Feature: L’Amore di Teramo

Before the peloton rolls into Teramo in today’s 10th stage of the Giro d’Italia, they’ll be one guy already there – just as he did 11 years ago. Anthony Tan retells the story of David McKenzie’s finest moment.

“What I get a kick out of is that at that time of year in Europe, it was probably one of the biggest sporting events on, and that day, it was probably televised to about 300 million people – and I managed to get four hours of airtime. So on that day, my name was broadcast over the airwaves over and over again – they probably got sick of it. But that was awesome for me; it couldn’t get any bigger.”

It was May 20, 2000. The seventh stage of the Giro d’Italia, and David McKenzie, then 25 years old, was riding his first Grand Tour for the ill-fated Linda McCartney cycling team.As little as a week before, McKenzie fell ill at the Tour de Romandie and had to abandon after four days. When he got home, he laid in bed for another four days.

“In my mind, I was always doing the Giro,” he says to me now from Italy, where he is working as a tour guide following the year’s first Grand Tour.

Besides, he didn’t have much choice. “By the time we got to the start of the Giro, we only had nine fit blokes, ready to go. We didn’t have any more than nine riders. I was going, whether I liked it or not. So I went into it really fresh, and a little bit underdone.”

While he may have been an Australian road champion, a six-time stage winner of the Herald Sun Tour, and a stage winner of the Tour de Langkawi, McKenzie didn’t go into the Giro as a leader. Nor as a co-leader. On his team were Britain’s Max Sciandri and the Olympic road champion from Atlanta, Pascal Richard, along with two other sprinters team manager Sean Yates and the man behind the wheel, Keith Lambert, considered better credentialed than he.

“I was really there in support of (my team-mates) Tayeb Braikia and Ciaran Power. I’d probably been relegated to the third sprinter in the team. But I was a bit of an opportunist,” he says.

“I did wake up that morning and say (to myself): “I’m on. I’m feelin’ bloody great and want to have a crack today.’ And I looked at the stage and knew it wasn’t mountainous; there were a couple of climbs and I thought, ‘could be day for a big break today...’

The stage was 182km in length. McKenzie took flight just 18km in.

Some stories say you made a bet with Robbie McEwen, who was riding for Farm Frites at the time...

“It wasn’t so much a bet. They started the stage (with the) usual attacks, left, right and centre. And then I rolled up beside him, and I was trying to get through to attack. By then everyone had called a truce; they called ‘piano’.

“And they were all across the road, and I said (to McEwen): ‘I want to go! I’ve got good legs, I want to attack!’ And he just said, ‘Go! Duck up the inside here. Jump out.’ You know what Robbie’s like – he’s like, ‘F**k ‘em, just do it!’ That was the conversation. That was pretty much what was said.”

Apart from a team car, a race official and a TV motorcycle, McKenzie was on his own. “First I was thinking of the Intergiro (sprint), then later I thought, ‘Nah, nah, I’ve got grander plans here...’”

The peloton decided that for now, the Australian would be the one that got away, but kept him checked at no more than 12 minutes, hoping he’d insidiously fry. And towards the finish, when the gap started to come down, an Italian, Eddy Mazzoleni of the Polti team, who bore the defending champion Ivan Gotti, began to chase after him.

“All sorts of things were going through my mind,” McKenzie told me seven years ago, when I first spoke to him about this. “As the gap started to come down and down I kept thinking I was going to be caught in the last kilometre. I thought, ‘Oh well, at least people will be sympathetic towards me.’”

But 4km from the finish Mazzoleni cracked, caught by the peloton being led by the Lampre and Mobilvetta squads.

“So then my morale went back up and went through the roof. I thought, ‘F**k, how strong am I goin’! I’ve been out all day and this Italian bloke can’t catch me and he’s just blown up!’”

The gap to McKenzie, however, was now under two-and-a-half minutes and closing.

“With nearly 2K to go, I nearly started crying with pain and emotions because the English director [Lambert] said, ‘they’re coming, they’re coming – you’ve got to push it all the way to the line.’ He had to get out of the gap, so I thought, ‘F**k, I’m going to get caught...’

However the peloton completely miscalculated the strength and tenacity of the blond-haired boy from Ballarat, and McKenzie won the stage by 51secs. “Nothing beats it. You wish you could go back and have the last 300m of the stage. Every now and then, I wish I could have it just once more,” he told me in our October 2005 interview, days after he announced his retirement from professional cycling. On the 22nd of that month and following the finish of the Melbourne to Warrnambool, a race he won four years previous, ‘Macka’ called it a day.

“To this day,” he says, the day before Tuesday’s stage to Teramo, “I’ve never pushed myself that hard – prior or after, in my whole career. [But] you grab that opportunity. I thought, ‘I may never get this opportunity again.’ As it turns out, I never did. I turned myself inside out; f**k, I was hurting. I could feel everything going through my body.

“And now that we’re talking about it, I guess you do feel a bit sentimental. Because I remember then, crossing the line, and I’m inside the area waiting to go on the podium, and Robbie (McEwen) was one of the first guys to come through (to congratulate me). You have a bit of a hug, then (Matt) Whitey came across the line and saw me on the podium... You’re high-fivin’ all the Aussies, your mates.”

Did you remember getting much publicity in Oz? Did anyone from the media call you?

“This is quite funny: the next morning, I’m lying in bed and my phone rings... and it was Tomo!”

Tomo? I say.

“Tomo was the only person that called – and he called me the very next morning. No matter what anyone says, you do look for recognition in your homeland, your home country. You want that recognition.”

Looking back, do you wish you’d done more, or were you happy that was the pinnacle of your career, your apotheosis as an athlete?

“Definitely the latter. Not at all thinking, ‘Geez, I wish I got more out of it.’

“Because hey, here we are, talking about it 11 years later. Like Sean Yates said to me that day, you’re always going to be introduced as a former Giro stage winner. It’s like royalties without getting the royalties!

“It’s that recognition. That’s all you ask for. Sometimes, it does get a little bit embarrassing – you think, ‘F**k, I’ve told this (story) that many times!’ But that’s what it is. I’m conscious of not to go on or milk it too much, because people get over it as much as you do. But at the same time, people still love it. (And) for the most part, you love every bit of it.”

McKenzie began cycling when he was eight years old. He’s now a few weeks shy of his 37th birthday. Is he just as passionate about the sport?

“Yeah, absolutely. The day (the tour group) rode to Rapallo the weather was beautiful, we were riding along the coast, everyone was loving it because they were all on holidays... I was thinking, ‘geez, how good is this job I’ve got?’ – and then we heard the terrible news (that Wouter Weylandt had died).

“Everyone was sombre, and you had a moment to reflect on how good your life is, and how you can’t take it for granted. And moments like that, you really do appreciate what you do. Well I do – maybe some people don’t – but I do, and I am passionate about the sport as a whole. Totally passionate.”

So how many times how you told your story this time ‘round?

“Oh, not enough mate! Not enough!” he says, followed by one his typically throaty guffaws.