Virenque - Post-suspension Career

Post-suspension Career

Few teams were willing to consider him when he completed his suspension and only a few friends kept in touch. Samuel Abt of the International Herald Tribune, wrote:

"Mocked now and entirely abandoned, Richard Virenque responds with the spirit of the adolescent he remains. In a temper tantrum, he said this week that he is through with professional bicycle racing. If the sport doesn't need him, he raged, he doesn't need it. (Offstage sounds of feet being stamped and doors being slammed.) Nobody loves him. 'He would love to continue and make dreams come true,' his older brother explained, 'but he is not being given that chance.' In other, less shimmering words, because of his involvement in the doping scandal, none of the 20 or so top teams is willing to hire the star climber and team leader at his salary of about $1.6 million a year. Alas for him, many of those teams are not willing to hire him at any salary. His years of cockiness, his frequent and public criticism of rivals, his many small snubs are not forgotten. Virenque has become - made himself - extremely damaged goods."

Cofidis was said to be interested but not in his first year back. Jean Delatour, with whom Virenque trained in the winter, said it could be interested if it found more sponsorship. On 5 July 2001 he joined Domo-Farm Frites, with the help of the former Tour de France winner, Eddy Merckx who, as supplier of the team's bikes, put up the extra money that the main sponsors would not. He was paid the equivalent of £800 a month, the minimum wage, for the last three months of the year and the same salary for which he had first turned professional in 1992. Domo kept him the following season, after Farm Frites withdrew as co-sponsor, because it wanted to expand its carpet business in France. On 25 October 2002, on the eve of the Tour de France presentation at the Palais des Congres in Paris, he signed for another two years.

Virenque returned to prominence by winning Paris–Tours on 7 October 2001 in a day-long breakaway in which he dropped Jacky Durand and crossed the line seconds ahead of the peloton. Paris–Tours is a flat race that favours sprinters and not climbers. "It was a typical Virenque moment," Fotheringham wrote, "with a yell of anger as he crossed the line 'for all those who tried to destroy me'". The French magazine, Vélo, called the victory "extraordinary." L'Équipe 's one-word headline on the front page was "Unbelievable!"

Virenque said:

While Virenque was bettered by Laurent Jalabert in the 2001 and 2002 Tour de France for the King of the Mountains competition, he won his sixth polka dot jersey in 2003 to tie with Federico Bahamontes and Lucien Van Impe. His day-long breakaway also saw him wear the yellow jersey. In 2004 he won the King of the Mountains for a record seventh time. Van Impe criticised Virenque for being opportunistic rather than the best climber; he said he had himself refrained from breaking Bahamontes' record himself out of reverence.

"It's a shame that Virenque has become the best climber in history. He is a great rider, but not a complete rider.
He should go for the general classification, but he's 20 or 30 minutes behind the leaders. That's why they let him go.
I can only speak for myself, the best climbers were Charly Gaul and Van Impe"

Virenque said they were jealous.

Virenque ran into trouble again in 2002 when he appeared on a television programme, Tout le Monde en Parle, in June. The presenter, Thierry Ardisson, asked him: "If you were sure of winning the Tour by being doped but knew you would not get caught, would you do it?" Virenque replied:

The programme was recorded to be broadcast as-live. Ardisson said that Virenque asked after the recording finished that his answer be cut out. Ardisson said: "It was very naive, very Virenque. But it's a shame that, once again, he didn't want to tell the truth."