When I began reading about cycling, I devoured all of the magazines available to me, most of which focused on the road. It didn’t take long to realize that my cycling habit was hungrier than magazines could fulfill, especially where European racing was concerned. I quickly found my way to the New York Times, and the work of Samuel Abt. Every July morning, on my way into the bike shop where I worked, I’d swing by a bakery for a muffin and a copy of the Times. Outside of July, I was not then much of a newspaper reader, but without Sam Abt’s perilously brief dispatches, I was faced with not knowing what was happening in the Tour de France until October, because CBS often pre-empted their cycling coverage with extra innings … or worse—golf.
It’s hard to capture the flavor of six hours of racing in just 100 words, and I’d be apt to suggest it is impossible were it not for the fact that Abt managed to convey some microcosm of the drama of the race in the amount of space often devoted to a product description.
Once I got to know Abt’s work by name, I moved on to books of his, such as “Breakaway: On the Road With the Tour de France,” which was written in a way that educated non-cyclists without boring dedicated fans. As tightrope dances go, Abt carried himself with a ballerina’s poise.
I got to meet Sam in 1996 while covering the Tour DuPont for Outside. I’d imagined a guy who looked athletic in his own right, the sort of correspondent who could immerse himself in the activity he was covering. But no. Sam looked like the retired French racers who open bars and seem to shrink with each passing year. Not only did he not look the part of a cyclist, he could often be found sharing a cigarette with race staff desperate to enjoy a break from their duties. As a headstrong writer in his 30s, it took me a minute to reconcile Sam’s physical presence with his gift as a journalist. It was from him, though, that I learned one of the most valuable lessons ever imparted on the subject of post-race interviews.
I can’t say Sam taught me to listen, because I don’t think he gave a damn whether I learned anything or not; I wasn’t his responsibility. What Sam was happy to do, though, was to impart the lessons he had gleaned based on his experiences. And of the many I picked up from him in that first encounter, the one that has informed me more than any other has been to show up with questions; know what you plan to ask. That’s not really the lesson, though. The lesson was: Ask your first question and then shut up and listen. Your subject may say something surprising, and you need to be paying attention in case they do. Don’t just go for your second, prepared question. Be ready to dig into that offhand comment they made at the end of their answer.
Abt was a newspaperman, through and through. What I did not know until relatively recently was that when Daniel Ellsberg leaked what were to become the Pentagon Papers, Abt was part of the Times‘s reporting team that helped bring those classified documents to the awareness of the American public. He was named in the lawsuit that the Justice Department brought against the Times, a suit that resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision protecting freedom of the press.
Sam steered clear of reporting on doping, and he was among the members of the press who were criticized for not having fixed Lance Armstrong with a more suspicious gaze. To my eye, he simply approached his work from a more straightforward perspective, one in which his mandate was to report on the race, not the drama behind the scenes, and given how often he had to accomplish his mission in 300 words or less, reporting on doping simply wasn’t possible.
One of Sam’s best accomplishments, as a journalist, was to bring U.S. readers the flavor of the Tour de France, a sense of the Gallic passion for the race, presenting the both the American riders and the actual stars of the race, without confusing the two, because for most of the 30 years he covered the race, Yanks were not the stars. His was a nearly impossible job: To convey a sense of the race that took place, in as few words as possible. To say he was successful is to undersell his skill and dedication to both the sport of cycling and the craft of journalism.
Godspeed, Sam.