VDB is God.
There was a time, many years ago, when those three words were written on the signs and on the roads at every race you went to: VDB is God.
At the time, as a television journalist covering cycling, it was hard to detach yourself from the human hurricane that was Frank Vandenbroucke. In Flanders, cycling is the pulse of the people. It's bred into the consciousness, and, for the Belgians, Frank was an almost omnipotent being, blessed with talents no others had, and yet fragile enough to fall for at the same time.
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I have many memories of Frank: how he rose through the ranks as a talented child, wowed us all with that union of grace and power, and how, no matter what you predicted, Frank would always surprise you. He was like that, even when the shock of his death was announced in late 2009. At that point, we all thought he'd turned a corner, kicked the drugs and got his life back on track. Instead, Frank had one last surprise for us.
In 1999, I was at the Worlds in Verona for VTM, a Belgian television network that covered cycling on a massive scale. The Belgian cycling team that year was a Galacticos-packed squad with former world champion Johan Museeuw the road captain and Frank the real leader on the road.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/the-lost-boy-of-verona-a-postcard-from-the-1999-worlds
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