Jacques Anquetil - Personal Life

Personal Life

Anquetil was fascinated by astronomy and was delighted to meet the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The rational side of his character contrasted with his superstition. In the 1964 Tour de France, a fortune-teller called Belline predicted in the newspaper France-Soir that Anquetil would die on or around the 13th day of the race. His wife Janine, knowing Anquetil's superstition, hid the paper from him but Anquetil found out, not least because he was sent cuttings with unsigned letters.

Jean-Paul Brouchon, leading cycling commentator at the news radio station France-Info, said of the day the forecast was supposed to come true:

During those dark hours, Anquetil refused to leave his room . Finally he agreed to go for a short car ride with Raphaël Géminiani and Janine, to join a party organised by Radio Andorra.

A mixture of Anquetil's fear for the future and his enjoyment of living in the present led to many newspaper pictures of the large meal and the wine that he drank that day. Next morning, still worried about the prediction and laden down by the partying, he was dropped on the first hairpins of the Port d'Envalira.

He was famous for preparing for races by staying up all night before drinking and playing cards, although the story seems to have increased with the telling. Nevertheless, his team-mate, the British rider Vin Denson, has written in the UK publication Cycling of exuberant parties during races. Denson has written, too, of Anquetil's scrupulous business arrangements with riders and others:

I always considered Jacques to be the very best professional", he said. "I admired him for the gentlemanly manner and charm with riders, the public and media. A more honest and sincere businessman and friend you would not find in any walk of life. His word was his all and was of great importance to him. He was a truly great man and champion who will be greatly missed and impossible to replace.

The British journalist Alan Gayfer, former editor of Cycling said:

Jacques was a real Norman with the nuances of speech that make the Normans famous, they almost say Yes to mean No, and vice versa. I asked him when he was in London if Poulidor, who was often second to Jacques, could ever win the Tour de France: "Yes", he said, "but only if I am riding, and I would always finish ahead of him.

But perhaps my finest memory of this lordly Frenchman came in 1966 at the Nürburgring, where a German official had been particularly rude to myself and other English journalists about going through one gate (the exit) to the press room instead of another 100 yards away (the entrance). We sat in delight, Sid Saltmarsh, Bill Long and me, not 20 yards from that 'Exit' gate, and watched as Jacques pulled up in his Ford Mustang, and proceeded to unload his bike from the back of the car. Yes, he did, not leaving it to mechanics. German official railed and cried, but all in vain. The seigniorial aspect came out oh so clearly, and Jacques did not merely ignore him, it was palpably as if the German did not exist at all. He left the car there, walked over to the riders' quarters pushing the gate open and the German with it. It has probably the finest comeuppance I shall ever see, and for that I shall remember Jacques for a long time.

Dick Yates said:

"He had a deep love of the land and was at his happiest when driving a tractor. They both acquired a taste for bridge parties which often continued late into the night. That Anquetil was a highly intelligent man there can be no doubt and he was the nearest thing to a true intellectual that cycling has ever produced."

Anquetil married Janine Boeda on 22 December 1958. She had been married to Anquetil's doctor. The doctor, seeing a rival, sent his wife to live with friends. Anquetil went to see her, disguised as a plumber, and took her off to Paris to buy clothes in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

Their marriage produced no children. Janine had two children, Alain and Annie, from her previous marriage. In 2004, Sophie Anquetil published the book Pour l'amour de Jacques in which she confirmed what had been rumoured but what Anquetil had always tried to hide: that she was Anquetil's daughter.

Janine had two failed pregnancies and Anquetil grew upset in 1970 that he wasn't a father. The couple considered a surrogate mother before Janine thought of her daughter, Annie. Janine said: "We didn't use the parental authority that we could have had over her. It was a request that I addressed to her. Gently. Annie always had the choice of refusing." Annie confirmed her mother's recollection. She said:

Anquetil, his wife and his wife's daughter began a ménage à trois Annie said:

Annie said she should have left the house after her daughter, Sophie, was born. Instead, she grew jealous of her own mother and demanded that she leave instead. When Janine refused, Annie left instead. To fill the gap in the house, Janine invited her son, Alain, and his wife, Dominique, to return to live there. Anquetil began an affair with Dominique, to make Annie jealous. Dominique had Anquetil's child but Annie still refused to return.

Dominique still lives in the house, Les Elfes, where she organises conferences. Janine and Anquetil divorced. Sophie moved in with Janine, although she lives now in Calenzana, near Calvi.

Both Janine and Dominique wrote their life story: neither mentioned the link between Sophie and Anquetil.