On a bicycle he was a god. He had prodigious talent in running. When he won, he did it with impressive naturalness. But his fairy...

On a bicycle he was a god. He had prodigious talent in running. When he won, he did it with impressive naturalness. But his fairy tale lasted very little. Because Frank Vandenbroucke, when he wasn't racing his bicycle, had a fearsome enemy: himself. In the mid-nineties, when doping began to spread systematically in cycling, the young, blond VDB inflamed his fans for a very short season, thrillingly winning races such as Paris-Brussels, Paris-Nice, Ghent -Wevelgem and, in 1999, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, his masterpiece. But also his swan song. A restless and rebellious spirit, at just 25 years old Vandenbroucke began a tormented and inexorable decline: contracts not respected, arguments with sports directors, and then drugs, marital crises and even suicide attempts.
At the age of not yet 34 he was found dead in a hotel room in Senegal.
Andy McGrath, with careful and passionate investigative work, drawing on first-hand testimonies from those who knew him closely, lays bare the biography of Frank Vandenbroucke and fully conveys his desperate charisma and cursed destiny.

Art direction Tundra.

    «With his talent, Frank Vandenbroucke was the Johan Cruijff of cycling.
    He could have won anything."
    Eddy Merckx

 

Weight: 0.6kg
Dimensions: 27 × 16 × 2.5 cm
Author: Andy McGrath
Number of pages: 352
Format: 13 x 21 cm

Italian version only.