye and Lourdes. I know that my friend, Georges Barrière, is waiting for him in Castillon-la-Bataille, but I don’t see how we’re going to be able to do it. Especially since Miguel, during this period, absolutely wants to attend the Olympic Games. And then, after, in the late season, he is still expected in Norway, Japan, Mexico and Guadeloupe. And it’s up to me to sort it out…”.
Suffice to say that in Larressore, Nande, Maïder and Peyo may well not see much of the man they have been impatiently waiting for since the start of the Giro and the arrival of the Tour. On Monday, he will not have left Paris and, on Tuesday, he will be in Pamplona where, like last year, Miguel Indurain will be received with great pomp at the Parliament of Navarre. How far away the days of Social Security are but how sweet it is, at the end of a Tour with European contours, the sound of the shield.
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