From USA Today By Vicki Michaelis
BOULDER, Colo. — In the early morning hours of a December day, Davis Phinney was awake, in front of a computer screen, riveted to the sights and sounds of a cycling race half a world away. On a track in Beijing was his son, Taylor, 17. In the stands, steadying a webcam, was his daughter, Kelsey, 13. Standing next to Kelsey, cheering Taylor and encouraging the Chinese fans around her to do the same, was his wife, Connie.
The scene could have been pulled from the scrapbook of any family of a budding sports star.
Except that Phinney is that Davis Phinney, winner of multiple stages of the Tour de France and an Olympic bronze medal in the 1984 team time trial.
Except that his wife is Connie Carpenter-Phinney, the Olympic gold medalist in the 1984 road race and a world champion in road and track cycling.
Except that his son, with a top finish at the world track cycling championships today in Manchester, England, could qualify for the Olympics himself, less than six months after his first track cycling competition.
Phinney would like to be at his son’s side for every step of this odds-against odyssey.
But some steps are daunting these days.
Diagnosed in 2000 with Parkinson’s disease, “a cloud that surrounds the family on a daily basis,” Phinney, 48, tries to stay ahead of the creeping effects of the neurological disorder as he once did the peloton: by focusing on the road ahead, pushing through pain, trusting his strength.
Taylor’s surge in the sport that made the Phinney name famous is like an unexpected slipstream. “I know the happiness he gets out of my success is definitely good for him,” Taylor says. “I like being able to provide that. I think it’s good for the whole family.”
Davis compares the dexterity in his hands now to wearing “baseball mitts,” yet he insists on making technical adjustments to Taylor’s bicycle. (”It’s sort of therapeutic for me not to give that up,” he says.) He sometimes struggles through bike rides with his son but keeps pedaling because they provide a backdrop for talks about girls, friends, school and cycling.
“Most fathers and teenage sons don’t get to have this kind of time together or develop this kind of rapport,” Connie says. “That’s nothing short of a gift.”
Rapid ascent
The gift she and her husband evidently bestowed on their son at birth has the cycling world abuzz.
In August, less than two years after entering his first bike race at 15, Taylor won the time trial at the junior world championships. In October, he made his track cycling debut at the senior national championships and won the title in individual pursuit.
His mom won the 1983 world title in the pursuit. But before Taylor’s coach, Neal Henderson, suggested he try the pursuit because of the otherworldly pedaling power Henderson saw in his road racing, “I had no idea what that was,” Taylor says.
He has since won a World Cup in the pursuit, a 4,000-meter race on bicycles with no brakes and one gear in which the goal is to pedal around the track faster than the other riders. Competing in fields of 25, Taylor finished fourth and ninth in two other World Cups.
Entering the world championships, Taylor is ranked third internationally in the pursuit. If he wins a world title today, or if he does well enough to maintain a top-five ranking, he will qualify for the Olympics. “That kind of progression,” says Jim Miller, director of endurance programs for USA Cycling, “is unreal.”
In addition to superior genes, being the son of Olympic medalists has given Taylor an equanimity that has helped him navigate the highest levels of competition at a young age. Connie went to her first Olympics, the 1972 Winter Games, at 14 as a speedskater, finishing seventh in the 1,500 meters.
“He’s been surrounded by high-level athletes and folks who are competitors his entire life,” Henderson says of Taylor. “Not just his parents, but their friends and other folks around. He’s been surrounded by excellence, so it’s kind of just de rigueur, people do that. So he’s not in that awe factor.” Says Taylor of his more experienced competitors: “I feel like I’m on the same level as these guys.”
The Phinneys have run bike camps since 1986, for competitive and recreational riders. Taylor occasionally rode with the campers. He learned techniques such as cornering.
But until recently, soccer was his sport and the Tour de France was little more than a race his parents watched on TV. Their Olympic medals were merely something he told friends about in grade school, an opening people used to draw him into conversation.
“I always get older people asking, ‘So, do you know who your mom is?’ ” he says.
Enjoying the ride
In 2005, Davis got special access to the Tour de France. He and Taylor drove from town to town, sometimes rising early to make the mountain climbs before the racers, along roads already lined with spectators. “We got to feel what it would be like to be in that race,” Davis says.
Taylor met Lance Armstrong. He also met Axel Merckx, the son of cycling legend Eddy Merckx. Axel played soccer but switched to cycling at 15. The similarities struck a chord. Taylor told his parents after the Tour that he also wanted to start bike racing.
“We were flattered,” says Connie, who met Davis at a bike race in 1978. “But we took the same approach we took with soccer. You know, you bring the chairs and the coolers, and you sit back and enjoy the ride.”
They did not expect the ride could take them to the Olympics this year, even after Taylor won nationals.
The U.S. men are not particularly strong in the pursuit, failing to finish in the top five at the Olympics in the event the last two decades. To gain a berth in Beijing, Taylor would have to prove himself on the international level. After determining the results it would take, Connie says she thought: “There’s no way. He’s 17.”
She and Davis had a reality-check talk with Taylor.
“We were basically saying, ‘Geez, maybe this is too much,’ giving him the out,” Davis says. “Then he said, ‘I thought about it, and I just felt like if I was sitting here next August watching the Olympics on TV, knowing that I didn’t try to get there, I would just be so unhappy with myself.’”
Taylor has maintained that determination over the last five months, faithful to twice-daily workouts while finishing his senior year at Boulder High School.
“I think the most impressive thing is Davis and Connie have been able to keep him on an even plane, and he continues to work hard and train hard,” USA Cycling’s Miller says. “You can be talented, but if you don’t do the work, the results don’t come.”
They call themselves “Team Taylor.” Connie is the travel agent, nutritionist and business manager. Kelsey, whose chosen sport right now is Nordic skiing, is a travel companion and comic relief. Davis is the technician, strategist and mentor.
“Taylor is such a smooth rider,” he says of his son, who at 6-3 is taller than his parents. “Many people never have that much control, that much precision.”
Sometimes Davis must settle for a long-distance look at his son’s races, such as the back-to-back World Cups in Sydney and Beijing late last year that would have been too taxing a trip for Davis. For those races, he imparted advice over the phone or by computer.
“We’ve created a wonderful team within the confines of our unique situation,” Davis says.
All of Team Taylor is in Manchester this week. If he gets a top finish, perhaps his parents will start offering advice about the Olympics. “It was so long ago that we were actually in the Olympics, that I don’t even know what I’d tell him,” Davis says.
The first thing might be a simple thanks, for being what Davis calls “a beautiful ray of sun” shining through the cloud of his disease.
“That’s a form of medicine you can’t buy,” he says.
