Canada's Derek Gee rides in the pack during the twentieth stage of the Tour de France on July 20.Daniel Cole/The Associated Press
After coming a surprise ninth in the Tour de France, Ottawa’s Derek Gee did what you do after work – he drove home.
Home is in Girona, Spain, so it was a bit of a trip. He spent one night there and picked up a few things. The next morning he headed back where he’d just come from to get ready for the Olympics.
“Luckily, it’s all different clothes, a whole different kit. So I didn’t have to pack much,” Gee says.
Members of an Olympic team come in two types – the ones everybody knows, and the ones looking to make a name.
Until three days ago, Gee was in the latter camp. At 26, his foray into big-time cycling is only really beginning. He raced in his first Giro D’Italia last year. This past Tour de France was his first.
He’s had some results, but was not expected to be a contender in his first Tour.
That changed in Stage 9 of this year’s event – a gravel stage. Gee thought he might win the day’s race. Instead, he found himself in a better position – having moved into the top 10 overall. He spent the remainder of the race trying not to “blow it” – his words.
The Tour finished on Sunday. Gee was in Spain on Monday. He was back in France on Tuesday. Now it’s Wednesday and he’s a star.
“There was really nothing to indicate this was possible,” Gee says from the cycling team’s HQ in Paris. He says it like he’s just as surprised as anyone at how this is turning out.
All of a sudden, Gee is a player in cycling. People in the know recognize him. Asked for an example, Gee says that former U.S. racer Christian Vande Velde, who is now a broadcast analyst, began wishing him luck every day on the Tour.
“I was a kid in Ottawa and the professional cycling world was so far away. I watched these guys on TV. They were my heroes.”
Vande Velde’s best Tour result was a fourth. That gives you some sense of how mere placement in the Tour changes your perception among cycling colleagues.
Gee will race twice in Paris – the time trial on Saturday, and the road race a week later. He must be feeling great, walking a little more straighter.
“I’m walking a little more crooked because I’m so tired,” Gee said.
Throughout a short conversation, Gee is at pains neither to take much credit nor hope for more good things to come. He talks about how his legs are shot after 4,000 kilometres of Tour, a lot of it vertical.
“It’s a bit of a question how my body will respond,” Gee says.
Or, “You never know if your legs will come good or bad.”
(I know. And it’s rarely good.)
But as this goes on, Gee begins to warm himself to the idea that maybe anything really is possible now. From Ottawa to the Champs-Élysées – it can be done.
“Maybe three weeks of hard cycling is just the thing to get you ready for the Olympics,” Gee says.
Again, he sounds as though he is open to the possibility that he has no idea how any of this is supposed to turn out. He sounds like a man who is aware of the fact that he is having a moment, and doesn’t want to disturb it by thinking too hard about it. It sounds nice.
None of us has his legs, but we’d all be better off if we had that mindset.