Anthony Turgis, runner's heart

He made this movement of gripping the table between his thumb and forefinger. "There, I touch wood." Yet, Anthony Turgis is not particularly superstitious. Unlike other cyclists in the professional peloton, the Frenchman has no pre-race rituals. No favorite music (he listens to everything) nor protective signs, much less a talisman. He even enjoys the pretenses: "Sometimes you have a teammate who says to you: 'You put on these pair of glasses, it's because you're preparing something!' You nod to them [he mimes, looking mysterious] : 'Yes, yes, I'm preparing something.' But in fact, not at all! " The 31-year-old rider, who is preparing to don the first bib of his eighth Tour de France on Saturday, is a rational man. But when it comes to talking about his heart, Anthony Turgis touches wood.

Both of his brothers developed arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia , a heart condition that can lead to sudden death, while they were also professional cyclists. First came the youngest, Tanguy, whose heart raced in 2018 while he was competing in a semi-classic in Belgium. “I was at the race site, and it clicked really hard,” Anthony Turgis recalls. “Since my uncles also have it, my parents quickly knew what it could be. It’s genetic.” Tests eventually showed the same thing for Jimmy, the eldest. With a similar consequence: the end of his sporting career. “What happened to my brothers is hard,” he pauses. “ Much harder than a bike race, because these are things you feel but can’t control.”

We know something about it. Four years ago, our hearts also caught up with us, while we were cycling home from Libération . The metronome suddenly raced, going from andante to prestissimo before we fell unconscious to the ground. Transport to the hospital, hereditary heart defect—a bicuspid aortic valve, for the cardiologists reading this—operation, the whole shebang. Not nothing, but everything's better. After an hour of conversation, we explain to Anthony Turgis that this is also why we wanted to meet him. And not simply because he's one of the best French classics riders of his generation. He takes the news with the phlegmatic smile of someone who knows: it could happen to anyone.

Anthony, for his part, dodges the raindrops, still keeping an umbrella handy. Every six months, he undergoes a stress test, and once a year, he's fitted with a Holter monitor to ensure his heart rate remains normal. "As I'm a high-level athlete, I'm checked more regularly than anyone else. Than you, for example. It's reassuring. For now, I have all the green lights, so I'm enjoying it until someone tells me something." He says it all calmly. "Anthony is all about composure," summarizes Jean-René Bernaudeau, the general manager of his team, Total Energies. "His victory in the Tour last year explains everything he is." On July 7, 2024, Turgis achieved his greatest success in Troyes, at the end of a stage run partly on white dirt roads, knowing how to hold back his pedal strokes in the final, not to follow the slightest attack to better regulate the exhausted in the sprint. He raced with his head. But also "with a brother in each leg" , as he said after the line.

The front page of the next day's L'Equipe is framed in the living room of his large house in Yvelines, where the city gives way to the countryside, not far from where he grew up. First in the suburbs, between Bourg-la-Reine and Cachan, then in Essonne, near Linas. His mother, a secretary, and his father, a retired RATP mechanic, are still there. Anthony Turgis is, above all, a child of cycling. Tracing his family tree is like recounting the atavism of an entire sport. Rémy, his father, runs the Linas-Montlhéry Cycling Team and is a tireless race organizer, known throughout the amateur world. He didn't get this from nowhere: his own father was a cyclist, while his mother ran the Igny-Bièvres Cyclo-Club. It's the same story for Anthony's mother, Valérie. She was born in Croquison, another large cycling family from the Paris region, and donned cycling shorts in her early years. Like her brothers. And like her mother and father before them. "Family is very important to me. And given my family, I couldn't escape cycling," summarizes Anthony Turgis. Of the heart, illnesses aren't the only hereditary ones. Passions too.

Anthony Turgis recounts weekends spent cyclo-crossing in the region's undergrowth, Sunday meals transformed into extensive debriefing sessions, and, every July, the Tour de France. "We all had a favorite. My grandmother was a die-hard Lance Armstrong fan, while I liked Jan Ullrich for his challenger side." Both were eventually convicted of doping. Anthony Turgis is a member of the Movement for Credible Cycling, whose name sums up its ambition and emphasizes a work ethic . He tries to keep a sense of pleasure in mind. "Sometimes I ride as far as Chartres just to catch a glimpse of the cathedral in the distance." On his less intense rides, he suggests his wife accompany him. Because, of course, he is married to cyclist Blanche Legagneur-Turgis, herself from a long line of cyclists. On a shelf, a black and white photo recalls that the grandfather, Alphonse Legagneur, was a teammate of Jacques Anquetil under the colors of the Helyett bicycle brand and Leroux chicory.

Anthony Turgis, for his part, rides for a major oil and gas company - in any case, it's fossil fuels that bring in the most money for his sponsor. He convolutes: "I was at Direct Energie, it was bought by Total... Well, Total does some good things, but also some not-so-good things, like any big company. After all, I'm here to play sports." The discussion continues: are there teams he couldn't sign for because of the identity of the sponsor? "Yes. I won't name them, but there are teams that are linked to certain things, I couldn't go there..." The professional peloton includes teams named after Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

On the financial side, Turgis also remains discreet but admits to being "well paid" , while considering it "at [his] price" . He plans to move in a few months. To Andorra or Monaco, like the big shots of the pro peloton? "No, to the area around Rouen, where my in-laws are. It's a life project. And there are also some hills a little steeper than in Ile-de-France..." Cycling is never far away.

May 16, 1994 Born in Bourg-la-Reine ( Hauts-de-Seine ).

2018 Heart attack of his brother Tanguy during a race.

2019 Last professional race of his brother Jimmy.

2022 2nd place in Milan-San Remo.

2024 Wins the 9th stage of the Tour de France.