Friday 10 March 2000

DAVE STUBBS

An Australian cyclist wandered up to Lachine's Genevieve Jeanson earlier this week, looked her square in the eye and called her an animal. Jeanson smiled brightly and thanked her for the compliment.

A colossal talent in a blossoming package, the 18-year-old native of Lachine pedaled to an extraordinary victory last night, crowned champion of the grueling nine-stage Tour de Snowy through the mountains of southern Australia. For six days, over 473 kilometres in searing heat, bone-chilling cold and torrential rains, Jeanson rode spoke-to-spoke with some of the world's finest and most experienced road-racers. Since Tuesday, when she steamed ferociously into the lead, she had challenged them to hunt her down.

They merely waved goodbye.

With this spectacular victory, her first international stage-race win, Jeanson is being heralded as one of her sport's most brilliant young talents, nearly a shoo-in to earn a spot on Canada's team to the Sydney Olympics. With another top-8 finish, perhaps as early as Sunday's Canberra Classic World Cup race, she will pre-qualify; two top-8s and a solid performance at the Olympic trials in July will send her back to Australia.

Jeanson began riding earnestly less than 3 1/2 years ago, trained then, and now, by Andre Aubut, once her high-school physical-education teacher. Last October, she shocked everyone but herself and Aubut by winning two junior world championships in Italy, a performance that got her thinking, quietly, about Sydney.

The Tour de Snowy has cranked up the volume louder and faster than your babysitter. But if you're looking for a swelled head, you won't find it here. Last night, Jeanson wasn't gazing dreamily in her rear-view mirror - there was too much credit to be shared, and one very long ribbon of training asphalt still to be traveled.

"I knew I was capable of winning, but I still had to do it," she said by phone in the moments before the tour's awards banquet. "I felt good all week, I was well prepared and I had great help from my teammates.

"It was a very good experience, but I have some hard work to do before the trials. The Olympics might be more achievable now than they were a few months ago, but they're still a long way off. I have many things to learn and improve, and I'm just going to concentrate on what I have to do to get there."

What's truly remarkable is that Jeanson, with only 110 pounds on her 5-foot-5 frame, is nowhere near her potential. For another five years, her bones, tendons and muscle will grow and generate far greater power.

"She asked me this year where she was in her development, compared to what she can be, and I told her 60 per cent," Aubut said. "I'd say that she learned so much on this tour that she's now closer to 75 per cent.

"And mentally, tactically and technically, she's just starting."

Jeanson seized the race in its four-hour, 110-km fourth stage on Tuesday. In near paralyzing 33C heat, she proved every bit the animal she's accused of being, melting the spirit of the 72-rider field with her brilliant form in the mountains.

Seasoned, world-class Australians Tracey Gaudry and Anna Wilson, among others, could only watch in sorry amazement as she attacked one brutal climb after another. Gaudry, 14 seconds ahead of Jeanson that morning, went to bed 94 seconds behind. The young Canadian and her teammates then worked the strategy of national-team coach Jacques Landry to perfection, never allowing a serious challenge as the skies turned wet and cold.

Yesterday's eighth and ninth stages - a 97-km run and a 26-km closing criterium - proved largely uneventful, with Jeanson, already having earned the "Queen of the Mountains" title, riding smartly to avoid trouble.

The final classification showed her 1:35 ahead of Gaudry and 6:38 up on Wilson, with the pack well behind, still breathless from her fourth-stage assault.

"Making the (top-8) standard was already done," Jeanson said after her success in the mountains, "but to keep the leader's jersey and to win this tour was another thing. It was hard, but it was a great fight."

As with her two world championships in Italy last October, this victory - and especially her break in the mountains - was the product of exquisite planning with Aubut, who has taken a leave from his job at Lachine's Ecole Secondaire Dalbé-Viau to work with Jeanson this season.

In mid-December, teacher and pupil set up a base in Arizona and trained there until three weeks ago, when they arrived in Australia. By the time the Tour began last Saturday, Jeanson had studied every kilometre of the course.

That preparation, combined with Landry's seamless assembly of a six-athlete team and mechanic Bernard Devoy's skill at keeping the bikes rolling despite heavy rains and gear-clogging mud, added up to Jeanson's career week.

"I'm not surprised by the results, but I'm glad that she won," said Aubut, vocally thankful that Dalbe-Viau principal France Ferland has cut him the slack he needs to train Jeanson in this Olympic year.

"More than ever, Genevieve is a tiger. In French we say, 'I'm going to sell my skin for a lot of money.' Well, after she took the lead, she told me, 'I'm going to die before somebody beats me here.' "

That's not to say Jeanson wasn't feeling the pressure wearing the leader's jersey. But each time she asked Aubut what might lay ahead the next day, he reminded her that it's better to throw the first punch than wait to get hit.

"I told her, 'Keep attacking (Gaudry), keep her in doubt,' " Aubut said. "So much can happen in nine races, but she avoided the crashes and didn't get any flats. Genevieve was pleased to race with the Canadian team, had great help from the other girls, and (Landry) was fantastic. Everyone deserves a lot of credit. We couldn't have achieved this alone.

"When you compete, you're in the jungle, and when you race, if you want the meat, you have to fight for it. She's a fast learner, and she understands that."

After Sunday's World Cup race, teacher and student will return to Arizona for more training, move on to the Carolinas, and arrive back in Montreal in early May, nearly five months after they left home.

As luck would have it, Genevieve Jeanson will be flying out of Sydney, a good chance to visit the airport she's almost certain to see again in September.

This page of Genevieve Jeanson's www site (a part of VELOPTIMUM), was updated on March 10, 2000 by