Pascal Hervé, a former leader and stage winner of the Giro d’Italia but who was best known for his part in the scandal-struck 1998 Tour de France, has died late on December 24. He was 60.
A devoted lieutenant to Festina leader Richard Virenque in the 1990s, Hervé and his teammates were expelled mid-way through the 1998 Tour as police raids and questioning of sports directors and soigneurs turned up detailed evidence of mass doping within multiple squads.
While the fallout from the ‘Festina affair’ rocked professional cycling to the core, Hervé then continued racing in Italy, before a positive test in 2001 brought an abrupt end to his career.
The cause of his death is unknown, although he reportedly underwent surgery last September for a stomach tumour.
Hervé turned pro. very late, aged 29 in 1994, having opted to take a long spell away from racing when a junior, prior to staging a comeback and winning the French amateur nationals in 1992.
Such a prestigious win meant turning pro was only a matter of time, and two years later the Frenchman joined Festina, at that point one of France’s top squads. He rapidly gained a name for himself both as a top domestique and talented racer in his own right, taking a first pro. victory in the last stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné that June.
Hervé then took part in the 1994 Tour de France, ably assisting his team leader Virenque to claim a career-defining stage win at Hautacam and then to defend the first of several King of the Mountain titles.
While Virenque continued to play a leading role in the Tour climbs over the next five years, Hervé simultaneously developed his own positions of top mountain support domestique, road captain and ‘father figure’ to Virenque at Festina to perfection. When Hervé broke out of those multiple roles, he took some notable results on his own account, such as a solo stage win at Catanzaro in the 1996 Giro d’Italia, which brought with it the added benefit of a 24-hour spell in the maglia rosa, his only Grand Tour lead.
However, most fans associated Hervé with his key position as part of Virenque’s cortege at Festina. Nor was that role about victories: it went right down to the moment where he and a teary-eyed Virenque sat side by side at a makeshift table in the backroom of a cafeteria-cum-tabacconist, Chez Gillou, somewhere in the Corrèze province in July 1998, announcing and protesting their enforced departure from that year’s Tour de France.
Hervé’s sense of loyalty then extended to his refusing to race in solidarity with his former Festina teammates when they were unable or unwilling to compete, before his own confession in 2000 brought him a somewhat nominal two-month ban.
After returning to Festina for one last season in 1999, Hervé went on to join Virenque at Polti in Italy the following year. However, after Hervé tested positive in the 2001 Giro d’Italia – another Grand Tour which was rocked by major doping scandals – he had to end his career at 37.
After retiring, Hervé first opened a series of restaurants in Limoges, France, then in 2013, he then headed across the Atlantic to Québec to work as a trainer and sports director.
According to L’Équipe, in Canada Hervé apparently appreciated the fact that he was not judged by his chequered past, saying simply “I have paid my dues.” Regarding his career, he once told the newspaper, “I have no regrets. I never look back.”
