By Charlie Melk

Life can be full of ironic balance, depending on how you look at it. Sometimes the confluence of two separate events can seem cosmically intertwined for the sake of easy comparison and contrast.

Two members of professional cycling’s class of '94, which includes such notable big-hitters as Servais Knaven, George Hincapie, Daniele Nardello, Gilberto Simoni, and Axel Merckx, to name a few, were making headlines last week. And as is often the case, one can certainly find important parallels in their respective careers. Yet as one of these riders deliberately chose the appointed time, place, and manner of his swansong, the other’s (imminent) demise is certainly predicated by perpendicular actions that were set into motion long ago, when he decided that dopage sportif was a necessary immorality.

While our first rider’s career ended in what can best be described as a well-earned dream, his contemporary’s fate remains to be determined, though his professional future certainly appears nightmarish. The riders I speak of are Patrick Jonker and Philippe Gaumont.

Jonker started out as a stagiaire for the Varta (1992) and Wordperfect (1993) teams before securing his first professional contract in 1994, with Novemail, Peter Post’s tough as nails classics squad. Hardly a slow starter, Jonker, who had always been considered a potential grand tour G.C. threat, didn’t disappoint in his first season, with overall top five finishes in the Dutch Road Championships and the Route du Sud, as well as overall top ten finishes in such prestigious races as the Dauphine Libere and the Midi Libre.

The years 1995 and 1996 saw Patrick riding for the mighty ONCE team, where he scored 12th overall in the Tour de France, stage wins in the Abom Mt. Buller Tour and the Volta a Catalunya, a third place finish in the Veenendaal-Veenendaal Semi-Classic, and top ten placings in the Midi Libre, the Classique des Alpes, and the Olympic Time Trial.

After two successful seasons in Spain, Patrick returned to Holland and the powerhouse Rabobank team of Jan Raas, where during the seasons of 1997, 1998, and 1999 he amassed such significant victories as the Route du Sud (1997), the Dutch Time Trial Championship (1998), and the G.P. Wallonie (1999), as well as top ten placings in the Bicicleta Vasca and the Dauphine Libere, and top five placings in the Tour du Haute Var, the Regio Tour, the Tour Mediterraneen, the Route du Sud, and the Dutch Road Championships.

Going on the strength of his previous palmares, Jonker was recruited by U.S. Postal for the 2000 season. Unfortunately, he developed a chronic tendonitis problem in his ankle during this time and was relatively unsuccessful due to this malady, with a 13th place in the Amstel Gold Race being his only notable result that year. Significantly, this was also Patrick’s final season on a Division I team.

Patrick Jonker at Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2000.
Courtesy USPS Pro Cycling.

Riding for the French Big Mat team in 2001 and 2002, Jonker proved that he wasn’t just hanging around as pack-fill, with a top ten finish in the Tour Down Under (2001), top five placings in the Tour Mediterraneen, the G.P. Isbergues, the Australian Open Road Championship, as well as podium finishes in the G.P. Quest France Classic, the Tour du Limousin, and the Tour Down Under (2002).

The 2003 season saw Patrick riding for the small Dutch team Van Hemert Groep CT, his only notable result occurring in Australia, and not Europe, at the Tour Down Under, where he placed seventh in 2003. The lack of UCI results, however, was probably more due to the fact that his team couldn’t gain entry into the more prominent events, and not that he wasn’t up to it, based on his previous steady line of achievements.

And that brings us to 2004, where, as we now know, Mr. Jonker lit it up on the first stage of the Jacob’s Creek Tour Down Under in what appeared to be, and he later called, a "suicide break," on stage one. The pressure was on. He had delivered on every occasion he had entered this, Australia’s most prestigious, stage race, and he had always been mere seconds out of the win.

Even more so, this was his "hometown" race, and he wanted to go out on top, announcing his pending retirement upon completion of the Tour. As he showed us, it was full-gas from moment one this year, and he had the grit to stay with the leaders on every successive stage, as his stage one breakaway cohorts fell away one by one, despite the fact that he was riding on a young composite team and a composite team had never been able to challenge the big European Division I teams in the Tour Down Under. Only Lotto-Domo’s hard charging Robbie McEwen was cause for concern on the final stage circuit race in Adelaide, but Jonker knew he had it sewn up on the last lap, and had a few precious moments of race time to relish his most significant career victory.

After working his way up the ladder and then not giving up on himself on the almost irresistible slide down from the top, Patrick Jonker showed us all what it means to be a person of quality, and how such a person rises to a career-defining occasion in heroic style. He exits the sport a champion, and few cyclists, even many with a palmares far more glamorous on paper than he, can say that. To that, I say, "Good on ya, mate!"

Philippe Gaumont started out fairly anonymously in the pro peloton. Riding for the French Castorama team his first two seasons, a team directed by the legendary Cyril Guimard, he had no results to speak of, which is fairly common for a young professional. Despite this lack of results, however, he must have left a good impression, because he moved to Roger Legeay’s powerful Gan squad in 1996, riding alongside Chris Boardman.

Going from absolutely no results at all in ’94 and ’95, Gaumont exploded onto the scene in 1996, winning the prestigious Four Days of Dunkerque, the Tour De L’Oise, and the Tour de la Cote Picardie, as well as taking second in the Vendee International Classic.

One could certainly look at these results and rationalize that Phillipe had finally hit his stride; that he finally "got it," or understood what it takes to become a top level professional. Extending that thought with a cynical twist, however, one could have conceivably connected his testing positive for Nandralone, an anabolic steroid, in this very same year to his recent successes, and given credit to the drugs and not him. However one chooses to view this episode, Gaumont’s reputation was tarnished, though it was not to be the last time.

One of two things probably happened after this episode. Either Legeay didn’t want to have anything to do with Gaumont after the positive Nandralone test and didn’t invite him back for the 1997 season, or Gaumont’s stock had risen above the realm of morality, and Alaine Bondue, of Cofidis, just had to have him.

We have to keep in mind that this decision was made before the 1998 Festina Affaire at the Tour de France, when doping was probably much easier to get away with than it is now, or at least a lot more systematic within teams in general—I try not to be too cynical, but it’s getting more difficult. In any case, Gaumont moved to Cofidis in 1997, and promptly won a stage of the Four Days of Dunkuerque and the Ghent-Wevelgem Classic, as well as podium appearances on Stage 20 of the Tour de France (a time trial), the French National Championship Time Trial, and Stage One of the Giro del Trentino.

It is interesting to note that between the years 1994 and 1997, Gaumont had risen from total obscurity in the UCI rankings to entering the celebrated circle of the top 100 best cyclists in the world, at 74th. Interestingly enough, Patrick Jonker, who had enjoyed a much steadier rise toward the upper echelons of the professional peloton, was ranked 73rd at this time! SPOOKY!

The 1998 season saw more than its fair share of misfortune for professional cycling in general, and Philippe Gaumont would once again play a specific part. After winning a road stage of the Midi Libre, securing podium spots in time trial stages of the Midi Libre and Tour de Suisse and the overall of Etoille de Beseges, and taking top five placings in Stage Five of the Tour de France and the Trofeo Luis Puig, Gaumont quit the Vuelta a España while in 4th place on G.C. after finding out that he had tested positive for Nandralone AGAIN in May, and coincidentally, during the Midi Libre, where he won a stage and placed second in another.

While Gaumont protested his innocence, it appeared strange that he would abandon the Vuelta while on such obviously good form. We now know this doping scandal as the "Sainz-Lavelot" Affaire, and one of Gaumont’s best friends, Frank Vandenbroucke, was also implicated. But the investigation failed to prove that Gaumont took doping products, inextricably, after a positive in-competition test, and after receiving a brief suspension from Cofidis, he was reinstated. The reason, according to a Cofidis official: "In this situation, it would be illogical to maintain the suspension of the rider." It boggles the mind!

Philippe Gaumont and Frederic Finot at the 2002 Cholet Pays de Loire.
Courtesy Cholet Pays de Loire.

Still with Cofidis during the seasons of 1999-2002, Gaumont had no results to speak of, unless one counts as a result the express refusal of the organizers of the Societe du Tour de France to allow him to compete at the Tour de France—meaning a direct result of his actions—and I would, though something tells me that he might disagree.

The 2003 season saw a brief revival in Gaumont’s form, with top ten placings in the G.P. des Nations Time Trial, the Tour of Picardie, and the Hessen Rundfahrt, a top five placing in the French National Time Trial Championship, and a third place in the Prologue Time Trial of Paris-Nice.

On paper, one could argue that Gaumont’s 2003 campaign looked fairly respectable, until one takes into account that in just the last week he admitted to taking the notorious (in a sporting sense) red blood cell booster EPO, along with other, as of yet unspecified, doping agents in competition. It’s important to note how "streaky" Gaumont’s career results have been, too. When one connects the fact that all of his best seasons were immediately preceding doping busts, it’s difficult to take them seriously. Likewise, every season after such a bust, and sometimes whole seasons in a row afterward, bore little if any fruit. Somehow, I am doubtful that Gaumont is rejoicing over his career at this moment.

In the end, it isn’t the results page that tells the full story, though; it is the feeling that a rider conveys for himself, his team, and his sport that expresses the true value of his career. It is a willingness to deal with both physical and emotional obstacles in an ethical sense. It is a willingness to stick it out in general, even when everything isn’t going right, without having to resort to devious means in order to achieve suspect, or undeserved ends. This is not only true for cyclists, though; it is true for all of us, whatever life-path we choose for ourselves.

And so, at the end of this page, I’m left with a feeling of elation for Patrick Jonker, who fought the good fight during the last ten years in arguably the world’s toughest sport and ended up going out on top; and a feeling of pity, if not outright contempt, for Philippe Gaumont, who proved several times throughout his career that he is not to be trusted.

Even now, after admitting the use of EPO, Gaumont doesn’t accept responsibility for his own actions. Rather, he maintains that 90% of the pro peloton is using one type of performance enhancing drug or another, a lame effort to deflect the blame away from his own admitted and deplorable actions. He blames the "system" for his faults. Let’s hope that the UCI and the Fédération Française de Cyclisme put a final end to Gaumont’s troubled career this time, rather than give him another chance to hurt both himself and the sport we fellow cyclists love so much.